do ask, do tell - homosexual demographics - Brief Article

American Demographics, Nov 1, 2001

John Lucas, 32, and Mike Cole, 25, of Kansas City, Mo., began dating four years ago. After a year and a half, they moved in together. In March 2000, each of them received a census form in the mail. They answered dutifully and sent the forms back separately, identifying themselves as singles living at the same address. "We never thought to answer it on one form as a household," Cole says.

Not so for thousands of other homosexual couples. In August, the Census Bureau released figures showing that the country has 601,209 same-sex households, which include 304,148 gay male couples and 297,061 lesbian couples.

Those numbers, besides their magnitude, are remarkable for other reasons. In 1990, reported gay and lesbian households were sparse (fewer than 146,000 households in all) and confined to a few areas. Not only do the 2000 numbers represent a greater than fourfold increase, but they show that gays and lesbians make their homes in every state and almost every county in the country. Plus, the 2000 figures are more accurate. One reason the number of gay and lesbian households was so low in 1990 was that the bureau stamped same-sex "married" household forms as errors, and in most cases, simply changed the sex of one of the adults. (Rather than changing people's genders in 2000, their relationships were modified from "married" to "unmarried," since people of the same sex can't be legally married).

In 2000 the number of same-sex households - though much larger than ever before - is still an undercount. That's because the census focuses on households, not individuals, and doesn't record gay singles, gay couples who don't live together or couples who live together but who, like Cole and Lucas, did not fill out the form as a couple-headed household.

Although the available data is limited, the new numbers hold a wealth of information about where homosexuals live: Most gay partnered households are urban, with only 15 percent - 88,606 households - located outside metropolitan statistical areas. The most concentrated metro area is San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Calif., (2.04 percent of all households), followed by Santa Fe, N.M., (1.95 percent), Portland, Maine, (1.60 percent), and Miami-Fort Lauderdale (1.56 percent). The metros with the lowest concentration of gay and lesbian-headed households are Dubuque, Iowa, (0.29 percent), Provo-Orem, Utah, (0.38 percent) and Rapid City, S.D., (0.41 percent). Among counties, San Francisco County in California recorded the highest concentration (6.91 percent of all coupled households). Only 22 counties out of 3,142 recorded no gay- or lesbian-headed households.

If you count the District of Columbia, it ranks as the most concentrated gay state, with 5.14 percent of all couple-led households. California is next (1.4 percent), followed by Vermont (1.34 percent), Massachusetts (1.29 percent) and New York (1.27 percent). The lowest concentrations - less than 0.6 percent - were found in Nebraska, Montana, Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota.

Marketing to gays and lesbians has conventionally taken the form of venue-based promotions, outdoor advertising in specific neighborhoods, the occasional TV ad with a gay overtone, and direct mail using lists from gay titles, catalogs and organizations. Dan Black, an economics professor at Syracuse University, has followed the same-sex household findings closely, noting the tracts where gay couples live. But he wonders how many gays remain unreported and where they live. "You can always identify gay neighborhoods," he says. "The problem is identifying those gays who live in mixed neighborhoods, particularly if they are not partnered."

Black's research on male gay populations may point to some marketing insights. He assumes, based on previous research, that many of the gay tracts contain partnered and unpartnered gays. This can be partially verified by checking to see if large concentrations of single men live in these locations. He plans to use data from the census long form, due out in 2002 and 2003, to create a better demographic profile of both partnered and unpartnered gay men, including earnings and homeownership.

Many marketers are glad that gay populations can be mapped on a metropolitan area scale or even broken down by census tract. But as far as outdoor and venue-based advertising is concerned, the openly gay neighborhoods have long been identified. What the census data provides is a more scientific basis for identifying new gay neighborhoods and comparing them with old ones.

New York-based Triangle Marketing Services manages the mailing lists of gay interest magazines, such as The Advocate, and has compiled a list of the "100 Gayest ZIP Codes," based in part on its 3.5 million-person mailing database. ZIP code 94114, in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, tops the list. (See chart.)

america's top gay zip codes

San Francisco's 94114 ZIP code has more gay residents than any other ZIP code in the country, based on an analysis of a 525,000-person mailing list database managed by Triangle Marketing Services.