Another neat mapping tool (we're all about maps these days, it seems) is the interactive 2000 Census Map over at Social Explorer, the brainchild of Andrew Beveridge, Professor of Sociology at Queens College. Now sure, you can look at maps of boring things like ancestry, education, immigration, etc., and make your fancy reports and such. But the most interesting thing about the map: it's a National Gaydar System. That's right, you can find out just where the (self-reported) gays and lesbians are. At least the ones who are in couples.
Now, the usual places are on there (San Francisco New York Vermont blah blah lesbian blah blah gay blah), but I'm more interested in the rural areas. You know, Red States, the places that are (in David Brook's World) the antithesis of all things gay.
Now, there are some interesting patterns outside the major cities. (This is based, by the way, on percentage of the population, not absolute numbers.) Lesbians prefer Portland, ME, while Maine gays are attracted to Somerset. You'll find a higher concentration of gays in Forest, PA, but the nearest hotbed of lesbianism is Tompkins, NY. Georgia? Webster: gay. Lanier: lesbian. Nearly everyone in Hampshire, MA seems to be a lesbian, while Massachusetts gays are mostly in Boston. Idaho? Not many pockets of lesbianism, but you'll find gays in, um, Benewah. Gays are in Goshen, WY, and La Paz, AZ. Lesbians are in Keweenaw, MI, Piute, UT, Allendale, SC, McClean, ND, Dewey, SD, and Pushmataha, OK.
The one place I'm really curious about is Hudspeth County, TX. Southern Hudspeth County is lesbian country. Northern Hudspeth County is gay. Who decided that one? Do they meet in the middle and brawl?
(See now if I were David Brooks, I could write an entire uninformed column out of this, and you'd read it in the New York Times.)
