Ratio of gay to non-gay people in San Francisco

[MikeS]

@Johanna

Come on, there must be some lesbian spots on the East Coast. New York? Atlanta? Asheville?

From my link above: of the ten ZIP codes with the highest lesbian population, the ones that are on the East Coast are in Provincetown, Northampton, and Jamaica Plain, MA; and in Decatur, GA. The MSAs with the highest lesbian population on the East Coast are Burlington, VT; Portland, ME; and Springfield, MA.

[Johanna]

Thanks, Mike. Decatur is next to Atlanta. What is it about Atlanta and gays anyway? How did that come about? I’m going there next week for an LGBT conference and wanted to get some insight into what makes it the nearest equivalent to SF in the Southeast.

[mhendo]

@SmackFu

AFAIK, there are particular gay neighborhoods in SF, like the Castro. So in those areas the ratio is a bit unusual but you probably wouldn’t choose to live there if you were hetero.

If i could afford a house in the Castro, i’d live there in a New York (or San Francisco) minute. Gay or not (and i’m not), it’s a great neighbourhood, with good stores, bars, and restaurants, and within relatively easy public transit reach of many other cool places in San Francisco. I see no reason why a straight person wouldn’t want to live there.

[matt_mcl]

@John Mace

Why dubious? Most studies I’ve seen have shown that the incidence of homosexuality in men is significantly greater than in women. So, if one speaks of “gay people” per the OP, one is speaking more about men than about women. Note that I said “more” and not “exculsively”. I’m sure there are many lesbians in SF, but I’m also sure that there are many more gay men there.

More to the point, a lot of the more famous gay villages have a reputation for having more for boys than girls (there’s a reason the Chicago neighbourhood isn’t called Girlstown). In Montreal, for example, there’s a perennial complaint that the Village is much, much more for boys than girls, which seems to be borne out in practice (although women seem to have taken over these two theoretically mixed bars, which is fine with me.)

[Acsenray]

@seosamh

I spent a week in San Francisco in June. I’d never been there before and, as a straight man, was slightly apprehensive about the possible preponderance of homosexual men

What’s to be apprehensive about, even if true? What did you fear would happen to you?

[mhendo]

@acsenray

What’s to be apprehensive about, even if true? What did you fear would happen to you?

But, but…you might catch the gay.

[John_Mace]

@acsenray

What’s to be apprehensive about, even if true? What did you fear would happen to you?

Yeah, that is kind of funny. I’m up in SF all the time, and I can’t think of even one time that I’ve been “hit on” by a gay guy. Frankly, it just isn’t an issue. And given the overwhelming majority of stragiht people, even in SF, aren’t the gay folks the one who have something to be “apprehensive about”?

Unless you’re in the Castro, my experience is that you don’t bump into more gay people in SF than you do in almost any big city. And even if you do, so what? The more gays and straights socialize together, the less tension there is between the two groups. It’s not like we have these two horribly differnet cultures that just can’t interract.