2026 State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index, Full Methodology

Version: 5-4-26 15.0 | Source workbook: 2026_State_LGBTQ_Business_Climate_Index 6.0.xlsx (with 2026 no-promo-homo rubric refinement applied to MS and OK in v13.0; charts and Economic Impact section refreshed against BEA 2025 annual state GDP in v15.0)

Overview

The 2026 State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index is the 8th annual edition published by Out Leadership. This year’s edition expands the framework from 20 to 32 indicators across 5 categories, providing a more comprehensive and nuanced assessment of each U.S. state’s LGBTQ+ business climate.

Every indicator is scored on a 1–5 scale (5 = most inclusive). The maximum raw score is 160 points (32 indicators × 5), normalized to a 0–100 scale for the final ranking. A legacy 20-indicator score (out of 100) is preserved alongside the expanded score for year-over-year comparison.

Scoring Architecture

The 20 Legacy Indicators

Legal / Non-Discrimination (4) - Birth Certificate Policy (MAP Equality Profile) - Driver’s License Policy (MAP Equality Profile) - Employment Non-Discrimination (MAP / HRC Legislative Tracker) - Other Non-Discrimination Protections, housing, public accommodations, credit (MAP Equality Profile)

Youth / Family (4) - Family Support, adoption, foster, parentage (MAP / Williams Institute) - Child/Youth Protections (MAP Equality Profile) - Conversion Therapy Ban (MAP / Chiles v. Salazar, 2026) - “No Promo Homo” / “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” Laws (MAP / GLSEN)

Political / Religious (4) - Governor (voting record, executive orders, public positions) - U.S. Senator 1 (HRC Congressional Scorecard) - U.S. Senator 2 (HRC Congressional Scorecard) - Religious Exemptions (MAP / NCSL)

Health / Safety (4) - Health Access, Medicaid, insurance mandates (MAP / KFF) - State Employee Coverage (MAP / HRC MEI) - Hate Crimes Protections (MAP / FBI UCR) - HIV Criminalization Reform (MAP / CDC)

Work / Economic (4) - Work Safety, workplace climate (Williams Institute) - Unemployment Differential (Williams Institute) - Food Insecurity Differential (Williams Institute) - Income Over $24K (Williams Institute / ACS)

The 12 New 2026 Indicators

Legal / Non-Discrimination (+2) - Bathroom/Facility Access, restrictions on transgender access to sex-segregated facilities (MAP / state legislation) - Drag Performance Restrictions, laws restricting drag performances, regardless of current judicial enforceability (NCSL / state legislation)

Youth / Family (+3) - Pronoun/Name Usage Rights, restrictions on student pronoun and name use in schools, with extension to state employment (NCSL / state education policy) - Library/Book Access, laws restricting LGBTQ+ content in libraries and schools, or protective legislation (ALA / PEN America) - Transgender Sports Participation Access, scope of trans athlete bans, including K–12 vs. higher education (MAP / Transathlete.com)

Political / Religious (+2) - DEI State Programs, state legislation restricting or protecting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (state executive orders, agency websites) - Attorney General Score, sitting AG’s LGBTQ+ litigation, amicus, and enforcement record (litigation tracking, federal court records, state government websites). See AG scoring methodology below.

Health / Safety (+2) - Adult Gender-Affirming Care Access, Medicaid coverage and statutory restrictions on adult GAC (MAP / state legislation) - Shield Laws, protections for patients and providers from out-of-state prosecution for gender-affirming care (MAP)

Work / Economic (+3) - SOGI Data Collection, inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity questions in state BRFSS surveys (Williams Institute / state agencies) - State as LGBTQ+ Employer, state government’s posture toward its own LGBTQ+ employees (MAP state-employee ND data, HRC SEI, state benefits handbooks) - Corporate-Policy Alignment, alignment or tension between state policy environment and corporate presence (HRC Corporate Equality Index + Fortune 500 headquarters data)

Category Maximums

Normalization

Normalized Score = (Raw Expanded Score ÷ 160) × 100

Both the legacy /100 (20 indicators) and the expanded /100 (32 indicators normalized) are reported side-by-side throughout the Index to preserve year-over-year comparability while providing a fuller picture of the current policy environment.

