Together, but separate: neighborhood-scale patterns and correlates of spatial segregation between male and female same-sex couples in Melbourne and Sydney

Considerable research has examined the relationships between queer communities and the city, particularly within a qualitative, North American context. This paper provides the first quantitative treatment of the spatial patterning of male and female same-sex couples in Australia’s two largest urban centers, examining differences between the two groups and their potential drivers. Male and female same-sex couples are shown to concentrate in distinct regions of Melbourne and Sydney that are segregated from each other, but nonetheless geographically close: together, but separate. Spatial regression analyses provided an incomplete explanation of these patterns. A number of factors were identified, endogenous and exogenous to the same-sex couple community, which provide a potential explanatory framework for explaining the aggregation of these groups. Very little emerges from this analysis which explains segregation for these groups. The ultimate etiology of segregation between male and female same-sex couples in Melbourne and Sydney remains elusive.