Gay Census Results Announced

Local News, By Christian Taylor, 6th August, 2009

At the end of last year Same Same teamed up with Pollinate Research to conduct the Australian Gay and Lesbian Census, a national survey that asked questions to Australia’s gay and lesbian population about a wide range of issues that are important to our community.

The survey was combined with Same Same’s annual members survey, so those respondents who were Same Same users were also asked to tell us what they wanted to see more of.

The survey was a response to the Australian Government’s refusal to collect data on gay people in the next Australian census, and asked questions around demographics, employment, living conditions, sexual history, drug use, online activity, media consumption, religion, children, gay marriage and more.

To put the findings into context, here’s some information on the sample size used for the survey. There were 2154 respondents in total. The average age of Gay Census respondents is 31 years. 49% are aged between 25-39 years, with the others evenly split between under 25s and 40+. 70% of Census respondents are male 1.3% are transgender (equally divided between MTF and FTM), and the remaining 28% are female. Respondents are more urban than the general population – 82% live in capital cities, compared to 63.5% of the Australian population. Even amongst the younger age groups where 69% of the Australian population are urban, GLBT Australians are proportionally more likely to live in a city than straight Australians.

89% described themselves as gay or lesbian, 7% bisexual, 2% open minded or undecided and just under 1% straight. In the general population, less than 2% describe themselves as gay or lesbian.

We’ve spent months compiling and analysing the data, as well as working with contributors on pulling together editorial content around the findings, and over the coming weeks we’ll be publishing these stories.

The first article in the Gay Census series is on Gay Marriage - a hot button issue right now, given the national gay marriage protests which took place around Australia last Saturday.

Other articles in the Gay Census series:
Gay Marriage
Let’s Talk About Sex.
What’s Your Poison?
Babies.