Commentary

Everyone is talking about the race for the White House. Don’t forget about state elections.

Everyone is talking about the race for the White House. Don’t forget about state elections.

The Human Rights Campaign released its annual State Equality Index, a comprehensive state-by-state review of statewide legislation and policies impacting equality.

Illustrated below are the latest 2019 figures leading up to the 2020 election–divided by blue states, red states, and projected battleground states–delineating the reasons to vote for Joe Biden & Kamala Harris.

Related: Voting deadlines, registration & what’s at stake for LGBTQ voters in 2020

The categories for the HRC’s state legal protections include anti-conversion therapy, employment and housing discrimination, gender marker updates on identification documents, hate crimes, anti-bullying laws, transgender healthcare, and marriage equality.

Visit the HRC’s state scorecards for a more in-depth breakdown of state-by-state laws.

*Data from HRC’s State Equality Index.

*Data from HRC’s State Equality Index.

Of the 20 red states that have partial LGBTQ legal protections, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota only support marriage equality as mandated by the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges.

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