New report places Florida near the bottom of the list for states that are safest for LGBTQ+ residence

(Florida Welcomes You sign by Michael Rivera from Wikimedia Commons)

SafeHome.org has released its 2024 LGBTQ+ State Safety Report Cards and Florida has received an F, with a score of 47.5%, ranking it the second to last for LGBTQ+ safety out of all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

This year, SafeHome researchers added this new factor to their safety, “report card”: where they have determined the frequency of hate crimes committed against LGBTQ+ people in each state according to latest FBI data.

SafeHome’s state ranking is unique from others. The researchers based their grading system on the opinions of 1,000 American LGBTQ+ individuals. Based on said insights, the researchers have calculated how heavily different laws would weigh upon each state’s safety score: parenting freedoms, criminal justice rights, nondiscrimination rights, youth protection and health laws. Then, SafeHome uses information from the Human Rights Campaign, where they tallied how many laws each state had in the above categories and weighted them based on their perceived impact on LGBTQ+ Americans.

It was explained on the SafeHome website, that Florida has one of the worst legal environments and the state ranked dead last in participation rates for law enforcement agency crime reporting.

In another survey, conducted by DatingAdvice.com, the website surveyed over 1,000 LGBTQ+ Americans on their perspectives about where they live and analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data to see where the most LGBTQ+ households are located across the U.S.

“The majority of LGBTQ+ Americans (64%) surveyed believe it’s important to be out and proud in 2024. More than 3 in 5 (61%) wish their towns/cities were more LGBTQ+ friendly. For those living in rural areas, this desire increases to over 4 in 5,” the survey stated.

Another pivotal quote according to DatingAdvice.com, “Given that 38% of rural LGBTQ+ Americans surveyed have also felt unsafe in their towns relative to the national average of 30%, it would make sense that they wish their towns were more welcoming.”

States with the largest concentration of LGBTQ+ households were also represented on the site cited previously, the top 10 states with the highest percentages included Florida. Other states included were Delaware, Oregon, Vermont, Nevada, Hawaii, Massachusetts, California, Washington and New Mexico.

Last year, Florida was the 15th worse state in the SafeHome ranking, however newer and harsher legislation contributed to its plummeting safety score. In recent years, Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law has received strong media attention, with much dissatisfaction surrounding it’s attempts to prevent students and teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity.

The only state to fair worse than Florida was South Dakota, with its F rating the state finished with a score of 46.8%. SafeHome wrote that its legal landscape is more prone to anti-equality than pro-equality and has a relatively high rate of reported hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people. Joining Florida and South Dakota in the bottom five, all with an F rating, were Wyoming, with a score of 53.5%, Ohio, with a score of 53.7%, and Alabama, with a score of 55.8%.

On the contrary, what were some of the safest states for LGBTQ+ individuals? SafeHome ranked Rhode Island as number one, giving it a safety grade of an A+ and a score of 100%. The researchers stated that Rhode Island had the highest ranking out of all, because of the state’s numerous amounts of laws protecting LGBTQ+ rights and its low incidence of hate crimes. Rhode Island was notably one out of six states where every law enforcement agency reported crime data.

Rounding out the top five were New Hampshire with an A+ and a score of 98.3%, Delaware with an A+ and a score of 98.1%, Alaska with an A and a score of 93.5% and Hawaii with an A and a score of 92.5%.

More information on SameHome’s scoring criteria can be found at SafeHome.org/Data-LGBTQ-State-Safety-Rankings.

You can read the full conducted by DatingAdvice.com survey at DatingAdvice.com/Studies/LGBTQ-Community-Statistics.