Monitoring sexual orientation

To download Stonewall's booklet "What's it got to do with you", click HERE

To download a booklet on "Becoming LGB Friendly" (produced by the North Notts LGB Development Group), click HERE

The booklet "In the Pink" contains some guidance from the Office of National Statistics about the monitoring of sexual orientation. In addition to what is set out in that booklet, they offer further advice relating to when the monitoring is carried out by interview.

Responding to questions about one's sexual orientation in a one-to-one interview may be more difficult for some people than filling in a form on one's own. There is not only, for some, the embarassment of talking about this with the interviewer, there is also potential concern that others in the interview area may evesdrop.

They recommend the following strategy:

Interviewer asks

Which of the options on this card best describes how you think of yourself? Please just read out the number next to the description.

27. Heterosexual/straight
21. Gay/lesbian
24. Bisexual
29. Other

(The numbers are different from card to card, so heterosexuals aren’t always “27s”!) Other = don’t know/refuse to answer.

The following suggestion is not from the ONS Guidance.

There are people who may not understand some of the above terms or may have learning difficulties. A possible solution is to ask people to choose from statements such as:

I am a man who is attracted to women
I am a women who is attracted to women
I am a man who is attracted to men and women etc