Where The Gays Are

The results of the 2010 census on the movement of the LGBT population in the last 10-20 years are coming into focus. Gary Gates at UCLA's Williams Institute has analyzed the results and shown that "gay ghettos" like West Hollywood, CA and San Francisco, CA are becoming less gay. (The caveat must be that the census only measures people in same-sex couples, so that single gay men and lesbians are still invisible. There is a movement to have that changed for the 2020 census.)

Today's New York Times reports:

So much for San Francisco.

The list of top cities for same-sex couples as a portion of the population does not include that traditional gay mecca, according to new census data. In fact, the city, which ranked third in 1990 and 11th in 2000, plummeted to No. 28 in 2010. And West Hollywood, once No. 1, has dropped out of the top five.

The Census Bureau data, finalized this week and analyzed by Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, gives the clearest picture to date of same-sex couples in America. In absolute numbers, they jumped by half in the past decade, to 901,997.

Most surprising is how far same-sex couples have dispersed, moving from traditional enclaves and safe havens into farther-flung areas of the country.

Consider, for example, the upstarts on the list: Pleasant Ridge, Mich., a suburb of Detroit; New Hope, Pa.; and this beach town in southern Delaware. All three have been popular destinations for gay people locally but had never ranked in the top 10.

The No. 1-ranked town is Provincetown, Mass., at the tip of Cape Cod.

What do you all think, should there be a sexual orientation/gender identity question on the 2020 Census? And do you think San Francisco and West Hollywood are becoming "less gay" as the gay community gets older and settles down in more geographically diverse areas?