New York comes in on top of 2023 Out Leadership State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index
NEW YORK -- This month of celebrating PRIDE is more than a celebration. It is also a visible pushback on more than 500 new anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation introduced this year in 46 states.
CBS2 has more on the rankings of a new state-by-state survey.
"I think our visibility now is very important," Harlem resident Natalie Massimi said.
The first day of PRIDE Month finds the LGBTQ+ community gearing up for an extended love fest and a lengthy fight.
They are grateful for each other and powerful allies, but feeling a growing hostility in corners of U.S. culture, politics, the law, and in business.
"It seems like it's trying to go backwards and it's up to us to know that it's worth fighting for," Hell's Kitchen resident Randy Witherspoon said.
"We've made a lot of progress, but I feel like we're starting to lose a little bit of it. But we can always get it back," Massimi added.
FLASHBACK: New York tops fourth annual State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index from Out Leadership
Just released is an annual report on equality -- the 2023 Out Leadership State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index.
It features state-by-state snapshots, with all of them ranked.
New York tops off the list as the most equitable state with a score of 93.6 out of 100.
Todd Sears is founder and CEO of Out Leadership.
"There are still some trans protections that are missing, especially around health care, and it's more of an average as well. I don't think any of the states will ever have an absolute perfect score of the New York has had the highest for the last three years," Sears said.
Of the bottom five states, Arkansas is dead last for LGBTQ+ support with a score of only 32 out of 100.
Sears told CBS2 about the areas that can lower a state's scores.
"Can trans people change their birth certificates or their driver's licenses and what has the governor specifically said. What laws have been passed or rejected. Health and family services. Can people have health care. Is HIV criminalized," Sears said. "And all of those laws and all of those challenges have a direct impact on the lives and livelihood of LGBTQ people and their families."
Sears describes PRIDE as a time for this community to pause and celebrate and hit the reset button.
"The further back they try to pull back our rights we're going to slingshot forward and surpass where we were before," Sears said, adding when asked what's in the win column for the LGBTQ+ community, "The progress we have made in the last 20 years is astronomical. We have made massive progress and we have so many more allies than before, and that's how we're gonna get through this together."
He said this PRIDE month is all about galvanizing a community to step up, tell its story, and be counted.
Overall, the average score across the U.S. ticked down for the first time in five years, coming in at 63.48 out of 100.