As the LGBTQ+ community enjoys Pride Month in June, they also think back on a year full of court cases and more limits on their rights, especially those of transgender youth.
Out Leadership made a map for its 2024 equality report that shows, state by state, where LGBTQ+ rights are getting better and where they are getting worse. The group that fights for LGBTQ+ inclusion in business said that over the last year, equality rates went down in 22 states.
Out Leadership said that laws against transgender people caused a lot of the change. The Associated Press reported that Republicans in state government are working harder to pass laws that limit the bathrooms transgender students can use, the sports teams transgender players can play on, and the sex they can list on their driver’s licenses.
The AP says that at least 23 states have banned gender-affirming care for children and that 25 states have made it harder for transgender women and girls to play sports.
Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and North Dakota all saw big drops inequality over the past year, as shown on the map from Out Leadership.
So where does that leave us? The group Out Leadership said that transgender and gay people are not able to “fully and openly” work in dozens of states.
On a second map, the overall number for each state is shown. Green states are the most welcoming to LGBTQ+ people, while red states are the least welcoming. Legal protections, political and religious views, health care access, and fair treatment at work were some of the things that were used to judge each state.
Overall, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Vermont got the best scores. The worst scores were in Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
In the report’s six-year run, Arkansas got the worst score of all the states. The state stopped letting people choose “X” as their sex on driver’s licenses and state IDs earlier this year, but the new rule is still being challenged in court.