Attorney General Score, Methodology Detail

Raw scale: −10 (most pro-LGBTQ+) to +10 (most anti-LGBTQ+)

Conversion to 1–5:

Factors considered: state-level litigation record, multistate amicus briefs joined or led, enforcement of state nondiscrimination laws, public statements, executive policy positions, and any record of targeting corporations over LGBTQ+-supportive policies.

Corporate-targeting flag: Three AGs are flagged for direct corporate targeting on DEI / LGBTQ+-inclusive practices: Ken Paxton (TX), Todd Rokita (IN), James Uthmeier (FL).

2026 distribution: 16 score 5 | 6 score 4 | 4 score 3 | 3 score 2 | 21 score 1.

Corporate-Policy Alignment, Methodology Detail

A tension-gap measure that compares the state’s overall LGBTQ+ policy environment with its corporate footprint, using two public data sources:

1. Corporate density: Fortune 500 headquarters count per state.
2. Corporate LGBTQ+ inclusiveness: HRC Corporate Equality Index ratings; companies scoring 80+ on the CEI are credited as “LGBTQ+ inclusive” corporate presence in their HQ state.

Six classifications:

Rationale: States classified as High Tension create an unstable, contradictory business environment because major employers must operate under state policies that conflict with their internal LGBTQ+ workplace standards. This is the pattern that produces boycotts, relocations, shareholder pressure, and public confrontation.

“Don’t Say LGBTQ+” / No-Promo-Homo, Four-Tier Rubric

Beginning with the 2026 edition, the no-promo-homo indicator uses a four-tier rubric (refined from the prior binary 1/5 scale) to distinguish states with codified-but-dormant statutes from states with no historical statute at all:

Rationale: This refinement ensures that states which have allowed restrictive education laws to remain on their books are not credited with the same posture as states that have never enacted such laws or have affirmatively repealed them. Under the prior binary rubric, Mississippi and Oklahoma were credited with score 5 alongside Massachusetts and California, a result inconsistent with the underlying policy reality, since both Mississippi and Oklahoma retain pre-Lawrence-era statutes that explicitly restrict LGBTQ+-inclusive instruction.

Score impact (2026): Mississippi drops from 5 to 2 on this indicator (Youth & Family category total: 17.07 → 14.07; expanded normalized: 38.29 → 36.42; rank: #39 → #43). Oklahoma drops from 5 to 2 on this indicator (Youth & Family: 17.07 → 14.07; expanded normalized: 37.57 → 35.70; rank: #42 → #44). No other states are affected by the refinement, as the current 5-score cohort outside MS and OK either have no historical statute or have repealed/court-invalidated their statutes (which qualify them for score 4 or 3 respectively, the same pre-refinement effective scoring).

Disclosure language for the published Index: “Beginning with the 2026 edition, the ‘Don’t Say LGBTQ+’ / no-promo-homo indicator further distinguishes states with codified-but-dormant statutes (which retain anti-LGBTQ+ curriculum laws on the books even when not actively enforced) from states with no historical statute. This refinement is intended to ensure that states which have allowed restrictive education laws to remain on their books are not credited with the same posture as states that have never enacted such laws or have affirmatively repealed them.”

Conversion Therapy, Chiles v. Salazar Note

Chiles v. Salazar (March 31, 2026): The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that state bans on conversion “talk therapy” violate the First Amendment and must survive strict scrutiny. This effectively invalidated existing bans in 22 states + D.C.

The Conversion Therapy Ban indicator’s 2026 rubric scores states based on continued legislative intent and enforcement posture; states with bans on the books retain their score (5 = ban enacted) but are flagged in the dedicated Conversion Therapy Analysis sheet for vulnerability under post-Chiles litigation.

