LGBTQ rights in the United States
On the 26th of June 2003, the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that intimate consensual sexual conduct is part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision explicitly overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, a 1986 ruling that had found sodomy laws to be constitutional. Before this landmark moment, same-sex sexual activity was illegal in fourteen U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. military. The journey toward decriminalization began much earlier when Illinois became the first state to repeal its sodomy law in 1962. Following Illinois, Connecticut legalized such activity in 1971, while Colorado and Oregon followed suit in 1972. By the time the Supreme Court issued its final ruling in 2003, twenty-nine states, the District of Columbia, and five territories had already repealed their state sodomy laws through legislative action. Despite the federal ruling, some states have not formally repealed these statutes. Twelve states still retain laws against sexual activity among consenting adults or have failed to revise them to reflect the true scope of the Lawrence decision. In Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, nine states' statutes purport to ban all forms of sodomy regardless of gender. Three states specifically target their statutes at same-sex relations only: Kansas, Kentucky, and Texas. Researchers have shown that repealing these laws led to a decline in arrests for disorderly conduct, prostitution, and other sex offenses. These repeals also correlated with reductions in arrests for drug and alcohol consumption, supporting the hypothesis that removing such laws enhanced mental health and lessened minority stress.
On the 17th of May 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage following a Supreme Judicial Court decision made six months earlier. This event marked the beginning of a movement that would eventually lead to nationwide recognition. Before nationwide legalization, same-sex marriage became legal in thirty-six states through court orders, legislative actions, or referendums. On the 26th of June 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that states must license and recognize same-sex marriages. Consequently, same-sex marriage is now legal in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands. Currently, same-sex marriages are recognized in American Samoa due to the Respect for Marriage Act. The legal status varies within Native American tribal nations because their reservations are sovereign entities not affected by the 2015 ruling. Prior to nationwide marriage equality, fifteen U.S. states had civil unions or domestic partnerships. Vermont was the first state to allow same-sex unions in July 2000. Ten of these states retain those laws as a continued choice for couples. Adoption rights also evolved significantly after Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples are allowed to adopt in states and territories following this ruling. Prior to 2015, various states had already allowed joint adoption by same-sex couples through legislative and judicial action. Naturalized U.S. citizens whose biological children are born abroad may still face challenges obtaining citizenship for their children even if their spouse is also a U.S. citizen. This disproportionately affects same-sex couples since typically only one spouse is biologically related to the child. In October 2020, the United States Department of State withdrew its appeal of the verdict in Kiviti v. Pompeo regarding citizenship for children born overseas to married same-sex American citizen couples.
From 1988 to 2009, support for recognized same-sex marriage increased between 1% and 1.5% per year before accelerating thereafter. Support rose above 50% in Pew Research Center polling for the first time in 2011. A 2022 Grinnell College National Poll found that 74% of Americans agree that same-sex marriage should be a guaranteed right while 13% disagree. According to General Social Survey data, support for same-sex marriage among 18, 34 year olds is near-universal. Jeremiah Garretson wrote in 2018 that the transformation of America's response to homosexuality has been one of the most rapid and sustained shifts in mass attitudes since public polling began. A 2021 Public Religion Research Institute poll found majority support in forty-seven states, ranging from 50% in South Carolina to 85% in Massachusetts. Only Arkansas and Mississippi had majority opposition at that time. When PRRI repeated the poll in 2022 and 2023, no state had majority opposition. A 2022 Quinnipiac University poll found 68% support nationwide. Gallup's 2022 and 2023 polls found 71% support, though this dropped to 69% in 2024. In 2024, the PRRI found that support for same-sex marriage and LGBTQ discrimination protections is inversely correlated with Christian nationalism. Two 2025 Gallup polls indicated that support for LGBTQ+ rights was polarizing along party lines. The first poll found that 88% of Democrats and 76% of independents supported same-sex marriage, but only 41% of Republicans did. The second poll showed that 69% of Americans, 90% of Republicans, 72% of independents, and 41% of Democrats supported laws requiring transgender athletes to participate in sports aligned with their assigned sex at birth. Sixty-six percent of Americans, 89% of Republicans, 66% of independents, and 38% of Democrats supported laws requiring assigned sex at birth on government documents like driver's licenses and passports.
