Here Are the 5 Safest States for LGBTQ+ Americans

Featured image: Family at San Francisco Pride 2025. Photo by Meera Fox/Getty Images

A new safety analysis has graded all 50 states and Washington, D.C., on just how safe they are for LGBTQ+ people.

Thirteen states received an A grade overall for LGBTQ+ safety, but six states received Fs because of their anti-LGBTQ+ laws and hate crime rates against LGBTQ+ people, according to SafeHome.org, which provides research on the latest home and personal safety products. 

SafeHome.org surveyed more than 1,000 LGBTQ+ people to come up with certain criteria that queer people said made them feel safe. The group also assessed legislation as well as hate crime statistics. All that data was used to create the final ranking. 

SafeHome.org gave each state a letter grade and a number grade.

“The top of our rankings tells a clear story: the safest states have built robust legal protections across the board and maintained low rates of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes. Every state in our top five scored strongly in the law categories our respondents found most critical (non-discrimination protections, health and safety laws, and criminal justice reforms), while carrying virtually no anti-equality legislation,” the group said.

The five safest states for queer Americans

5. Maine (A, 94.4)
The Pine Tree State spent 2025 defending its already robust legal frameworks for LGBTQ+ residents. Maine’s lawmakers shot down a slate of LGBTQ+ bills, including an anti-trans sports ban and an attempt to strip gender identity from the state’s human rights act.

4. Colorado (A, 94.5)
Colorado has the strongest legal framework for LGBTQ+ people in the nation by raw numbers, according to SafeHome.org. It scored at or near the maximum in every pro-equality category. Last year, the state passed the Kelly Loving Act, which created anti-discrimination safeguards for transgender people and simplified gender-marker changes on legal identification. The reason it didn’t rank higher is due to local hate crimes. It also has HIV-related sentence enhancements for certain criminal charges. 

3. Hawaii (A, 94.7)
Hawaii’s exceptionally low rate of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes pushed it into the top three. The state has no history of criminalizing same-sex relationships, and its culture of inclusivity runs deeper than statute, as SafeHome.org noted. The state’s tradition of “mahu,” a recognized third-gender identity in Native Hawaiian culture, is older than Western contact by centuries. Hawaii’s laws are also very pro-equality.

2. Illinois (A, 94.9)
Illinois has a history of progressive politics. In 1962, the Prairie State became the first to decriminalize homosexuality — that’s more than a decade before most. Though the state has the most religious refusal policies of other A-graded states and its hate crime rate falls in the middle of the states, its overall protections, particularly in the categories our respondents rated most important, overwhelms those drawbacks,” SafeHome.org said.

1. Nevada (A+, 95.8)
Maybe an unexpected No. 1, but Nevada claims the only A+ grade in the entire rankings. Why? Well, in 2022, Nevada voters amended the state constitution to enshrine protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. That made Nevada one of only a handful of states with state-constitutional-level protections.

“What stands out about Nevada is its consistency. It scores high across every pro-equality category (non-discrimination, parenting, criminal justice, youth protections) and has virtually no anti-equality laws. Pair that legislative strength with a relatively low hate crime rate and strong law enforcement reporting (93 percent of agencies submit data to the FBI), and you get a state with remarkable safety standards for LGBTQ+ residents,” the group said.

The bottom-ranked states for LGBTQ+ safety

At the bottom of the rankings, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee all received failing grades due to a combination of few or no pro-equality protections with significant anti-LGBTQ+ legislation passed.

Across the country, safety is more and more a concern for LGBTQ+ Americans. SafeHome.org noted that it found that 89% of queer adults believe the Trump administration will pass new anti-LGBTQ+ federal laws, and only a little more than half believe their state’s laws will protect them. Almost 30% said they had considered moving out of their state to one with better safeguards.