2010 Census: Intial excitement, eventual disdain

I, like every other American has or will, received the 2010 Census form in the mail a few weeks ago. It has sat unopened and unaddressed until two days ago. I discovered the site Queer the Census and immediately decided I was going to queer the census too, so I printed the "sticker." Then yesterday I picked up the packet, and opened it.

My initial reaction was "Wow, these questions are kind of personal." So instead of blindly filling it out, I decided to do more research about it. I found several public service announcements touting the fact that gay marriage and/or same sex partnerships were allowed to check the "married" box, and that transgender people were allowed to check either "male" or "female" based on their gender identity (that's nice for binary identified transgender people but still doesn't leave room for "either," "both," "neither," "other," etc.). I was pretty excited about that, since these issues have been long standing equal rights struggles. But there was something that bothered me about it. Something didn't quite make sense. As I thought about it, I began to realize that the Census Bureau was allowing people to check boxes that were not otherwise legally recognized. If I were to check that I was married and male, say on my taxes, that would be lying in terms of legality. Surely there would be serious ramifications for doing so. So why isn't that the case with the census? Why are they encouraging going against other legal impediments to our true identities? They make it sound like they are being inclusive, and their goal is to make "everyone count." But there are still problems with their logic. If they are really trying to get an accurate read on what types of people make up our country & communities within, then wouldn't an empty, fillable box be much more useful? I would still not feel counted by the available census answers because they nor my "legal" answers adequately account for my true identity at this time. This illustrates my general disdain for social labels that simply don't fit people into tidy little boxes no matter how hard you try to stuff them in.

Then there is the issue of privacy. Why do they need this kind of information from me? They claim that it is confidential. Yeah, right. I don't buy that for one second. Privacy is becoming more and more obsolete these days. But it also says, "YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW" (the caps were their idea, not mine). Is it? I know that the constitution allows for an "enumeration," or head count, but I'm not so sure that "by law" I am required to answer the other 9 questions.

I haven't decided yet how I'm going to handle this.