The Office for National Statistics (ONS) launched its sexual identity project in 2006, which aimed to rigorously develop, test, and implement a question measuring sexual identity on a large-scale general household survey. The project was driven by an increasing demand for data on sexual orientation to meet UK legislative requirements. Although UK legislation refers to sexual orientation, ONS focused on collecting a measure of sexual identity, which is how people see themselves at the time the interview takes place. This article summarizes the main stages of this project, which involved a review of previous studies, user engagement, focus groups, question testing, and implementation into the Integrated Household Survey (a large-scale ONS household survey). ONS subsequently conducted an evaluation of estimates and published user guidance on measuring sexual identity for use by other researchers. The article concludes with the future plans ONS has for the collection and dissemination of sexual identity estimates.
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Tim Vizard (2014) studied this question.