We submit this public comment in response to the National Science Foundation’s proposed information collection request related to the 2019 Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR), published in the Federal Register at 83 FR 40340 on August 14, 2018. We outline the importance of including sexual orientation and gender identity (SO/GI) demographic measures on the SDR (and related NSF surveys) for advancing the U.S. scientific workforce, and the feasibility and precedent in implementing SO/GI measures in government surveys. The comment is cosigned by 17 scientific organizations and 251 scientists, engineers, and legal and policy scholars.