Queer people are twice as likely to have never had a legally recognised partnership compared to straight people
BY NANCY KELLEY, IMAGE BY GETTY (VIA CANVA)
The fight for marriage equality is one of the most well-funded and supported campaigns in the history of the LGBTQIA movement, especially in the countries of the global North. With love = love as our battle cry, over the last three decades, we’ve persuaded country after country to recognise that LGBTQIA relationships are worthy of equal regard in the eyes of the state. Today, 34 countries around the world have full marriage equality, and 36 more recognise some form of civil union.
Source: ILGA World
So are LGBTQIA women and non-binary people all skipping down the aisle now?
Census 2021 data gives us a unique insight into the legal partnership status of adults in England and Wales. And the picture it paints of the relationship between sexual orientation and marriage is quite surprising.
Sexual orientation and legal partnership status, 16+, England and Wales
Data: Census 2021, ONS
20 years after the introduction of civil partnerships, and 10 years after the introduction of marriage equality in England and Wales, being queer still means you are dramatically less likely to get hitched (in any sense of the word).
In fact, LGBQ+ people are twice as likely to have never had a legally recognised partnership compared to straight people.
Unsurprisingly, given the way in which legal recognition of queer relationships evolved over time, we are more likely to have a civil partnership than straight people (this is particularly true of gay and lesbian people). But getting married or civil partnered still isn’t that common. In 2021, 46.3% of straight people were either married or in a civil partnership, compared to only 20.2% of lesbian and gay people, 14.9% of bi people and 20.3% of people who identify as having other minority sexual orientations. The market for queer wedding planners is definitely not limitless.
So, if being LGBQ+ makes a huge difference to our likelihood of being married or civil partnered, how about being trans? Interestingly, the picture here is more mixed.
Sexual orientation and legal partnership status, 16+, England and Wales
*I have only included data for trans people who either selected or wrote in a specific trans identity
Data: Census 2021, ONS
Trans people as a whole are much more likely to have never been married or in a civil partnership when we compare them to cis people, but the difference between cis people and trans men / trans women is far less pronounced.
Just over a third of cis people have never been married or civil partnered, compared to just under half of trans women and just over half of trans men. In sharp contrast, trans people who don’t identify with the labels “trans man” or “trans woman” are dramatically less likely to have ever been married or in a civil partnership – almost 85% of this group have never had a legally recognised partnership.
What does this all mean? Well at a high level, it’s clear that there is a much more straightforward relationship between sexuality and marriage than there is between gender identity and marriage. A million years after the joke was first made, lesbians are still not u-hauling on the second date and proposing on the third. Undermining all the biphobic tropes, bi people marry and civil partner at rates that look like their lesbian and gay family, not like straight people. Binary trans people are pretty likely to get married (perhaps because a fair few of them are straight!) and non-binary trans people are the least likely to get married or civil partnered of all of us. And yes, the relative youth of the LGBTQIA community likely makes a big difference here, but it isn’t the whole story.
Does that mean that the fight is over when it comes to legal protections for LGBTQIA women and non-binary people’s relationships? Hell no. It’s barely started.
At one end of the spectrum, the Gender Recognition Act still contains a so-called “spousal veto” that prevents the issuing of a final Gender Recognition Certificate. It’s a totally unacceptable restriction on the human rights of trans people, typically justified on homophobic grounds (genuinely, a policy that has something queerphobic for all of us). It may only impact a small number of people, but that impact is devastating.
On the other, the majority of LGBTQIA women and non-binary people have never gone near the altar or the registry office – likely because they don’t want to – and for them there is an urgent need to provide legal protections for all kinds of relationships. The lack of effective legal recognition for relationships outside of marriage and civil partnership is a fundamental LGBTQIA civil rights issue, precisely because we are so much less likely to get married. And it’s a feminist one, because it is women and non-binary people who are most likely to be disadvantaged when long-term relationships break down, or when a long-term partner dies.
So for all of us who believe love = love, there is a very long road to travel before all LGBTQIA relationships have the legal recognition they deserve.
Lesbian Visibility Week
22 April – 28 April 2024
This Lesbian Visibility Week we will be celebrating the power of sisterhood by uplifting incredible LGBTQIA women and non-binary people from every generation, in every field and in every country around the world. One community, so many brilliant individuals. This year we are building on Lesbian Visibility Week’s incredible success with unified not uniform – a global campaign celebrating the power and diversity of our community. As ever, our aims are to build public understanding of LGBTQIA women and non-binary people’s lives, to increase lesbian visibility and to create a legacy that benefits our community everywhere.
You can find out more and get involved at: lesbianvisibilityweek.com
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