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Gay and Lesbian CensusA HARD-TO-MEASURE POPUL ATION STARTS COMING INTO FOCUS BY RODGER DOYLE

BY

THEN

UM

BERS

Tabulating the U.S. gay and lesbian pop-ulations has never been easy. Not only

are many people reluctant to discuss

intimate matters, but also their sense of iden-

tity evolves: todays gay man may have been

straight yesterday. Like past efforts, the

2000 U.S. decennial census undoubtedly un-

dercounted them, but it does provide sub-

stantial new informationspecifically, on

those gays and lesbians who live together as

couples.

The census form asked respondents to

classify any unrelated people in their house-

hold as a housemate, boarder, foster child,

unmarried partner or other nonrelative. If

the unmarried partner is reported to be of

the same sex, that partner and the respon-

dent are very likely gay or lesbian. The cen-

sus showed that 0.6 percent of men and 0.5

percent of women 18 years of age and older

live together as same-sex unmarried part-ners. The data provide a good indication of

geographic distribution. The map shows the

proportion of households that are gay or les-

bian, and because of the likelihood of under-

counting, it categorizes the dispersion of this

populationby quintiles, rather than by ab-solute percentages. The map combines the

three middle quintiles for simplicity.

As might be expected, San Francisco has

the highest concentration of gays and lesbi-

ans; Washington, D.C., and New York

Citys borough ofManhattan are not far be-

hind. Perhaps surprisingly, gays and lesbians

appear in high concentrations in all regions

except for the Midwest, particularly the

west-central region. And gays and lesbians

do not merely abound in the big metropoli-

tan areas; they live in smaller ones as well,

especially college towns such as Blooming-

ton, Ind., Iowa City, Iowa, Corvallis, Ore.,

and Lawrence, Kans. Moreover, some non-

metropolitan counties such as Presidio, Tex-

as, Lyon, Kentucky, and Shannon,South Dakota, are among the top 50

counties in terms of their propor-

tion of gay and lesbian population.

The 2000 census found that at

least a quarter of a million children

live in households headed by same-

sex couples and that nearly one in

five people in same-sex couples is 55

and older. The number of unpart-

nered gay and lesbian individuals

can be estimated from survey data

showing that 24 percent of gay men

and 43 percent of lesbians are cou-

pled. By extrapolation, the propor-

tion of gay men in the population is

2.5 percent and of lesbians 1.2 percent, con-

sistent with earlier research.

The two-to-one disparity is curious in

light of studies showing that the percentages

of those claiming sexual desire for the same

sex is virtually identical for both men and

women (7.7 and 7.5 percent, respectively).

No conclusive explanation exists for this

anomaly. Gary Gates of the Urban Institute

in Washington, D.C., who co-authored therecently published Gay and Lesbian Atlas,

notes the evidence that womens conception

of sexual orientation may be more fluid than

that of men. He suggests that women, al-

though they may be as prone to same-sex

attraction, may be less willing to label that

attraction with a specific sexual orientation

such as gay or lesbian.

Rodger Doyle can be reached at

rdoyle2@adelphia.net

Sex in America: A DefinitiveSurvey. Robert T. Michael et al.Little, Brown, 1994.

The Social Organizationof Sexuality: Sexual Practices

in the United States.Edward O. Laumann, John H.

Gagnon, Robert T. Michael andStuart Michaels. University of

Chicago Press, 2000.

The Gay and Lesbian Atlas.Gary J. Gates and Jason Ost.Urban Institute Press, 2004.

FURTHERREADING

The 10 counties with the largestnumbers of gays and lesbians:

1. Los Angeles

2. Cook, Illinois (Chicago)

3. New York (Manhattan)

4. San Francisco

5. Harris, Texas (Houston)

6. San Diego

7. Dallas

8. Maricopa, Arizona (Phoenix)9. King, Washington (Seattle)

10. Broward, Florida(Ft. Lauderdale)

The 10 counties with the highestproportion of gays and lesbians:

1. San Francisco

2. District of Columbia

3. DeKalb, Georgia (Atlanta area)

4. New York

5. Suffolk, Massachusetts

(Boston)6. Denver

7. Multnomah, Oregon (Portland)

8.Alame da, Califo rnia (Oak land)

9. King, Washington (Seattle)

10. Fulton, Georgia (Atlanta)

SO UR CE : U .S . D ec en ni al Ce ns us , 2 00 0

SAME-SEXLOCATIONS

U.S. Counties Classified by Proportion of Gay or Lesbian HouseholdsLowest quintile Three middle quintiles Highest quintile

SOURCE: U.S. Decennial Census, 2000

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