Title: The Myth of Gay Taste

Context: There has been a significant amount of banter, discussion and research among many commentators about the differing tastes of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals vs. their straight counterparts. Richard Florida’s famous research attempts to assert that the so-called “gay index” is a reflection of the coolness of a city and the amount of talent that may be present there. Although Florida asserts that the number of gay male households in a city increases the cool urban feel of a city and the number of talented employees who are willing to work in high tech, creative sectors, little research has been done to actually prove that the overall LGBT community prefers certain living environments, levels of education or career choices over others. In addition, it is unclear whether such a preference is different from that of their straight counterparts.

Research Question: What is the desired level of education, concentration, career preference, and type of locational preference among students in an LGBT group at the University of Michigan? Do these preferences differ from the preferences of straight counterparts at the University of Michigan?

Hypothesis: We feel that overall, gender identity will not be the deciding factor in whether or not UM students prefer to study creative, high tech majors or to pursue higher education. We also feel that it will not dictate locational preference.

Unit of analysis: Individual student level (anonymous)

Data required and sources: Florida’s assumptions and units of analysis; A survey that we will administer among UM students

Methodology: After reviewing and analyzing Florida’s methods, results and arguments, we will design a survey to be distributed among LGBT students at UM as well as heterosexual students at UM. We will seek to confirm/disprove our hypothesis. We will also take note of any other surprising results. We plan to do a statistical analysis when comparing survey results to confirm significance and or correlation among variables.