The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is assessing whether to recognise and record citizens who identify as neither male nor female in the next national census, with the traditional ‘binary choice’ likely to be widened by new definitions of gender.

The CSO has received a number of submissions from groups such as Transgender Equality Network Ireland and the organisation for young gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people named BeLonG To and have decided to assess the need for change in a series of smaller household surveys. They will be carried out in thousands of homes in the first three months of next year will include specific questions on gender.

A CSO statement to the Sunday Independent said: “CSO currently asks respondents to specify their sex, male or female. CSO has engaged with stakeholder groups to explore the development of statistics on gender identity. As part of this, CSO is planning an assessment of the inclusion of specific questions on gender identity in its household surveys.” These questions will be asked in a household survey on equality and discrimination.

The size of Ireland’s transsexual and inter-sex population is not known. The HSE defines transsexual as someone whose gender identity is ‘opposite’ to the sex ‘assigned’ to them at birth. Inter-sex is defined by the HSE as “individuals who cannot be classified using the medical norms of so-called male and female bodies”. The health authorities state that ‘gender fluid’ people experience different gender identities at different times. The HSE website states “A gender fluid person’s gender identity can be multiple genders at once, then switch to none, or move between single gender identities.”