Gay poor

When asked to evaluate the condition of their health, cisgender straight women had the most positive assessments, with only 18.2% rating it as just fair or poor. As CUSA celebrates Pride 2024, we also bring awareness to the pressing fact that—particularly where queer identity intersects with other factors in economic oppression, like race, gender, generational family poverty, or geographic location—LGBTQIA+ people in the U.S.

and Canada face the same socioeconomic challenges that straight residents face, with more obstacles to boot.

Unraveling the Myth of Gay Affluence

According to a 2021 University of Wisconsin–Madison Institute for Research on Poverty study, people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans “have higher rates of poverty compared to cis [from cisgender, meaning “identifying with the gender assigned to one at birth”] heterosexual people, about 22% to 16% respectively.” Further, the study found that “[r]ates of poverty for LGBT people of color are close to, or higher than, those for cis straight people of their own racial or ethnic group, and are notably higher than for White people, whether straight or LGBT.”

Despite this outlook, the myth of “gay affluence” persists.

While many also identify as transgender, not all gender non-conforming people do.

Lesbian: A woman who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to other women. Research and implementation of policy and cultural changes can help to ensure that LGBT people have the same opportunities to thrive as their cisgender straight counterparts.

Compiled and edited by Judith Siers-Poisson.

[1]Badgett, M.V.L and Wilson, B.D.M.

For 25 years, Circles USA has built community to end poverty by connecting with the people most in need, meeting them where they live, and trusting them to make the best decisions for themselves and their families.

“Instead of focusing on the material conditions of impoverished groups exclusively,” researchers explained, relational poverty analysis focuses on “actors involved in creating and maintaining material disparities, including middle class professionals, policy makers, and the wealthy entrepreneurial elite, as potential targets of intervention (Piven, 2006).”

In Circles USA’s methodology, such interventions often take the form of intentional friendships across race, economic class, gender and sexuality; Big View Team work and policy platform that get at root causes of socioeconomic disparities; advocating and campaigning for nonpartisan political solutions to problems which impact whole communities, starting with the closest to the challenge; and community-based collaborations with employers to support low-income workers through the ups and downs of stabilization, readiness, and advancement—including LGBTQIA+ individuals who face greater rates of identity-based discrimination in the workplace and outside of it.

“Circles USA is committed to creating communities where all people can thrive,” says executive director Kamatara Johnson.

Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or as falling completely outside these categories. And it’s not because I’m transgender. And we know that LGBTQIA+ folx are some of the most impacted community members we serve. Cis gay men have the lowest overall poverty rate (12.1%), with cis straight men only slightly higher (13.4%).

As noted above, except for cis gay men, people who identify as part of an SOGI group other than cisgender and straight are more likely to experience poverty. Attendees of the weekly chapter meeting at last year’s National Leadership Conference also had the opportunity to review their ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) index, a measure of the harms “which occur when a child experiences a traumatic event or environmental factors that threaten their sense of safety, stability, and bonding.” [Source]

Relational Poverty and Big View Change

One 2021 study published by the National Library of Medicine stressed the importance of understanding something called relational poverty.

And while only about 12% of the U.S. working-age population is living with a disability, they represent more than half of those living in long-term poverty.

The correlation between disability and poverty is significant because LGBT people are more likely to be living with a disability than cis straight people.

In the BRFSS data, cisgender straight men have the lowest disability rate at 19.5%, followed by 24.3% for cis straight women. Pathways Into Poverty: Lived experiences among LGBTQ people.

[6]Wilson and Badgett (2020). Pathways Into Poverty: Lived experiences among LGBTQ people.

[3]Wilson and Badgett (2020).

We got a lot of food through churches. Note: An individual’s sexual orientation is independent of their gender identity.

Transgender: An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth. Non-binary can also be used as an umbrella term encompassing identities such as agender, bigender, genderqueer or gender-fluid.

Sexual orientation: An inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to other people.

Those challenges are further intensified for young people of color.

Health, ability and SOGI