Also makes me think about the classism one finds in so many stories of queer city life - just as the poorest urban members of the community are invisibilized, working class and poor members in rural areas are too, perhaps doubly so.

I so completely agree with everything they and you are saying about needing to expand our lenses to include the country as a whole. I also kind of want to yell my usual "attitudinal fallacy is only a fallacy if you consider rhetoric to not itself be action" bit at at Mr. Gates for the whole "if people aren't literally dying all the time rampant prejudice doesn't count as much" thing. "Quietly, if not comfortably" really doesn't sound paradisiacal to me. Both positive, strong community-building and restriction can coexist, and in fact, the latter can often strengthen the former. Not having read the book, I don't want to push back on all of this--I think they're probably right about it!-- but I wish the data interpretation in this passage was more rigorous and drew clearer lines between revelation of things that have existed all along and indication of change.