In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sexual orientation and gender identity are included under 'sex' as a prohibited ground of employment discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This ruling impacts other federal civil rights barring sex discrimination in education, health care, housing, and financial credit. Explicit and comprehensive anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity have been proposed by Congress under the Equality Act. The bill passed the House by a vote of 236, 173 on the 17th of May 2019, but stalled in the Senate. It was reintroduced by the 119th Congress on the 29th of April 2025. During the 2024 United States presidential election, The Heritage Foundation outlined legislation for Project 2025 calling for a large rollback of LGBTQ rights. Shortly after his inauguration in 2025, President Trump signed an executive order ordering non-enforcement of discrimination laws for gender identity and sexual orientation. Twenty-four states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and over 140 cities and counties have enacted bans on discrimination based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity. In 1995, President Bill Clinton's Executive Order 12968 established criteria for security clearances that included sexual orientation for the first time. Clinton's Executive Order 13087 in 1998 prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in the competitive service of the federal civilian workforce. On the 21st of July 2014, President Obama signed Executive Order 13672 adding 'gender identity' to categories protected against discrimination in hiring for the federal civilian workforce. As of the 15th of June 2020, all persons working for public employers with more than fifteen people are protected from discrimination based solely on sexual orientation or gender identity via Bostock v. Clayton County. At least twenty-two states and many major cities have enacted laws prohibiting housing discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
From the 11th of April 2022 to the 21st of January 2025, American passports gave sex/gender options of male, female, and X by self-determination. Since January 2025, trans and non-binary people have been prevented from altering their gender markers on passports despite a court ruling to the contrary. An executive order signed in the first hours of President Trump's second administration defined sex as binary for all purposes of the federal government. This removed federal recognition of non-binary genders and is expected to prevent changes by transgender individuals. Different procedures exist for legal name changes and gender marker changes on birth certificates, driver's licenses, social security identification, and passports. Many states require gender reassignment surgery to change names and gender markers. Tennessee will not change the sex on a birth certificate at all under any circumstances. As of June 2025, all U.S. States except Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida allow the gender marker to be changed on a driver's license. On the 1st of July 2023, Kansas Senate Bill 180 mandated that gender markers on birth certificates and driver's licenses reflect a person's sex at birth. In January 2024, Florida banned changing the gender marker on driver's licenses with criminal and civil penalties for misrepresentation. In May 2015, six Michigan transgender people filed Love v. Johnson challenging the state's policy requiring matching information between driver's licenses and birth certificates. The plaintiffs were represented by the American Civil Rights Union. Judge Nancy Edmunds denied the State of Michigan's motion to dismiss the case in November 2015. From 2022 to 2025, the U.S. federal government recognized a third gender option on passports. Other countries including Australia, New Zealand, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Germany, Malta, and Canada have begun recognizing this.
According to the ACLU, in 2023 alone over five hundred anti-LGBTQ bills were submitted in the US, one hundred thirty of which were about healthcare. Efforts to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors had begun several years earlier but did not receive much attention until more recently. The conservative organization Do No Harm developed model legislation appearing starting in 2022 in Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, and West Virginia legislatures. On the 18th of June 2025, the US Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Skrmetti that bans on gender-affirming care for minors were constitutional. As of August 2025, twenty-seven states had enacted some form of ban on gender-affirming care for minors, nineteen of which were enacted in 2023. Sixteen of these bans are being challenged in court as of January 2024. Only twenty-one of the twenty-seven states have complete bans fully in effect. Four states have only partial bans and two are currently blocked from taking effect. In May 2024, Tennessee became the first state to prohibit helping a child access gender-affirming care without parental consent. Many Democrat-controlled states have enacted laws protecting access to gender-affirming care called 'shield' laws. These laws protect both providers and patients from punishment and act as sanctuary states. As of June 2025, seventeen states and the District of Columbia have enacted shield laws. Approximately one point six million Americans are transgender with about three hundred thousand under age eighteen. As of October 2023, approximately one hundred five thousand two hundred transgender youth aged thirteen to seventeen lived in states where gender-affirming care is banned for minors. Around one hundred forty-six thousand seven hundred transgender youth live in states that passed shield laws supporting access to care.
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Common questions
When did the Supreme Court rule that intimate consensual sexual conduct is part of liberty in Lawrence v. Texas?
The Supreme Court ruled on the 26th of June 2003 that intimate consensual sexual conduct is part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision explicitly overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, a 1986 ruling that had found sodomy laws to be constitutional.
Which state became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage and when did this occur?
Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage on the 17th of May 2004 following a Supreme Judicial Court decision made six months earlier. Same-sex marriage is now legal in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands after the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling on the 26th of June 2015.
What percentage of Americans supported same-sex marriage according to Gallup polls in 2024?
Gallup's 2024 poll found 69% support for same-sex marriage among Americans. Previous polls from 2022 and 2023 indicated 71% support before dropping to 69% in 2024.
When was sexual orientation and gender identity included under sex as a prohibited ground of employment discrimination?
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the 15th of June 2020 that sexual orientation and gender identity are included under 'sex' as a prohibited ground of employment discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This ruling impacts other federal civil rights barring sex discrimination in education, health care, housing, and financial credit.
How many states had enacted bans on gender-affirming care for minors by August 2025?
As of August 2025, twenty-seven states had enacted some form of ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Nineteen of these bans were enacted in 2023 alone.