In every one, cities are ahead of the curve in making life more welcoming-and more safe-for all residents regardless of sexuality or gender identity. Did you know that Norman, Oklahoma, population 124,086, scored higher than Baltimore, Maryland, a city that hasn’t voted to elect a republican presidential candidate since 1988? Maybe those divisions aren’t as deep as they seem. But in reality, using hard numbers provided by the Human Rights Campaign’s 2021 Municipal Equality Index to determine the most LGBTQ+ friendly city in each state that went for Donald Trump in 2020 can only help to strengthen the idea that we’re all in this together. What a time to be alive.īreaking things down into red states and blue states, especially at a time when the country is so politically and socially split, might seem like we’re reinforcing that ol’ problematic us vs.

But on the other hand, we’ve got powerful lawmakers coming out against LGBTQ+ rights at an alarmingly rapid clip, throwing around bills that threaten to destroy all the progress of the Civil Rights Movement with a single signature. On one hand, we’ve got swathes of motivated young elected officials and organizers committed to popping the over-inflated balloon of structural inequality by any means necessary.

The state of the LGBTQ+ nation-much like the state of the rest of the nation-is quite precarious these days.