The Queer Index is a survey of the 35 most LGBT-friendly cities in the U.S., based on 32 publicly available data and 16 “lifestyle metrics.” The top three are pretty much what you’d expect: Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. But how does Dallas fare?
Not so well, actually. Our hometown didn’t even crack the top 35 — and neither did Texas city Houston and Arizona’s Phoenix (all three are in the top 10 population cities in the U.S.). Indeed, the city farthest south on the list was Denver, Colo. — hardly a stalwart of ol’ Dixie.
Rounding out the top 10 are Des Moines, Iowa (No. 4), Chicago (5), Seattle (6), Albany, N.Y. (7), Rochester, N.Y. (8), Denver (9) and Madison, Wisc. (10).
Of course, the metrics themselves are fairly arbitrary. For instance, one of the 16 “key lifestyle metrics” is “availability of hookups;” a separate one is “availability of casual sex.” I’m not sure “sluttiness” and “friendliness” are comparable, but there you have it.
There were some interesting statistics, such as the highest percentage of single lesbians are in Memphis, that Boston has the highest number of anti-gay hate crimes and that more than 2,000 same-sex “casual encounters” are posted on Craigslist every day in NYC alone.
The survey was undertaken by a new media company called Vocativ; you can read the entire index here.
