Boston City Hall • Photo credit: Claire Crinion

Making government services inclusive for LGBTQ+ people

Published in

U.S. Digital Response

8 min readMay 15, 2023

Co-authored by: USDR volunteers, Sunita Ram, Christine Brydges, and Claire Crinion

LGBTQ+ people often experience discrimination and exclusion while using public services. The Boston City Council set out to change this by passing an ordinance in 2020 to ensure gender inclusivity in all City-issued forms, documents, and certificates.

As a part of this initiative, The Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Advancement (MOLA), The Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT), and The Registry Department at the City of Boston came together to make the marriage registration process for LGBTQ+ people more equitable. (Read the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University’s article on how these departments are collaborating to improve Boston’s gender-based data collection practices.)

Their human-centered approach included:

Focus group studies with Boston’s transgender and gender non-conforming (GNC) constituents (see City of Boston’s report)
Process mapping of the marriage registration process
Qualitative research with Boston’s LGBTQ+ community members

The City of Boston reached out to U.S Digital Response (USDR) to conduct user research and better understand the lived experience of LGBTQ+ people as they submit online applications and then visit City Hall to register their marriage.

Marriage Registry in Boston City Hall • Photo credit: Claire Crinion

Our team of USDR volunteers including Sunita Ram, Christine Brydges, and Claire Crinion worked closely with Julia Gutierrez and Stephanie Cariello from DoIT, and Paul Chong from the Registry Department during the research study.

Our approach:

Review of published articles and whitepapers on gender identity, sexual orientation, and LGBTQ+ inclusion
Interviews with 8 employees of the Marriage Registry Department to understand how marriage registration works today
1:1 interviews with 9 LGBTQ+ people who got their marriage registered in Boston
In-person observations of registry employees as they interacted with LGBTQ+ people who were registering their marriage at City Hall

Findings and recommendations:

The research we conducted helped unveil best practices for creating inclusive, accessible, and affirming government services for LGBTQ+ populations. These best practices are applicable across all public-facing government services.

BEST PRACTICE #1

Avoid asking for sexual orientation, sex, or gender identity, unless it is necessary

During our interviews with LGBTQ+ constituents who recently got their marriage registered, most participants felt that information on sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation should not be collected on ‘legal forms’ like the marriage registration form.

Why?

Participants didn’t want to share this information if it wasn’t necessary because:

They felt the questions were intrusive about private information
It wasn’t clear how the information would be used
It felt potentially dangerous and harmful if the information were to get into the hands of people who could cause them harm

One participant said,

“I don’t want to disclose this (gender identity/sexual orientation) information to the government. Why does the government need to have all this? Let them do a survey and let people disclose their sexual orientation rather than a mandatory thing in the marriage process. I feel that it is wrong.” – P004, LGBTQ+ couple who is not out to their families

The National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine also recommends that respondents should always be able to opt out of providing sensitive information about gender and sexuality for safety reasons. (Source: Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation)

Recommendation: If this information is needed to improve services for constituents or measure equity in demographics, governments should collect sexual orientation, gender, and sex information in an opt-in format, such as a post-registration survey or an optional section at the end of the form.

BEST PRACTICE #2

Forms should recognize the diversity of genders, sexes, and sexual orientation and not conflate sex and gender data

Today, the City of Boston’s marriage registration application asks for sex information (as shown below). Couples are required to select either “Male” or “Female” for each partner in the form when registering for marriage.

Excerpt from City of Boston’s Marriage Intention Form

Research participants who identified as non-binary or not cisgender told us that this was a negative experience because the question forces them to deny their own identity if their sex or gender identity doesn’t fall into those two options.

Additionally, questions on sex can cause added confusion when it is not clear to the respondent whether it’s asking for their biological sex assigned at birth, or their gender identity. If the goal is to capture biological sex, questions should make this clear and make sure to include an “Intersex” answer option because not everyone fits into the male and female binary, even for biological sex.

