Taylor Swift Attacks 2020 Census for Only Listing Two Genders: 'That Erasure Was So Upsetting'
The coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on the world, and concerts and festivals certainly haven’t been immune to it.
On Friday, the third annual Pride Live’s Stonewall Day was celebrated virtually. Several celebrities and politicians, including Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, Former President Barack Obama and Former Vice President Joe Biden, made appearances during the livestream event to show their support for the LGBT community.
Stonewall Day has been observed each year on June 28 to remember the police raid that took place in a New York City gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, on that same day in 1969.
According to History.com, “engaging in gay behavior in public (holding hands, kissing or dancing with someone of the same sex) was still illegal” in the ’60s, which is what ultimately caused the Stonewall raid in Greenwich Village that resulted in six days of riots and protests.
The riot has since become a historic timestamp for the gay rights movement.
Swift used this year’s event as an opportunity to express her excitement about how far the gay rights movement has come since 1969.
However, she also used that time to call out the Census Bureau for having only male and female genders listed on the 2020 Census.
“I got my census the other day and there were two choices for gender. There was male and female and that erasure was so upsetting to me, the erasure of transgender and non-binary people,” she said.
“When you don’t collect information on a group of people, that means that you have every excuse in the world not to support them. When you don’t collect data on a community, that’s a really, really brutal way of dismissing them.”
After explaining why she believes the census needs to offer gender options beyond male and female, she asked listeners to look into the absentee voting policies in their states so they can “elect people who care about all communities.”
In recent years, the pop star has become vocal about her political views — especially about her support for the LGBT community.
During last year’s Pride Month, she posted a letter to Tennessee’s Republican U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander on social media asking him to support the Equality Act.
The act protects the LGBT community from discrimination in the workplace, on loan applications, in education and in other aspects of everyday life.
Not only did the Tennessee native speak out about her wishes for the state to protect its LGBT community during last year’s pride month, but she also donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project, an LGBT advocacy group in the Nashville area.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity is prohibited across the nation.
Now Swift is advocating for her home state of Tennessee to pass the Equality Act.
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