Despite Attacks Across the States, LGBTQ Americans Make Progress

In 2023, opponents of equality filed more than 660 anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures, and 80 were signed into law – from school censorship policies to bans on transgender healthcare. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a damaging ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis, allowing a business open to the public to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

However, bolstered by the support of the most pro-equality federal administration in history, LGBTQ Americans continued to make incremental progress. Michigan became the 23rd state to enact nondiscrimination protections for sexual orientation and gender identity, while Minnesota and Michigan became the 21st and 22nd states to ban conversion therapy for minors. In Washington state, LGBTQ advocates successfully defended the state’s conversion therapy ban up to the U.S. Supreme Court, upholding bans in 27 states and protecting nearly 2 million LGBTQ youth.

Here in our home state of Colorado, Governor Jared Polis signed a law preventing predatory lenders from evading the state’s limit on interest rates – marking the first state in more than 40 years to adopt such reforms. Thanks to the groundwork laid by Gill Foundation grantees, Colorado is now a national model for consumer protections.