WASHINGTON — If you live in D.C. or Maryland, then you're living among the best states with for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) rights. If you're living just a few miles south in Virginia, then you're living in one of the worst states for LGBTQ rights.
This is all according to a new survey from BestPlaces.net.
The organization looked a ten-factors in each state:
- Conversion Therapy (trying to change an individual's sexual orientation)
- Employment
- Education
- Gender Marker Updates On Identification Documents
- Hate Crimes
- Housing
- Marriage Equality & Other Relationship Recognition
- Public Accommodations
- School Anti-Bullying
- Transgender Healthcare
To produce the ranking, BestPlaces.net used a 10-point system.
For each issue that a state currently provides full legal support for, that gets one full point. If a state provides partial legal support for an issue, one-half of a point is given. No points are given where support is absent.
The company used a colored coded map to show the ranking. There were 14 states that got a score of eight or above. They are colored green on the map.
Six states (California, Connecticut, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Washington) and the District of Columbia support all ten of the categories, earning a top score of 10.
Other states, colored in yellow, are just a few steps away from completing the legal protection in the 10 categories being evaluated.
The remaining states, in red, give little to no support to the researched topics. Virginia falls in that category.
The states with the worst scores are Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.