Recommendation: Government services should follow these best practices when asking about gender or sex in forms:
- Ask only if necessary
- State why you are asking and how the data will be used
- Allow respondents to select multiple options for gender or sexual orientation
- Offer the ability to “Self-describe”
- Include a “Prefer not to say” option
(Source: 6 quick tips for designing inclusive forms)

This question on gender identity is an example that earned positive reactions during our research for its diversity of options. One potential improvement we recommend is to use “Self-describe” instead of “Other.” (Source: Better Help)

BEST PRACTICE #3

Use gender-neutral language whenever possible

The City of Boston’s marriage registration form uses gender-neutral terms “Person A” and “Person B” to talk about the two people getting married, instead of using gendered terms like “Man” and “Woman”.

A third of research participants shared that they noticed the intentional use of gender-neutral terms on the marriage intention form, and felt that it set a positive and inclusive tone to the process.

In another part of the form, however, gendered language is used, with the assumption that one parent will be a “Mother” and the other a “Father” (as shown below).

Reacting to this, research participants found the gendered language alienating, as it assumes that the parents are not a same-sex or non-binary couple. This sentiment on gendered language was echoed in focus groups, where one participant shared their thoughts about letters from the City:

“I want a letter that says ‘Dear Resident’, instead of ‘Sir/Madam’.” – Gender Data Collection Focus Group Participant, City of Boston

Recommendation: There are several steps governments can take to increase use of gender-neutral language:
- Audit existing written communication to find instances of gendered language that could be changed to gender-neutral
- Provide practical training for customer-facing government employees on how to address people using non-gendered language as a default

BEST PRACTICE #4

Offer customers an opportunity to disclose their pronouns upfront for in-person government services and use those pronouns to address them

During our in-person research, we observed that government employees have no way of knowing the gender identity of the people they are serving. As a result, they may default to using polite, gendered terms like “Sir” or “Madam”, which could be misgendering.

Most research participants were open to being asked for their pronouns when making an appointment for in-person services, viewing it as a positive signal that the government service values inclusivity.

When being asked for their pronouns, it is important that the question about pronouns is:

Optional
Allows the person to select multiple pronouns, and
Allows the person to self-describe

People also want to know why this information is being asked (see example below)

(Adapted from: How to Ask About Gender in Forms Respectfully)

Recommendation: Government services with an in-person component should consider including an optional question that asks for constituents’ pronouns so that employees can avoid misgendering people they serve in person.

BEST PRACTICE #5

Tangible displays of LGBTQ+ inclusivity can put people at ease

Tangible displays of LGBTQ+ inclusivity can help create an affirming environment for people who may feel on edge because of their gender or sexual orientation identity.

Additionally, people who are nonbinary may want access to non-gendered bathrooms. Making it easy for nonbinary people to find these bathrooms can also promote an inclusive experience.

Source: Gender-neutral bathroom sign at Boston City Hall

Recommendation: We recommend that governments offer the following in public-facing government spaces:
- Displays with inclusive messaging to make it a welcoming and affirming space for LGBTQ+ people
- Gender-neutral bathrooms with easy-to-follow directions to find them

(More details of this research study here)

The City of Boston has set an inspiring example as a government which uses human-centered practices to make their services more inclusive for LGBTQ+ constituents.

It was heartening for us to see how they made this happen:

They relied on pro-bono external resources like Harvard’s Tech for Social Good and USDR to conduct research when their resources were low. (Reach out here to get pro-bono help from USDR)
Stakeholders from MOLA relied on their networks of community-based organizations and neighborhood groups to help us recruit LGBTQ+ participants for the research study.
Julia Gutierrez, Chief Digital Officer at DoIT set up a way to offer fair compensation to all research participants using Tremendous. (Learn more about ways to navigate research compensation here).
City Registrar, Paul Chong, offered us access to The Registry Department to critically review existing practices and recommend ways to improve them.
The City is drafting a Playbook that outlines equitable practices for the collection and use of gender identity information with a goal of being applied across departments.

We share our findings with you in the hope for a future where it is standard practice for all government services to be inclusive and affirming for all constituents, irrespective of their sexual orientation or gender identity.