Lesbians Find Haven in Suburbs

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Lesbians Find Haven in Suburbs

Female Couples Prefer Living, Raising Children Outside Cities

By Carol Morello

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 3, 2001; Page B01

In another era, Amelie and Licia Zurn-Galinsky would have been described in soft euphemisms: sisters, friends, spinsters. But they live openly, even unremarkably, as a lesbian couple in suburbia, building a life around kids and family in their Silver Spring neighborhood.

They're active in the PTA of their daughter's school. They drive a minivan and help at block parties. Neighborhood children flock to the huge trampoline in their back yard.

And on Friday nights, they hold an otherwise traditional Shabbat dinner with some of the 14 other lesbian couples living within two blocks of their four-bedroom house.

"Five years ago, I couldn't have imagined my life would look like this," said Amelie, 36, a psychotherapist who still speaks wistfully of her life in the District within walking distance of good restaurants and theaters. "But it's good. It's what I want. The community lesbians have created around themselves in the suburbs is huge."

The 2000 Census is revealing striking differences between the places where lesbian couples and gay male couples choose to settle. In metropolitan areas across the country, the men tend to pick the city and the women opt for the suburbs.

In the District, for example, gay male couples outnumber lesbian couples almost 3 to 1. In each of the eight suburban counties of Maryland, for which the Census Bureau released data yesterday, there are more lesbian couples than male couples.

The census underscores just how openly homosexuals are living across a wide swath of the United States outside the hip urban centers more commonly considered appealing to gay people. Suburbia has a particular draw for couples, straight or gay, who are raising children.

It is not the increased number but the geographic breadth that has been surprising. Households consisting of two partners of the same sex have shown up in more than 90 percent of the counties reported so far, compared with just 25 percent in the 1990 Census. They appear in all 105 counties of Kansas, and in all but 10 of Nebraska's 93 counties.

Demographers and gay activists say the numbers primarily reflect a more accurate tally of same-sex partners, rather than a dramatic growth in number.

"We're on the farm, in the suburbs and the cities," said David Elliott, of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "It shows we are indeed everywhere. And it debunks the stereotype we're only in Dupont Circle."

A comparison of census statistics for the District and Maryland illustrates a pattern borne out across the country.

In the District, the census counted 2,693 households of gay male partners, compared with 985 households of lesbian partners. But in each of the eight Maryland suburbs, lesbian couples outnumber their male counterparts, with a total of 3,217 households of female partners to 2,717 households of male partners. Virginia statistics have not been released yet.

The major reasons why lesbian couples say they have chosen to build a life in the suburbs are familiar to most heterosexual couples.

They are more likely than gay men to have children, and they perceive the suburbs as offering better schools. Like women in general, lesbians tend to earn less than gay men and so venture to the suburbs to find cheaper, roomier housing. And for themselves and their children, they find more safety living outside the city.

Susan Lucas's two sons from a previous relationship are grown. She and her partner, Mary Cogan, decided to moveto Silver Spring six years ago for purely economic reasons. They couldn't find a house they liked in the District at a price they could afford. So although they periodically talk about moving back to the city, no move is imminent.

"I love this house," said Cogan, 43, a sales representative for a Web hosting company. "We have a sun porch and a big yard. Most of the gay guys we know live in the city. Even in their forties and fifties, they're still going out to clubs. I don't know many guys who want to spend a lot of time in the yard like I do."

For Kayo Gamber and her partner, a move from Rosslyn to Takoma Park was prompted by their decision to have a baby by artificial insemination.

"We went to five lawyers in Virginia, who all told us there wasn't even a bubble of opportunity for second parent adoption," Gamber said. "They all told us [that] to have choices, we had to go out of state."

In Takoma Park with their daughter, now 8, the lesbian couple have plunged into suburban life, becoming co-chairs of the PTA and joining the neighborhood safety patrol.

No statistics have been released yet showing how many same-sex partners have children younger than 18 in the home. In the 1990 Census, 20 percent of lesbian couples had children living with them, compared with just 5 percent of gay men with partners. As all parents know, children change everything.

"As soon as we knew that kids were going to be a part of our lives, we moved to the 'burbs for the schools and the quality of life," said Licia Zurn-Galinsky, who is 37 and remodels homes for a living. "Every gay male couple I know who lives in the suburbs has kids."

The household of four has found the move to be almost seamless.

Jessica Barnes, a teenager for whom Amelie and Licia Zurn-Galinsky are legal guardians, has friends who know what it's like to come from a nontraditional family; they're being raised by grandparents or single parents or biracial parents. Other lesbian couples in the neighborhood come to cheer Jessica's performances on the school's pompom squad. Amelie and Licia's 22-month-old daughter, Tova, plays with the children of other neighbors, both gay and straight. School authorities seem grateful to find parents who are deeply involved with their children's activities.

"For most people, it's no big deal," Amelie said.

The women suspect they are more accepted in part because they are lesbians, not gay men.

"For male couples, it's easier to be invisible in the city," Licia said. "In the suburbs, you really interact with your neighbors. And I think the acceptance of lesbians with children is broader. There are just different stereotypes."

But as more gay and lesbian couples move to the suburbs, old stereotypes are giving way. Many homosexual couples say they have found a degree of acceptance in the suburbs they would have found unimaginable a decade ago.

Cogan and Lucas, who have decorated their Silver Spring house with crafts and handmade mission furniture, have an elderly neighbor who drops by to lend them his tools. The minister who lives across the street has also been very friendly.

"Gay couples used to live in the cities because that's where they were accepted, tolerated," said Lucas, 45, who works in public relations for a health firm. "Now it's much more like that in the suburbs. We're totally accepted and welcomed here."

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

-- (the@W.P._), July 03, 2001

Answers

Sure they have, why, just look at Hillary's move to suburban NY!!

-- HRC (labia_lickin'@yum.com), July 03, 2001.

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