Delivering Equity: Government Services for All Ages, Languages, Sexual Orientations, and Gender Identities
Summary
Forms are the front door to government services—for everything from getting a job to a COVID-19 vaccine—yet their current design creates systemic barriers for LGBTQ+ people. Forms shape how our government understands, prioritizes, and addresses the needs of its people, but for LGBTQ+ communities, many government forms include demographic questions that are unnecessarily invasive, inadequate, and unclear in their purpose. This deepens mistrust, creates barriers to critical benefits, and prevents collection of data needed to provide effective, equitable services. In this talk, U.S. Digital Service team members will share lessons learned from direct engagement with an intersectional group of LGBTQ+ nonprofit organizations and researchers and statisticians across government and standards organizations as well as an examination of underlying policies and tech systems. We’ll provide a framework for navigating sexual orientation and gender identity, as a first step toward designing equitable forms for all.
Key Insights
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Over 10 times more people from Gen Z identify as LGBTQ+ compared to earlier generations, yet federal forms largely fail to capture this data.
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Current major federal surveys like the American Community Survey cannot identify bisexual or transgender individuals accurately.
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The removal of medical requirements for gender marker changes on U.S. passports marks a historic and affirming policy shift.
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Self-attestation and the introduction of an X gender marker on passports improve visibility and affirm identity in federal ID documents.
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Conducting inclusive user research within tight timelines is difficult but essential to capture intersectional LGBTQ+ voices.
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There is a tension between providing flexible, multi-select options for identity on forms and the challenges these pose for data standardization and statistical analysis.
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The two-step question (sex assigned at birth and current gender identity) is statistically effective but may not be appropriate for all federal forms, especially benefits applications.
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Interoperable backend systems across agencies are crucial to provide a seamless one-government data experience and prevent harm from inconsistent data collection.
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Inclusive, trauma-aware research protocols with centralized reviews ensure safer participation for LGBTQ+ individuals in government research.
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Language evolves quickly; governmental data collection must avoid locking in terminology that may become offensive or outdated.
Notable Quotes
"If you don’t collect data on somebody, they become invisible and nobody should be invisible."
"Government forms need to represent identity and respect privacy so we can better serve all people."
"The LGBTQ+ population is increasing rapidly with each generation, but federal data collection has not kept pace."
"We want to do no harm — collecting sensitive data requires care about how it’s used, shared, and stored."
"Community is not a monolith; we must engage a broad intersection of voices, not just one perspective."
"Change in government moves slowly, but we can pilot and iterate to serve evolving needs more quickly."
"The State Department removed burdensome medical requirements, allowing people to self-attest their gender on passports."
"People use gender and sex interchangeably, but as identities evolve, that creates complications for medical and benefit forms."
"It’s critical that research does not cause distress to participants; trust must be fostered with transparency and safety."
"Users want a one-government experience — they don’t care about separate agencies with different questions or terminology."
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