Some statistics on Mx in the UK
- To find out a minimum number for how many people in the UK are using the title Mx;
- To find out how the number of people using Mx compares to the number of people using other titles.
HMRC provided data from the two largest sets of data they had: self-assessed tax returns, and PAYE (pay as you earn) tax. (Note that these two sets of data don’t contain everyone in the UK, and a small proportion of people are probably in both sets. HMRC also told me that the “other” category contains typos.)
The blue rows highlight titles that are represented by a greater percentage of people than in the other dataset. So, for example, the title Mr is represented by more people in the self-assessed dataset (60%) than in the PAYE dataset (47%). (This visually helps more when you view the tables side-by-side instead of one and then the other underneath, which is another Tumblr issue.) I did this to see at-a-glance patterns between gender, marital status, and qualifications relating to tax type. Dr, Mr and Mrs are all larger proportions in the self-assessed group compared to PAYE, and I think that may relate not to qualifications or marital status or relative privilege, but to age - as people age they become more likely to have acquired doctorates and spouses, and they also become less likely to pay tax through PAYE.
There were much higher proportions of people claiming the titles Miss, Ms and Mx in the PAYE group.
It seems that there are at least 7,000 people in the UK using the title Mx in a “legal” (tax-related) capacity. In the grand scheme of things this is a very small percentage, but if I imagine a group of 7,000 nonbinary and otherwise genderly interesting people I find it quite heartening! Hello, everyone. :)
(I feel that I should mention at this point that this data is NOT representative of the proportion or number of nonbinary people in the UK.)
I’m sure that as Mx becomes more well-known these numbers will increase. I may request this information from HMRC again at several future dates to see if any rough trends can be identified.
If you’re out there and you’re in the UK and paying tax and your title is Mx and you didn’t know that you can register your title as Mx with HMRC, I hope this serves to inform you that it’s possible.
This is cool. I'd be interested if you could find the info from the DVLA as I'm Mx on my driving licence. Mainly because I requested it myself, when it came to my last employed job my employer didn't even ask me. I said I was a man and they put "Mr" by default, so I feel like there would be more representation in things like driving licence. Just a theory though.
I did consider the DVLA, so yes, I’ll put that on my to-do list!
I think the PAYE data is severely skewed by employers. I'm non binary, AFAB, and my tax is done by a HR department I have neversspoken to, who saw my name and assumed Mr. My preferred is no title, and I definitely never put one on any form. I expect there are a lot of genderqueer people in that situation, or something similar. If your employers HR system only allows an M or F, you would have to shout very loudly at people you don't work with, to get that info updated.
Really good points. I definitely think there are more than 7,000 people who use Mx, and I’d very much encourage people to make sure their title is logged correctly with employers and HMRC.
Edit again: I have now made FOI requests to the DVLA and the DWP. Click the links to view my requests on What Do They Know.
