counted

[kindkit]

I just did my 2020 US census thing online. This despite the fact that:

(a) It got my address wrong. My apartment complex has lettered buildings and numbered apartments, and their form had only the apartment number. Let's call it 111. Well, there are 6 apartment 111s in this complex, each in a different lettered building. I tried to correct it but then the page told me I couldn't submit and had to call a phone number, so I just backed out and redid the form without telling them the address was wrong. Hope they don't have to actually contact me.

(b) The form says to give your legal name and biological sex. To which I said "fuck you" and gave the name I'm currently using (neither my legal name nor the legal name I'll have once I do an official name change) and my sex as male. The Census Bureau is not supposed to cross-reference records*, so it's not like they're going to know.

*In particular, not social security records. One thing I know from having worked as an enumerator during the 2010 census is that the Census Bureau will never ask for your social security number. If someone asks for that, they're not really from the Census Bureau and they are trying to scam you.

. . . oh, dear. It just occurred to me to wonder how the door-to-door stuff will be handled this year. It probably won't get underway until June, and hopefully the pandemic will be under control by then, but if not, they're going to have even more trouble than usual getting people to answer their doors.

(Best way to avoid an unwanted visit by a census taker? Fill in the form. As a general rule, they will only come and bother you if your form is not filled out or was incomplete.)


I still need to do my taxes. Maybe next week.

Comments

[torachan]

Huh. I didn't even notice the wording of biological sex. I just assumed it said gender. I would not have answered any differently had I known anyway, but still.

[st_aurafina]

I mean, if you don't eat their liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti, you're doing the census right?

I think we did ours online last time? I'm trying to remember.

[silveradept]

Thank you for being counted, even if the addressing is all entirely wrong.

(There was a lot of "fuck you" with regard to name and sex in our household, as well.)

[mllesatine]

Is taking the census mandatory?

[kindkit]

*nods* I feel like the only people who need to know my "biological sex" are doctors.

[kindkit]

eat their liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti

I had a temp job as a census taker in 2020. Believe me, that line was in my mind a lot.

The US 2020 census is online as well--everybody gets a link mailed to them and then is supposed to use the link to complete the online form. But for those who don't do the online form by the deadline, for whatever reason, a census taker will have to come to the address and try to complete the form in person.

[kindkit]

If Trump hadn't been elected, the 2020 US census would have counted queer people. (Possibly on the long form only? But we would have been counted. It's infuriating that he changed that.)

[kindkit]

Yes. The US government uses census data for many, many purposes (everything from drawing legislative districts to apportioning funding for schools and hospitals) so it's unbelievably important to get an accurate count.

Even with all the rules and all the effort in place, people are still undercounted. Especially poor people and people of color.

(There is a lot of effort. I worked as a census taker in 2010, and I went back to the same addresses daily for weeks trying to find someone willing and able to answer. I tracked down landlords, I asked neighbors. It's taken very seriously by the people who do the work.)

[silveradept]

Entirely possibly. And a lot of things that have happened in this terrible timeline could have been averted.

I worry for the enumerators who have to go and count the undercounted who are convinced that there's a citizenship question or who have had their communities raided by ICE pretending to be enumerators.

[kindkit]

Yeah. It was already an issue in 2010, before Trump and before ICE got quite so emboldened. The area I worked in had a high immigrant population, including people from Somalia, Mexico, and Latin America, and many of them were scared. I didn't encounter any hostility, just reluctance and fear, but there's so much more fear now (and for good reason) that things could get bad.

[mllesatine]

I argued with my parents many years ago about filling out a questionaire for home owners. I tried to explain that it's important that the state knows how people actually live and reminded them that I had studied sociology and how important corect data collection is.

I also tried to apply for a state run consumer study a few years ago but they wouldn't take me because they already had enough applicants for my living situation (single household and income margin). Maybe next time. :D

[duskpeterson]

"The form says to give your legal name and biological sex."

When government bodies say "sex" these days, they usually mean gender. I was irritated (though not surprised) that they didn't offer a nonbinary option.