Year-Over-Year Comparability, Rubric Refinement Note

Some apparent year-over-year movement in state scores reflects scoring-rubric refinements rather than real-world legislative change. Specifically:

• 2025 rubric refresh: Birth-certificate gender-marker, driver’s-license gender-marker, and “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” / no-promo-homo indicators were rescored against currently enacted and enforceable laws rather than historical statutes.
• 2026 rubric refresh: The Conversion Therapy Ban indicator was updated following Chiles v. Salazar; the no-promo-homo indicator was further refined into a four-tier scale that distinguishes codified-but-dormant statutes (Mississippi, Oklahoma) from clean-break states (see “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” section); and the framework added 12 new 2026 indicators (Attorney General Score, Bathroom/Facility Access, Drag Performance Restrictions, Pronoun/Name Usage Rights, Library/Book Access, Transgender Sports Participation Access, DEI State Programs, Adult Gender-Affirming Care Access, Shield Laws, SOGI Data Collection, State as LGBTQ+ Employer, Corporate-Policy Alignment).

When comparing 2024, 2025, and 2026 scores, treat the 2025 scores as the first published under the refined birth-certificate, driver’s-license, and no-promo-homo rubrics, and treat the 2026 expanded scores as the first published under the 32-indicator framework.

Data Sources

Policy and Indicator Data

• Movement Advancement Project (MAP), state Equality Profiles; foundation for all 20 legacy indicators and several of the 12 new 2026 indicators. Data cutoff: April 15, 2026. URL: lgbtmap.org
• Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC), Corporate Equality Index (CEI) used as inclusiveness threshold (CEI 80+) for Corporate-Policy Alignment; Municipal Equality Index (MEI) and State Equality Index used for state-employee policies; Congressional Scorecard for Senator scoring. URL: hrc.org
• Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, Work-Safety, Unemployment-Differential, Food-Insecurity-Differential, Income-Over-$24K indicators; the 3% GDP-gain estimate that anchors the Economic Impact section. URL: williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu
• 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS), published 2024, lived-experience and workforce-outcome data on transgender Americans; National Center for Transgender Equality. URL: ustranssurvey.org
• American Library Association (ALA), book censorship attempts and challenges; 2024 baseline for the Library and Book Access indicator. URL: ala.org/bbooks/state-of-americas-libraries
• National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), legislative tracking for Drag Performance Restrictions, DEI State Programs, and Pronoun/Name Usage Rights indicators. URL: ncsl.org
• PEN America, book-ban tracking complementary to ALA. URL: pen.org
• Transathlete, state-by-state policies on transgender student-athlete participation. URL: transathlete.com
• GLSEN, research on LGBTQ+ youth in schools. URL: glsen.org
• KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation), state Medicaid policies and gender-affirming-care coverage. URL: kff.org
• FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes Protections indicator. URL: fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HIV surveillance and HIV-criminalization data. URL: cdc.gov/hiv
• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), legislative tracker; “Anti-LGBTQ+ bills tracked” counts in State CEO Briefs. As of May 5, 2026 data pull, ACLU tracked 518 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced across 42 states in the 2025–26 legislative cycle, led by Oklahoma (43), Missouri (39), West Virginia (39), and Tennessee (38). Local copy of the data pull saved in index_builder/data/ACLU_Anti_LGBTQ_Bills_2025_26.json. URL: aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights
• Federal court records (PACER, court opinions), Attorney General Score multistate amicus briefs and direct corporate-targeting actions. URL: pacer.gov
• State government websites and benefits handbooks, executive orders, agency policy statements, state employee benefits handbooks, AG published opinions, current officeholder data

