I met with city officials today, and it was very briefly crushing. Basically, we realized that the best way for me to identify LGBT people is to tag along with trained enumerators, wait on pins and needles, and hope that the head of the household says yes when they ask if there are any LGBT people under their roof. And then I'd be like, CAN I TALK TO THEM!? and they would probably not be home, or the person would be like, no, or I would have fallen asleep by that point. So many possibilities for disaster.
But then I timidly was like, um, what about a snowball sample? and they were like, hey, we've got a dude here in our office who might be helpful and I was like, oh, no, that's not exactly what I meant. But they did, and he turned out to be incredibly friendly and helpful, and I've now got a variety of gay (and hopefully, lesbian) groups to talk to in the neighborhood, which will quickly indicate whether this project will be a smashing success or a train wreck.
If it's the latter, I hedged my bets by having coffee with approximately two dozen activists tonight. I was gladhanding and taking cards like the i-banker that I will never become, and it didn't feel dirty at all because I was doing it for Social Justice, so there.
No comments:
Post a Comment