New Report and PBS Series Document LGBTQ Equality in the U.S. South

This year, history was made for LGBTQ equality in the U.S. South when Virginia became the first state in the region to pass comprehensive statewide nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people. But when comparing the South to the progress made for equality throughout the United States, a grim picture emerges. While more than one in three LGBTQ adults call the South home, the South is the most hostile LGBTQ state policy landscape in the country.
Today, the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) released a new report, LGBTQ Policy Spotlight: Mapping LGBTQ Equality in the U.S. South, which details how a dearth of progressive laws and policies in 14 Southern states has led to distinct challenges along with unique opportunities for advancing legal equality for LGBTQ people in the region.
Today’s report is released in partnership with PRIDELAND, a new one-hour PBS special and short-form digital series following host and actor Dyllón Burnside (from FX’s “Pose”) on a journey across the South. From a lesbian rodeo champ in Texas to an African American mayor ally in Alabama, Dyllón discovers how LGBTQ Americans are finding ways to live authentically and with pride in the modern South. 
LGBTQ Policy Spotlight: Mapping LGBTQ Equality in the U.S. South explores the LGBTQ policy landscape in the South in relation to the overall LGBTQ policy landscape for all U.S. states and five U.S. territories, based on a tallying of nearly 40 LGBTQ-related laws and policies. Of the 14 states examined in the South, all but one are ranked as either negative equality states (eight states) or low equality states (five states). This means that 93% of LGBTQ Southerners live in negative or low equality states. Only Virginia is ranked as a fair equality state, a development that occurred in the first months of 2020 and marking a potential beginning of change in the South.
Click here to view infographics from LGBTQ Policy Spotlight: Mapping LGBTQ Equality in the U.S. South.
The report offers both an analysis of key LGBTQ policy areas in the region today, and a retrospective look at overall changes among the states in the South since 2010.