Economic and Demographic Data

• Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), 2025 annual state GDP, released April 9, 2026 (Third Estimate of GDP, Industries, Corporate Profits, State GDP, and State Personal Income, 4th Quarter and Year 2025); current-dollar nominal figures used throughout the Economic Impact analysis. URL: bea.gov/data/gdp/gdp-state
• Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics; talent-replacement-cost baseline. URL: bls.gov/oes
• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS), demographic data and LGBTQ+ population estimates. URL: census.gov/acs
• Fortune 500, corporate-density input to Corporate-Policy Alignment indicator. URL: fortune.com/fortune500
• Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), industry-standard employee-replacement cost ratios (20% general / 213% executive). URL: shrm.org
• Gallup, LGBTQ+ identification polling, including 22%+ Gen Z figure. URL: gallup.com
• HRC employee-preference surveys, 76% Gen Z avoiding anti-equality states; 89% Millennials prioritizing LGBTQ+-inclusive healthcare. URL: hrc.org
• FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding) market research, 2024, 75% consumer-boycott figure; partnered with Out Leadership on State CEO Brief Regional Context analysis
• Associated Press; Visit Indy, case-study figures for North Carolina HB2 ($3.76B multi-year loss) and Indiana RFRA ($60M annual Indianapolis convention loss)

Methodological and Original Out Leadership Data

• Out Leadership Governor/Senator Codebook, original political-record coding (10 questions for governors, 6 for senators); draws on public records, voting databases, and HRC Congressional Scorecard
• Out Leadership Attorney General Coding, original coding of each state’s AG on -10 to +10 raw scale (converted to 1–5); litigation records, multistate amicus briefs, federal court filings, executive policy positions, public statements, corporate-targeting actions
• Ropes & Gray, pro bono legal review of all CEO Business Briefs; legal-precedent and statutory citations including Chiles v. Salazar (March 2026) and U.S. v. Skrmetti (June 2025)
• America Competes, Risk Assessment scoring methodology in State CEO Briefs (Future Risk score component)
• Gill Foundation, funded the original 2019 State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index; ongoing support
• Dr. Rachel Golden, 2026 methodology expansion contributor (12 new 2026 indicators framework)

Notes on Data Currency

• MAP, KFF, ALA, and other indicator data sources reflect policy and litigation status as of April 15, 2026.
• BEA state GDP data reflect the April 9, 2026 release of full-year 2025 figures (third estimate). Where state-level GDP for individual states reflects values not yet officially published in the BEA April 9, 2026 release, they are scaled from the most recent verified figures using BEA’s published 2025 U.S. nominal growth rate of approximately 5.0%. All economic figures are presented in current-dollar (nominal) terms.
• HRC CEI ratings reflect the most recent published cycle prior to the data cutoff.
• Out Leadership will issue a corrigendum if final BEA SQGDP1 state-level figures differ materially from the values shown, or if MAP issues a material data refresh after publication.

Workbook Structure (v6.0)

The source workbook contains 14 sheets including: Dashboard; 2025 vs 2026 YoY; 7-Year Trend; 2026 Expanded Rankings (32-indicator detail per state); 2026 Legacy Rankings (20-indicator detail per state); Bridge 2025-2026 (apples-to-apples 2025-vs-2026 legacy comparison); Movers & Drivers (rank-change decomposition for governor outreach); Legacy vs Expanded; per-category Expanded sheets (Legal-ND, Youth-Family, Political-Religious, Health-Safety, Work-Economic); Political Scores (Governor, Senator, AG); AG Scores with key actions; Conversion Therapy Analysis (post-Chiles state-by-state status); Methodology summary.

Version 6.0 Personnel Corrections (April 20, 2026)

• PA AG: Eugene DePasquale → Dave Sunday (R), sworn Jan 21, 2025
• MO AG: Andrew Bailey → Catherine Hanaway (R), sworn Sept 8, 2025 (Bailey → FBI)
• NJ Governor: Phil Murphy → Mikie Sherrill (D), sworn Jan 20, 2026
• VA Governor: Glenn Youngkin → Abigail Spanberger (D), sworn Jan 17, 2026
• 37 political-score corrections where raw-to-converted mapping had drifted from the published rubric.
• All category totals, Expanded /160, Normalized /100, and ranks were recalculated from corrected scores.