LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPOut: Settling Down by the Numbers |
by Fay Jacobs |
It didn't take the June 20 Delaware Coast Press headline, "Gay Households increase in Delaware," to tell us anything we didn't already know. One look at boys buying vertical blinds at Lowe's and lesbians in line for potting soil at Tomato Sunshine and you have a great snapshot of the recent census.
But if your taste runs to statistics instead of anecdotal evidence, the recently released 2000 census figures contain lots of goodies. According to the government, since 1990 the number of Delaware households with same-sex couples increased by more than 700 percent to 1,868 households. And of course, that's only those gay couples who felt comfortable sharing their marital status with Uncle Sam. Heaven knows how many others there actually are. Look for the rainbow stickers on cars parked at Giant and Food Lion and you'll get a pretty astounding idea. I bet there are 1,800 couples between Lewes and Rehoboth alone. And if any more lesbians settle in Milton, it will rival Northampton, MA ("Northampton: where the coffee is strong and so are the women.") And while Delaware and Vermont were the first states to have their same-sex stats released, the national numbers seem to be bearing out our Delaware trend. A Washington Post article last week noted that not only were the numbers up for same-sex households, but the geographic breadth was startling. "They appear in all 105 counties in Kansas," said the Post. Now I don't think it's unusual to find queer households in every Kansas County; what I find unusual is that people are now willing to go on record about it. It's great. The catch phrase "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" may not have the same connotation from now on. Of course, another thing that the statisticians trumpeted is that gay male couples are more concentrated in cities, while women are putting down their roots in the suburbs. Duh. It took a team of census-takers to figure this out? Stereotypically speaking, gals love spreading mulch and guys want to decorate that urban penthouse. Who didn't know this? Well, it's nice having our lives validated by the numbers anyway. Although, since the census was only counting "unmarried partners," all of our single team members are still invisible as far as government figures go. If tabulators stood in the middle of Baltimore Avenue last week their abacuses would have been working overtime. While all the national statistics aren't released yet, it's a pretty good guess that the numbers of same-sex unmarried partners nationwide is going to be one heck of a number to ignore. The census bureau estimated in 1998 that there were approximately 1,674,000 same sex couples in the United States. If the new numbers increase the same eightfold over 1990 numbers, and reflect only those who are willing to go on record, can you imagine how many of us there really are? Talk about clout. Turns out we are as corny as Kansas in August, and as normal as blueberry pie. As I read the census results, I loved some of the backpedaling done by the statisticians. One Associated Press article said "Census specialists caution against drawing sweeping conclusions from the data released. For example, some people who consider themselves unmarried partners may in fact be elderly relatives living together or two men or two women sharing a residence out of convenience." Yeah, right. That rhetoric may have worked in Boston in 1912, but these days, I'm pretty sure that people who checked "unmarried partners" knew a little about the love that dare not speak its name. The other choices on the census form were "housemate," "boarder," and "other non-relative." You do the math. Choosing "unmarried partner" had to be deliberate. Like the gay activists and demographers who have been weighing in on the results, I don't think there are actually any more of us than there were before. I think we're just getting awfully tired of being invisible. Sociology Professor Dwight Fee, from Middlebury College in Vermont is quoted in Time magazine as saying "Gay life is simply more visible in the culture now. Chris Rock is out there saying 'Everybody has a gay cousin.'" And Will and Grace is beamed into Kansas every week as well as New York. Which is not to say that there's less homophobia and danger in a lot of places. It's just that gay people are starting to realize that being out is the only thing that's going to show how many of us there areand how little straight folks have to fear and loathe. Out and Proud is not just a banner on a Pride Day float. It's a lifestyle that works. Of course, that's easy to say in Rehoboth. The tough thing is to try it in, say, Lewiston, Idaho. But news on that front is pretty good, too. Upon returning from a family visit to that part of the world, one young man reported that he heard not a single "fag" joke, and his relatives, seeing him enjoying his toddling nephews, suggested, "You could always adopt." Pretty cool. Actually, last weekend I was in upstate New York, feeling pretty invisible myself. Visiting Seneca Lake, home of those fabulous suffragettes (almost ALL of whom were happily ensconced in same-sex couplehoodand don't let any marriages of convenience fool you), I was surprised to see so few of us. At our hotel, there were no other beans to be found (You know, lez beans, like human beans). On the way home on the New York Thruway, a car passed and folks waved. I couldn't figure out what for, until I saw their rainbow sticker. Heck, if we waved at every car with a rainbow sticker in Rehoboth, we'd have yanked out our rotator cuffs long ago. So living here in the fabulously gay-friendly ghetto is probably lots different from being in the hinterlands. But that doesn't mean we don't have work to do. How many times am I going to have to fill out paperwork at a Rehoboth or Lewes doctor's office that gives me the choice of "Married, Single or Divorced?" As I may have stated before, I can honestly check all three. I consider myself married, the government considers me single, and for an extra kick, back in ancient times I divorced an accordion player (don't ask). So who am I, if not "partnered" with Bonnie???? We have to start demanding a "partnered" category so we can stop being the invisible patients. Certainly, with the census backing up our numbers, we can ask our local hospital and doctor's offices to allow for the diversity within their practices. Okay, that's my first salvo in the visibility war. I invite anybody with suggestions to e-mail me (CampoutReho@aol.com) with their ideas and we will continue this dialogue. And maybe even make some changes. In the meantime, settle down and be counted. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 9, July 13, 2001. |