U.K. learns many of its gays live in the countryside

After performing its firstever geographical survey of the country’s gay and lesbian populations, the British government has found that a surprising number are living in the country.

When stacked up against other U. K. counties, the relatively sleepy region of Devon was found to have the fourth- highest number of residents identifying as gay or lesbian.

However, openly gay populations still remained strongest in liberal-minded urban areas. The central London borough of Lambeth ranked as the single gayest U.K. municipal area, with 5.5 per cent of residents identifying as gay or lesbian.

The numbers, pulled from a three-year population survey, were published in a report issued by the U.K. Office for National Statistics.

Of the various countries within the U. K., Northern Ireland was found to have the highest proportion of gay men with 1.6 per cent. Scotland, at 1.1 per cent, had the lowest.

When respondents were divided by age, a clear pattern emerged: Younger people were much more likely to identify as gay than their parents or grandparents.

One of the few exceptions was London, where 2.4 per cent of 34- to 59- year- olds identified as gay compared with only 1.8 per cent in the 16 to 34 cohort.

Conversely, the biggest generation gap emerged in Northern Ireland. Nearly one in 50 of Northern Ireland’s under-34 population identified as gay compared with one in 500 for the country’s senior citizens.

Across the board, meanwhile, the U. K.’s gay men were found to vastly outnumber gay women. In England, the proportion of gay men to lesbians was double.

In Northern Ireland, gay men outnumbered gay women more than five to one.

But, despite low numbers of lesbians, Northern Ireland women were also the most likely in the U.K. to identify as bisexual.

In fact, with the exception of Scotland (where rates of bisexual men and women were neatly matched at 0.4 per cent), women across the U.K. were vastly more likely to identify as bisexual than men.

U.K.’S GAY MEN WERE FOUND TO VASTLY OUTNUMBER GAY WOMEN.