Researchers Tackle LGBT Demographics
Bay Area Reporter
by Heather Tirado Gilligan
August 07, 2008

Researchers are making sure that gay people count in the United States by finding ways to count them.

A demographer, a doctor, and a market researcher gathered at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco July 29 for the panel "Demographics of LGBT People Living in the San Francisco Bay Area: Why Does It Matter?" They grappled with this question, as posed by Ken Stram, the panel moderator: "If you can't count gay people, do they exist?"

The Census Bureau announced last month that it would not count same-sex couples who have married in the next census.

Until very recently, the answer to this question was not clear-cut. Counting LGBTs poses a complex set of problems, beginning with the lack of census data on sexual orientation in the United States. The census classifies the country by race, class, and sex, but not by sexuality. In 2000, however, the census allowed same-sex respondents to identify as an "unmarried partner" for the first time.

Among the first to use the resulting data to figure out where gays and lesbians live in the United States was Gary Gates, Ph.D., the panel's demographer and a senior researcher at UCLA's Williams Institute. Gates's analysis of the 2000 census confirmed for the first time that gays and lesbians are indeed everywhere: in 99.7 percent of counties in the United States.

Gates's research also challenged what he called "the Will and Grace model of gayness." Citing studies by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Gates said the predominant image of gays in the media is of a community of wealthy, urban, and white men. He calls this portrayal "largely untrue," highlighting a series of surprising facts.

For example, Mississippi is the state with the most same-sex families, Gates said. Gay men make less than their straight counterparts, while lesbians on average make more than straight women, he noted.

More than just trivia, these statistics provide policymakers, lobbyists, and businesses catering to the LGBT community with information about where to aim political resources and advertising dollars.

HIV/AIDS program funding in San Francisco depends on accurate representation of the LGBT population, explained panelist Dr. Willi McFarland, the director of HIV/AIDS statistics and epidemiology at the San Francisco Department of Public Health and associate adjunct professor at the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF.

Drawing on more than 50 sources of data, McFarland estimates that the population of gay men and women in San Francisco is 84,880. After a brief exchange with Gates confirmed that the Williams Institute had similar numbers on San Francisco, McFarland looked relieved.

Millions of dollars of program money depend on population data, McFarland said.

"There is no gold standard," McFarland explained, referring to the lack of census data, "so it's hard to tell how far off we are." In the absence of a gold standard, researchers rely on each other to confirm their information on the LGBT population in the U.S.

Filling in for missing census data is difficult even with the pooled research. Alternate methods of tracking the LGBT population can leave significant holes in the numbers, according to Jerry McHugh, senior research director at Community Marketing Inc. Internet surveys, one common method of polling LGBTs, neglect poorer segments of the population without Internet access, while outreach methods that use LGBT media outlets fail to fully reach more rural populations, McHugh noted.

Gates, who is currently in talks with the Census Bureau about including questions that provide data about the LGBT community, asked the audience to contact the bureau through the comments section of its Web site to ask for a more accurate representation of their lives, noting that the bureau is surprisingly responsive to the public.

"Ask them to count same-sex married couples and recognize the social and legal realities of marriage," Gates said in an interview after the panel, urging the LGBT community to do its part to make sure they are counted.