Fifty years later, much has been accomplished, yet much still remains to be done. The landmark marriage equality ruling by the United States Supreme Court in 2015 allowed same-sex couples to marry nationwide, yet the federal government is arguing that employers should be allowed to legally fire LGBT people, and that adoption agencies should be able to keep kids in foster care rather than allow them to be adopted by qualified, loving, same-sex parents.
This primer highlights the major areas in which equality as advanced for LGBT people, as well as the continued legal barriers to fully participating in American life. It is no longer a crime to be gay, yet many LGBT people still experience discrimination when simply going about their daily lives—whether eating at a diner with their families or friends, trying to obtain safe and inclusive healthcare, or interacting with the criminal justice system. Just last month, MAP released a new map showing which states ban the use of so-called “gay panic” and “trans panic” defenses in court. These defenses are legal strategies in which a person who has committed a violent crime against an LGBT person will claim that the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity caused the attacker to commit the crime.
