U.S. Census 2010 Opens Doors Wide for LGBT Participation

February 2, 2010 (Washington DC) – In March, American households everywhere will receive their 2010 Census forms in the mail: an important civic milestone that happens only once every ten years.
 
What makes this year’s Census even more historic is the unprecedented and welcoming outreach by U.S. Census leaders and managers to include the entire lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and allied community in these efforts, as a way to achieve the nation’s most accurate count possible.
 
Dr. Robert Groves, Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, endorsed this initiative: “We are charged each ten years to provide Congress with a Census they trust to be accurate and complete. We are grateful to our LGBT community partners in helping us achieve this significant responsibility, and to help educate, motivate and inspire everyone to take part and above all, to be visible and counted.”
 
For this initiative, the U.S. Census recruited and deployed nearly two dozen Census Bureau Partnership Specialists across the country specifically to work with LGBT community groups and leaders. All of these specialists are working with Che Ruddell-Tabisola who was tapped by the U.S. Census to serve as national LGBT partnership leader and as the primary bridge between the LGBT-inspired community campaign called Our Families Count (www.ourfamiliescount.org).