This past week, it was announced that questions about gender and sexuality won’t be part of the 2020 census. I know there are a lot of people upset about that. I, on the other hand, am hella stoked.

Conservative political leaders have riled their bigoted supporters up. This led to higher rates of hate crimes immediately following the 2016 presidential election. Those higher rates have, sadly, persisted.

I won’t lie – I get afraid of being myself in public. Having purple hair already gets me odd stares and under-the-breath comments that aren’t so quiet. Add in wearing things that show off my queer, trans, and/or disabled pride, and it gets even worse.

One thing I’ve learned from disability history is that counting or helping us always has a hidden agenda. In the past, disabled people were locked up under the guise of helping us. We’ve been – and continue to be – tortured in order to ‘help’ us. Ableds consistently invade our hashtags to tell us how to self-identify and tone police.

Frankly, the last thing I want until I have any semblance of faith in our political system is to have them count and note my identities. It might seem weird to consider that I happily share my identities, but fear government involvement with them.  I worry about what they will actually do with that information. Honestly, it brings up images of the Holocaust – the multiple symbols used to identify prisoners, how the T4 program started with disabled children, and more.

Until I feel like there is less bigotry against us, there’s no way that I feel comfortable being counted. I can’t imagine I’m alone in that.