Brighton gay capital

Brighton and Hove has the highest proportion of people identifying as bisexual, pansexual, asexual and non-binary in England and Wales, new census data shows.

The data on sexual orientation, from the 2021 census, shows that Brighton and Hove had the largest LGB+ population among those aged 16 years and over, with 10.7 per cent of those who answered the question claiming a non-straight identity.

The city also had the largest percentage nationally of people identifying as bisexual (3.7 percent), pansexual (0.7 percent), asexual (0.1 percent) and queer (0.3 percent).

From the results on gender identity, Brighton and Hove had the highest percentage (0.4 percent) of people who identified as non-binary.

Nationally, 89.4 percent (around 43.4 million people) identified as straight or heterosexual, but in Brighton and Hove this figure was lower at 80.6 percent.

Meg Brosnan from the Ledward Centre and Rainbow Hub said: “It’s not just the nightlife that attracts us to Brighton (or if it is, it’s not the only reason we stay).

“It’s the LGBTQ+ specific services, care and support that are available here.

“This is not by accident – we’ve set these up for ourselves because we recognised the need and knew no one was going to set them up for us.

“There’s a real culture among LGBTQ+ people of Brighton of doing things for our community, by our community.

“What I’m grateful for is not the knowledge that there are more LGBTQ+ people in Brighton per capita than elsewhere in the country (because we can’t know that for certain), but that more LGBTQ+ people in Brighton and Hove feel comfortable enough and confident enough in their identities to express that on a census form.

“That, to me, is hopeful.

“I’m very proud to count the Ledward Centre and the Rainbow Hub as being part of this tradition of LGBTQ+ people doing it for ourselves.

“However, it’s bittersweet knowing that there are ongoing and specific needs of our community, particularly our trans and non-binary siblings, that simply aren’t recognised or considered at an institutional level, so we have to keep building services and support largely on our own.”

The voluntary question on sexual orientation, which was asked for the first time in 2021, was asked for those aged 16 years and over, with 92.5 percent of the population answering the question.

For an individual, sexual orientation can be different to their actual relationships, meaning that the answers only show how people identified in the census survey.

The ONS says that the data collected from the question will help “meet the need for better quality information on the LGB+ population for monitoring and supporting anti-discrimination duties under the Equality Act 2010.”

Nationally, the LGB+ population sits at 3.2 percent, with the most common identity being gay or lesbian.

Seven of the other local authorities in the top 10 were in London, with the largest LGB+ populations in the City of London (10.3 percent), Lambeth (8.3 percent), and Southwark (8.1 percent).

In Wales, the local authority with the largest LGB+ populations was Cardiff (5.3 percent).

Brighton and Hove has the second biggest percentage of those who identify as gay or lesbian (5.8 percent), with the City of London having the largest population (7.6 percent).

Nationally, a total of 92.5 percent of the population aged 16 or over answered the question, which was posed for the first time in the 2021 census.

The question on gender identity – which refers to a person’s sense of their own gender – was also a voluntary question, asked to those over 16 and was asked to provide the first official data on the size of the transgender population in England and Wales.

Brighton and Hove did not feature in the top 10 local authorities with the largest proportion of gender non-conforming people, with Newham (1.5 percent) and Brent (1.3 percent) topping the list.

However, Brighton and Hove had the highest percentage (0.4 percent) of people who identified as non-binary – someone who does not identify with the binary categories of man and woman.

The percentage of non-binary people in the rest of England and Wales is only 0.06 percent.

The population of trans women stood at 329 and trans men at 362 (both at 0.1 percent).

Gender identity refers to a person’s sense of their own gender, whether male, female or another category such as non-binary, which may or may not be the same as their sex registered at birth.

A total of 45.4 million (93.5 percent) said their gender identity was the same as their sex registered at birth, or cisgender, while 262,000 people (0.5 percent) said it was different, or gender non-conforming.

Nationally, around 2.9 million people (6 percent) didn’t answer the question on gender identity.