Kevin Guyan

• Director, Gender + Sexuality Data Lab
• Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, University of Edinburgh Business School
• Course organiser on Global Diversity and Equality Management (PGT)
• Subject Group PGR Representative (Organisation Studies)
• Research Champion for the Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability Committee
• Affiliate of Edinburgh Futures Institute

Dr Kevin Guyan is a Chancellor’s Fellow in the University of Edinburgh Business School. His research explores the intersection of data and identity, with a particular focus on how the design and management of gender, sex and sexuality categories impact LGBTQ communities.

He is the author of Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) and Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). He has also published several peer-reviewed journal articles and co-authored a major report for UKRI on equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives.

From 2021 to 2024, Dr Guyan worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow on an international project investigating gender equity policies in the film and TV industry. Prior to this, he worked for a higher education organisation focused on EDI among staff and students in universities and colleges. In 2016, he completed a PhD in history at University College London and became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2026.

Dr Guyan chairs the board of the LGBTI human rights charity Equality Network and sits on Young Scot’s Data Advisory Group. He was also a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland from 2021 to 2025.

Dr Guyan’s research examines how power, politics and history shape organisations’ use of identity data to allocate resources, manage people, monitor equality outcomes, deliver services and distribute opportunities.

His work questions the assumed benefits of ‘being counted’ for LGBTQ people and other minoritised communities, posing ethical questions about the use of identity data in data-driven decision-making. His research outputs are recognised as key texts in the fields of gender and sexuality, queer studies and critical data studies.

Recent projects:

• Box Breakers: Improving Organisational Data Practices for Minoritised Communities (2026-27).
• Gay Numbers: The Use and Misuse of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data in the UK and US (2024-26).

Selected publications:

Guyan, K (2026). 'Trans-exclusionary data activism in the UK'. Journal of Gender Studies, 1–20.

Guyan, K, & Eikhof, DR (2026). 'Queer workers, diversity data and the UK television industry: is more data always better?' Cultural Trends, 35(1), 35–50.

Guyan, K, Eikhof, DR & Coles, A (2026) 'Gender equity policy and visibility politics in the film and television industries', Policy & Politics, 54(2): 253–275.

Guyan, K (2025). Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion, Bloomsbury Academic.

Guyan, K (2022). Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action, Bloomsbury Academic.

Kevin discusses how his research has influenced global conversations on the collection, analysis, and presentation of gender, sex, and sexuality data.