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The Human Rights Marketing campaign Basis, in partnership with the Equality Federation, has launched the most recent version of the State Equality Index, probably the most complete survey of state-level dedication to LGBTQ equality.
“The State Equality Index tells us the place we’ve got been and units the course for the place we need to go,” mentioned Kelley Robinson, President of the Human Rights Marketing campaign. “Final yr was probably the most damaging and harmful legislative session we’ve got ever seen for the LGBTQ+ neighborhood – significantly transgender youth. This yr, sadly, we anticipate extra of the identical. However these assaults are out of contact with the American folks – and they’re a shedding political technique. We’re the bulk, and we is not going to cease till we’re setting new information in help of LGBTQ+ folks in each nook of the nation.”
The SEI assesses statewide LGBTQ-related laws and insurance policies within the areas of parenting, non secular refusal and relationship recognition, non-discrimination, hate crime and prison justice, youth, and well being and security, and locations every state in one in all 4 classes: the highest-rated “Working Towards Progressive Equality,” wherein 20 states have been positioned; “Solidifying Equality,” wherein 5 states have been positioned; “Constructing Equality,” wherein two states have been positioned, and the lowest-rated “Excessive Precedence to Obtain Primary Equality,” wherein 23 states, together with Georgia, have been positioned.
Georgia acquired no full marks in any of the 9 classes, receiving solely partial credit score for employment protections and enumerated faculty anti-bullying insurance policies and no credit score for gender marker updates on identification paperwork, anti-conversion remedy, public lodging, transgender healthcare, schooling, housing, and hate crimes. Moreover, Georgia was discovered to have a number of anti-LGBTQ legal guidelines on the books, together with sodomy legal guidelines, HIV/AIDS criminalization legal guidelines, transgender exclusions in sports activities, faculty legal guidelines that criminalize youth, transgender exclusions in state Medicaid protection, and bans on gender-affirming look after transgender youth.
Nationwide, fewer states than ever fell into the “Solidifying Equality” and “Constructing Equality” classes, and payments limiting healthcare for not simply transgender youth however for transgender adults have additionally been launched and handed for the primary time. In 2023, 253 pro-equality payments have been launched and 50 signed into regulation, most of which protected well being and security, whereas 571 anti-equality payments have been launched and 77 signed into regulation, most of which focused LGBTQ youth.
“Opponents of equality don’t need the world to see what they’re doing—and so they actually don’t need it to be named discrimination,” the report reads. “That’s, nonetheless, what it’s. And but a yr full of heartache was additionally a yr wherein a multi-decade effort to incorporate LGBTQ+ protections in Michigan’s non-discrimination regulation lastly triumphed. 50 pro-equality payments handed this yr. Progress is just not linear, and setbacks are as widespread as they’re devastating. And but, we battle on—we battle on understanding that historical past, fashionable opinion, and justice are on our aspect.”
Learn the complete report right here.
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