Openly Gay Pop in the US booming; Utah soars from 38th to 14th "Gayest" State
 

An interesting look at Gay Demographics in the US. Times are changing in some of the most unlikely places.

Top 10 states
The data, from the 2006 American Community Survey, reflects the number of same-sex couple households per 1,000 households by state.
1 Vermont 9.71
2 New Mexico 9.03
3 Massachusetts 8.99
4 Washington 8.94
5 Oregon 8.83
6 New Hampshire 8.73
7 Maine 8.57
8 California 8.50
9 Colorado 7.79
10 Rhode Island 7.63

Top 10 cities
The data, from the 2006 American Community Survey, reflects the number of same-sex couple households per 1,000 households in the top 50 most populous cities.
1 San Francisco 28.72
2 Seattle 21.27
3 Minneapolis 18.68
4 Portland 16.945
5 Sacramento 16.36
6 Oakland 15.62
7 Boston 14.72
8 Washington 13.49
9 Atlanta 13.32
10 Long Beach 12.80

National change
Same-sex couples per 1,000 households:
1990 1.56
2000 5.61
2006 6.79

http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinst...BriefFinal.pdf

Great article!!!!

I find it shocking that more and more gay couples are moving to the suburbs. They must be going after that "American Dream" like everyone else.

The city and state stats are pretty cool too. I would have never thought that the state of Texas would have more gay couples than the state of New York.

Minneapolis is what surprises me. Who knew?

Im so proud of Utah its not even funny.

http://origin.sltrib.com/ci_7439427

The twin cities are a pretty friendly and accepting place....overall. I wonder how they conducted the survey. Its interesting that Utah would acquire a sizable group. Getting a true idea on numbers on numbers of people or communities is quite difficult I'd imagine.

Interesting that Atlanta lost gay population while its suburbs boomed. I wonder if that means they're a lot of Log Cabin Republicans there...

It isn't a measure of gay population...this survey counts the number of same-sex households. I guess single doesn't count, and most of the gay people I know are single...

There are no statistics here on "openly gay" populations--only on purported gay couples. In places where most gays are single, this study will be useless in helping determine "gay population".

^ exactly. I know a ton of gay people in Chicago. None of them are living in a "household" with a partner.

I don't like to see same-sex couples as a proxy for how many G/L people there actually are- and as a sociologist I wish to hell there were a good way to measure it. But this stuff is interesting.

I suppose you are all correct. I totally should have titled the thread differently.:D

However,
The findings I think are promising nonetheless.:tup:

I guess the number at a household level are obvious as this is information avalible at a municipal and public level. But census data or civic census data doesn't specify sexual orientation (or do some? I highly doubt it.) so that statistic is lost. From a raw data perspective it's sad, because the number is hypothesized both higher then it actually is, and lower. (depending who's doing the calcualtions and what their motive is)

I was surprised to see Portland above places like Chicago, so I'm not sure where these stats are coming from. Portland is super gay friendly, but still. There just aren't the numbers of gay men here I don't think.

Who knows?

6 of the 10 are on the West Coast, or near it (Sacramento # 5?).

I can tell you, even 20 years ago, there was a BIG difference in attitude between Sacto and Dayton, when I moved here. It's taken Dayton 20 years, 20 years to catch up to maybe pass an anti-discrimination ordnance this week.

I did a geography of same sex households in Dayton and suburbs and posted it at my blog (based on 2000 census and mapped by tract). The interesting thing is that the larger numbers were in the suburbs (where I live).

as a whole, the entire country has become a more tolerant place. thats good! we still have a long way to go but its encouraging to see some of these stats....

PDX is by percentage. Portland has one of the highest populations of Lesbains in the Country as does surprise surprise Milwaukie, WI.

Hell San Francisco beats Chicago by percentage...but by total numbers of actual gay people Chicago of course beats both cities in total numbers of gay and lesbians just because of our shear size.

Not only is this method of counting very weak I would like to also through into the mix that gays on the coast would be much more open to reporting their couplehood than midwesterners....paradoxically midwesterners are probably more into fitting into the "mainstream" image of what a relationship is than are those on the coasts.

I am so happy to see Sacramento in there. I can use this to stick to my gay friends in the Bay Area who always look down on my former home as another backwards valley town.

It is also great to hear the things coming out of Utah. I had thought Salt Lake City was somewhat more progressive than it was given credit for, and it seems like this shows that it is.

I disagree, it's a fallacy that this country is generally more accepting of homosexuals (of it course it in comparison to the 1960s but I would argue little progress has been made recently). These stats accomplish nothing but illustrating we, as gays, finally understand the meaning monogamy...Thank god

why would you find it shocking?

most gay people I know or chat to live in the suburbs and always have or mostly have and have no desire to move onto a "gay ghetto" aka a bigger closet

What this also doesn't factor is that people will tend to live together in very high cost cities to cut costs. So in low cost cities, there may be many more gay partners that aren't living together.