Fifty-nine percent of gay respondents to a new Rice University survey of LGBTQ+ Houstonians reported household incomes of $100,000 or more. Among transgender respondents, it was 34%.
Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research released the Houston Area L.O.V.E. Survey on Oct. 29, the day of a public release event at the Montrose Center. L.O.V.E. stands for LGBTQ+ Opinions, Voices & Experiences, and organizers call it the first community-wide survey of LGBTQ+ life in Greater Houston.
“Houston is home to one of the largest LGBTQ+ populations in the entire country, but we know very little about this population and the contributions they make to our broader community,” said Dan Potter, who directs Kinder’s Houston Population Research Center and led the project, in a Rice News release.
The survey ran from February to June. Of the 1,193 people who started it, 1,010 finished, and they came from more than 100 ZIP codes. Because people chose to take part, the researchers caution that the results don’t represent the region’s whole LGBTQ+ population. The full report calls it a pilot study.
Income, Savings and Promotions in the Houston L.O.V.E. Survey
Nearly half of all respondents said their households make $100,000 or more a year. Savings split along the same lines. Sixty-three percent of gay respondents had enough put away to cover three months of expenses, and 29% of trans respondents did.
Work was a different story. Nearly 6 in 10 respondents said invisible barriers slow their careers, and a third said they’ve felt they had to hide who they are at work to be accepted. More than 4 in 10 had heard hurtful jokes or comments about their LGBTQ+ identity on the job. And 44% said LGBTQ+ employees don’t get the same shot at promotion as equally qualified coworkers.
“Economic inclusion means having access to a good job, the opportunity to build and grow a business, a workplace where people can thrive, and the resources to create lasting financial security,” said Tammi Wallace, co-founder, president and CEO of the Greater Houston LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce.
“We want these findings to inform how employers recruit and support LGBTQ+ talent, how institutions invest in our community, and how policymakers address barriers to opportunity across the region,” she said.
Trans Houstonians Report Less Belonging and Harder Access to Health Care
Sixty-two percent of respondents said they feel they belong in their neighborhood. That rose to 71% for gay respondents and fell to about 4 in 10 for trans respondents. Fifty-seven percent said their neighborhood accepts LGBTQ+ people, compared with 40% of trans respondents.
Among people who needed a specialist, 67% said they could always get that care. For trans respondents, the number was 43%. Fewer than half of those seeking gender-affirming care could always get it. When people couldn’t get care, cost was the top reason, cited by 56%.
Avery Belyeu, CEO of the Montrose Center, said the numbers match what the center sees, especially among trans residents looking for care.
“What I hope this encourages our ecosystem to do in Houston is to get curious about why these numbers exist, and then secondarily to ask questions about what we’re going to do to fix that together,” Belyeu said. “Houston deserves better than what we’re seeing in the survey, particularly as it relates to health and well-being.”
School left a mark too. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they often heard anti-LGBTQ+ remarks in middle and high school. One-third said bad school experiences kept them from reaching all of their education goals.
Why Tammi Wallace Pushed for a Houston LGBTQ+ Survey
Wallace co-founded the chamber in 2016. She started pushing for the project in 2021 after realizing there was no comprehensive data on how queer Houstonians live and work, the Chron reported in February, when the survey launched.
Kinder had studied LGBTQ+ Houstonians before. In 2024 it reported that lesbian and bisexual Houstonians were more likely to have unmet mental health needs, but Rice noted then that the study didn’t collect data on transgender people.
“Rather than having to rely on estimates or approximations, there will be data that can be brought into these conversations,” Potter told the Chron in February.
Now there is a first set of numbers. “We are at the beginning,” Potter said Thursday. “More data are needed, more voices need to be heard.”
