Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

In June 2026, OUT Leadership released a State LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index. Pennsylvania ranked 21 out of 50. The rankings were made based on several factors, from laws related to bathroom access to restrictions on drag performances to state leadership scores and shield laws.

This is deplorable, but not really surprising. Before I jump into that analysis, let’s review the criteria from the index. USA Today summarized it thusly:

• Legal and non-discrimination protections (30 possible points): 25.00 points
• Youth and family support (35 possible points): 26.67 points
• Political and religious attitudes (30 possible points): 21.60 points
• Health access and safety (30 possible points): 17.50 points
• Work environment and employment (35 possible points): 23.00 points

State leadership was assessed by rating the Governor and State Attorney General.  Gov. Josh Shapiro scored a five. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday scored three.

I’m going to break this down based on my pov and information

Legal and non-discrimination protections are still almost non-existent in Pennsylvania. There are no statewide protections, leaving approximately 70% of our neighbors unprotected. What’s worse is that most people don’t know this. They think it’s illegal to fire someone for being gay. Even LGBTQ leaders are unclear on this. Allegheny County has protections in place, but does not fund a Human Relations office to investigate claims, relying on the City and State tax payers to fund their work.

This is a municipality by municipality effort. Kudos to the Pennsylvania Youth Congress for their leadership, but there are a lot of municipalities – over 2,555. If you dive into the data, you’ll see that Pennsylvania has lost ground in this score since 2024. Definitely troubling and likely connected to efforts in Franklin County to repeal their ordinance in 2022 and current efforts in Luzerne County. Those are dangerous precedents.

Pennsylvania’s general accomplishment is not being terrible while also not moving forward in anything but an incremental way. Statewide laws have lingered in the General Assembly session after session. The same General Assembly that has failed to codify court victories including second parent adoption and marriage equality.

We often win in court, but legislators shrug and say “meh” rather than get the things done. An important time to point out that if marriage equality falls (it will), Pennsylvania’s dormant ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ limiting marriage to opposite sex couples will immediately go into effect. No more marriages in PA or recognition of marriages performed where they are still legal.

I believe the federal government will dissolve existing marriages, just like they are breaking faith with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Birthright Citizenship. So Pennsylvania’s mediocre record will be devastating for many families.

Youth, especially trans youth, bear the brunt of Pennsylvania’s intolerance as school district after school district toss around their identities like dodge balls. Banning bathrooms, banning books – school boards flipping composition to change it back. It is ridiculous.

Health access and safety is right on spot with moves by UPMC to stop providing gender affirming care to children and other hospital systems cooperating with the feds on sharing information.

While I am grateful people are resisting and standing strong on the local level, that’s been true for over two decades. We aren’t gaining ground because of the State Legislature’s failure to move the needle. And our failure to move the state legislators.

There a brief time when the theme around marriage equality and nondiscrimination was tied to capitalism and creating fair workplaces – corporations were making location decisions in part on these laws because they were necessary to attract talented Millenial employees. It signaled a shift in generational perceptions, something that continues to be true among Generation Z and Alpha Generation. This manifests in slews of old white men clinging to their power even when that’s a disservice to constituents.

I see no real path forward from my position, but I’m a little preoccupied. I support if voters turn out in November and flip the State Senate, the DOMA could be repeated protecting a lot of people. But … those are some big if’s especially if the world is distracted by election misdeeds. Our incremental history to get this far doesn’t bode well for waiting for that leadership.

If that happened, we’d probably eventually get around to nondiscrimination protections on a statewide level and catch up to the rest of the Northeast.

But if we can’t flip the entire State Senate, then what? More plodding along. There’s only so many fronts Governor Shapiro can address.

Allegheny County is ruled by pragmatists so things like bolstering nondiscrimination protections are not likely to be a priority.

21 out of 50 is unacceptable, but ‘it could be worse’ feels like something to cling to these days. The Pirates are 17 out of 30. The Steelers are ranked 17/21 out of 30. Same with the Pens.

Mediocrity is not a good look, but it absolutely could be worse.

So please vote, but don’t buy into the vote shaming rhetoric from terrified moderates. Get involved in your LGBTQ+ community – find mutual aid spaces. Don’t rely on elected officials who have only shaved off the thinnest oppressions. And hurt a lot of people with things like the repeat of common law marriage.

We take care of us.