The Bronx Has New
York's Highest Percentage of Gay Couples With Kids

New York City's same-sex couples who live in the Bronx are more likely to be raising children than those who live in any other borough of the city, according to a study released by the University of California, Los Angeles, Williams Institute and reported in The New York Times Tuesday.

While the city's northernmost borough is often thought of as more of the rough-and-tumble streetscape depicted in crime dramas such as Paul Newman's Fort Apache the Bronx, it has become home to 3,000 gay couples (a fraction of the borough's 1.3 million people), 49% of whom have children. The study estimates that about 26,000 same-sex couples in total live in the city, with most of them residing in more traditionally gay-friendly neighborhoods such as Manhattan's Chelsea and Brooklyn's Park Slope. Manhattan, for instance, houses 10,000 gay couples, but only about 4% of them have children according to the report.

Many gay parents say they have chosen to settle in the Bronx due to cheaper rent, more spacious apartments, racial affinity, and familiarity with the area. But Lisa Winters, executive director of the Bronx Community Pride Center, told the Times that problems still exist.

"The Bronx lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community has largely been a hidden community for a very long time because of very real homophobia," Winters said. "The Bronx is a very machismo borough, and it's a very religious borough. The religious institutions have a very strong foothold here, and they preach from the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin." (The Advocate)