The U.S. Census published a report on August 21 that breaks down information from the 2020 Census about where same-sex co-habitating couples live. In big news, queer men love cities like San Francisco and New York and queer women prefer counties with hiking, bookstores, and small coffee shops.
Hampshire and Franklin Counties in western Massachusetts surround Northampton, MA, famously nicknamed the “lesbian capital” of the country with the highest per capita lesbian population of any city. The area is home to colleges including historically women’s colleges Smith and Mount Holyoke.
The other counties on the 10 most popular counties for female-female couples include the ones that house Portland, OR; Ithaca, NY; Decatur, GA; and Asheville, NC. The other hot spot is the DMV: DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
Meanwhile, male-male couples gravitated towards large cities. The counties they prefer include the cities of San Francisco, DC, New York, Boston, St. Louis, New Orleans, Denver, Atlanta, Richmond, and Fort Lauderdale.
Every county on the top ten list for male-male couples has at least one city with a population over 183,000 in it, but most have much more—up to 8.3 million with New York City, the largest city in the country. In contrast, the top ten counties for female-female couples don’t have any city with a population above 672,000 in it and one county has no city with a total population of 71,000 for the whole county.
The report builds on a June 2024 report looking at a 2022 survey comparing male-male couples, female-male couples, and female-female couples. It showed that female-female couples skew younger, less educated, more likely to live somewhere rural than urban, more likely to have a lower household income or be in poverty, and more likely to have children than male-male couples.
So, if you’re like most of us, enjoy cozying up with your cat, wife, and kids for small-town life!
