The Williams Institute, a national think tank operating out of UCLA’s Law school dedicated to independent research on sexual orientation and gender identity, has released its State Resource Map, which provides a plethora of LGBT demographic information by state.
Based on the 2010 Census, the map contains estimates of each state’s LGBT population, geographic breakdowns of same-sex couples living in the state by county and city, percentage of same-sex couples raising children and documentation of discrimination based on gender and/or sexual identity, among other info.
The Institute admits that these numbers may be slightly off especially since same-sex couples may be unwilling to identify themselves as such — plus how many of you actually filled out your Census?
However, at least it’s a step in the right direction as the Resource Map also explores the impact of voter identification laws on transgender people as well as the impact on a state’s budget and economy of extending the rights and privileges of marriage to same-sex couples.
Source: Truth Wins Out
Callum
This study is Very Flawed. For my county (Caldwell) in Missouri the study shows ten (10) gay couples and further claims that all ten are female. This data is not correct. Within a 7 mile radius of my very rural home I know of three parings of male partners that are living together and raising at least one child. There are further a number of “un-maried” gay men living in my rural area, most commonly on small ranches that dot the area. I also want to make it clear that I know of NO female couples who have children. For that reason I know the study is BOGUS.
Hyhybt
Interesting: my county is in the lowest group on number of gay couples, but the highest on the percentage raising their own children.
xwhyterabbitx
@Callum: you are claiming it to be bogus, but with the numbers based on the 2010 census i find it perfectly believable. lets not forget the giant number of people who did not fill out their census honestly, and hid in the numbers closet. a population which we all know is roughly 10% of the population only registered at about 8% after all the numbers were tallied.
B
No. 3 · xwhyterabbitx wrote, “@Callum: you are claiming it to be bogus, but with the numbers based on the 2010 census.”
Callum also stated he lived in a “very rural home” so there would be very few people in his census district. They do not give the ‘long’ census form to everyone, just a random sample. Probably to total number of gay couples in his area was very small due to the total number of people being very small.
Anyone using this data for serious purposes should be well aware of the effects of sampling error, and the report was presumably written for experts, not the general public.
Austin
??? I’m confused…..there were no questions on the census
asking me my gay orientation. How can they infer the number of gays
when the question was never asked? I remember at the time
people were rather outraged the question was NOT asked.
timncguy
@Austin: The data does not make any attempt to count the number of “single” gays. It only counts the number of “partnered” gays based on those who filled out their census forms as being “married” and being of the same sex. As you rightly note, the census didn’t provide any way for a single gay person to identify as gay. So, the census was worthless in that regard.
KARUADAM
It`s all come to the FUCKING CHRUSTUAN, who think that the USA is a Christian country WTF..
Robert B. Rodgers
It is clear that many people agree with the fact that the census data is extremely inaccurate, and worthless in all respects. They need to scrap the entire system, admit overwhelming incompetence and start over! Until there is a way for every single LGBT person is able to be properly identified, and that there is NO way for anyone to lie on the forms about any quality of their person-hood, then no part of the collected data can be seen as remotely accurate.
The data for my area is grossly inaccurate. The members of the LGBT community are VERY under-reported via this data… and I am sure that it is not because of any issues of the proverbial “Closet”, with Mobile, Alabama being a place with a very vocal LBGT community, and considerable acceptance (unlike the non-Gulf Coast sections of the State). We even hold an annual LGBT Convention here. There are many gay owned and operated businesses, and we are not shy about proudly displaying our Pride Flags on everything from vehicles to businesses to our homes.
Hyhybt
@Robert B. Rodgers: Basically, then, you’re saying that all data is TOTALLY worthless unless it is absolutely perfect? By that standard, we can never know anything.
Callum
The problems are that the study based their results on data collected by the most currant US census. The most current census is badly flawed. Even the census takers back in the 1850’s gathered more information than the current census did. With today’s automation there is no excuse for the sub-standard census. Perhaps the census bureau should have simply hired TRW or Equifax to compile the information, they already have most of it correctly in their systems!
I live in a rural part of America and received only a short form questionnaire.