Canada has officially become the first country to collect and disseminate data on gender diversity from a national census. The 2021 Census found that approximately 1 out of every 300 people in Canada aged 15 and older were either transgender or non-binary.
Kingston made the list for having the largest proportion of transgender and non-binary people in Ontario, and has the fifth most gender diverse urban centre in Canada.
According to the data, 0.52% of the urban centre of Kingston identifies as trangender or non-binary. Of this population, 0.14% of the population identifies as a transgender male, 0.13% identifies as trangender women and 0.25% identify as non-binary.
Generally, Statistics Canada noted that non-binary and transgender tend to be younger on average than cisgender people. In fact, close to two-thirds (62.0%) of the 100,815 individuals who identified as transgender or non-binary were younger than 35.
The census also found that living in the downtown core was more popular for non-binary people than for transgender and cisgender people. Nearly 1 in 6 non-binary people aged 15 and older in Canada (15.5%) were living in the downtown of one of the country’s 41 CMAs.
“Several factors could explain the larger share of non-binary people living in downtown cores,” write Statistics Canada.
“First, over one-third of individuals living in a CMA downtown were aged 15 to 34 (37.4%), and gender diversity was more common among people in this age group than among older people. Second, the concentration of numerous postsecondary educational institutions within downtown cores, combined with a more cosmopolitan atmosphere and the greater availability of social spaces and specialized services for transgender, non-binary and LGBTQ2+ people more broadly, may also explain the higher presence of non-binary people in the heart of large urban centres.”
The next Census release is July 13, 2022, where data about families, households, marital status, Canadian military experience and income will be released.
