Report cards aren’t just for students, it turns out: Cities get them, too. And this year, Atlanta can be proud of its top marks. The city earned a perfect 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index, which tracks LGBTQ+ inclusion and protections across 506 cities and towns nationwide.
For Malik Brown, who directs the LGBTQ+ Affairs Division in the Atlanta Mayor’s Office, the perfect score is a sign that his office’s work is paying off. “Atlanta is a super inclusive city, but we always want to be raising the bar,” Brown said. It’s also a win for Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who has been vocal about his support for LGBTQ+ Atlantans. “Inclusivity is not just a goal for Atlanta; it’s part of our identity,” Dickens said in a statement about the MEI report last month. “We proudly stand as the LGBTQ capital of the South.”
Human Rights Council, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization founded in 1980, has been measuring cities’ support for their queer and transgender residents for the last twelve years. The report includes cities and towns of varying sizes, selected from all fifty states. HRC grades municipalities on five criteria: non-discrimination laws, policies towards municipal employees, LGBTQ-oriented services and programs, law enforcement and leadership on LGBTQ+ equality.
The City of Atlanta earned a perfect 100 percent for LGBTQ-inclusive policies like transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits, bans on discrimination in housing and employment and having an official LGBTQ+ liaison to the Atlanta Police Department. They earned an extra 16 bonus points for “flexes” like having openly LGBTQ elected officials, city services for queer youth and single-occupancy all-gender restrooms.
The perfect score wasn’t a total surprise: Atlanta’s earned 100 percent since HRC first launched the Municipal Equality Index in 2011, though this is the highest score ever with bonus points included. The consistent top marks are thanks to a string of inclusively-minded mayors, says Brown, who has helmed the Mayor’s LGBTQ+ Affairs Division since Keisha Lance Bottoms established the office in 2016.
“My role is fairly new and unique, but we’ve really benefited from the groundwork laid by previous mayors,” Brown said.
Many LGBTQ-inclusive policies, like benefits for employees in domestic partnerships and healthcare coverage for the HIV-prevention drug PrEP, existed before Brown arrived. Other policies are more recent. For example, Mayor Bottoms created over a hundred all-gender restrooms in 2021, a policy originally drafted and promoted by the Human Rights Campaign.
Having a policy on the books doesn’t guarantee inclusion, of course. “We’re not naïve; we know that updating a document [to be more inclusive] isn’t going to do all the work,” said Brown, speaking about recent changes to the Atlanta Police Department’s Standard Operating Procedures regarding respectful interactions with transgender people. “We’re also talking about how we actualize this, how we operationalize it.” The city has worked LGBTQ+ inclusion into police training curricula and has started running cultural sensitivity training with local shelter operators to address the endemic mistreatment of transgender women experiencing homelessness.
Part of the purpose of the LGBTQ+ Affairs Division — the only office of its kind in the Southeast — is to ensure that well-intentioned policies translate into meaningful support for the LGBTQ+ community. “When you have someone in this dedicated role who can really focus on LGBTQ+ inclusion full-time, with a team behind them, I think you get more depth than when it’s a liaison from another department focused on this work maybe twenty percent of the time,” Brown explained.
This year, as part of Mayor Dickens’ “Year of the Youth” initiative, Brown’s office ran a host of programs for young LGBTQ+ Atlantans, including a Youth Pride summit with free professional headshots and LinkedIn workshops and launched an LGBTQ+ youth mentorship pilot that pairs LGBTQ+ youth and adults. “That’s been our focus this year,” Brown said. “Really making sure that LGBTQ+ youth have the resources to equip them for success.”
And while the City of Atlanta may be a national leader in LGBTQ+ equality, the city’s progressive stance is limited by the conservative state to which it belongs. In HRC’s 2022 State Equality Index, a similar report that assesses LGBTQ+ inclusion state by state, Georgia received the lowest of four possible grades. The state has few laws protecting LGBTQ+ Georgians from discrimination, and the legislature recently passed restrictions on transgender youth access to gender-affirming healthcare. Last year, the Georgia High School Association voted to ban transgender high schoolers from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
“Atlanta is limited in its influence down at the state Legislature,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, a statewide advocacy organization for LGBTQ+ Georgians. “That’s why, as a statewide organization, we are also really focused on mobilizing local communities and voters outside of Atlanta to push back against discrimination.”
To Graham, Atlanta’s sterling record in the Municipal Equality Index reflects decades of hard work by city officials and local activists. “It really is a testament to the work of activists over a long period of time to make sure that Atlanta is really an example for other municipalities,” he said.
Graham noted, though, the really dramatic growth in LGBTQ+ inclusion statewide is happening outside of Atlanta. “Scores have increased dramatically over the last several years in other municipalities in Georgia,” Graham said. Athens, which earned a score of 85 percent, and Augusta (62 percent) recently passed anti-discrimination ordinances, while Savannah (80 percent) has elected new openly-LGBTQ+ officials, all of which led to increased scores.
“That’s the real power of the MEI,” Graham said, “That it creates a roadmap for local officials to see the sort of policies they should put in place to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ people.” At a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under threat statewide, Graham notes, local municipalities play a pivotal role in supporting and protecting their queer and transgender residents.
The work isn’t done in Georgia or Atlanta. Graham would like to see the City of Atlanta seriously address the housing crisis, which is putting increased pressure on vulnerable LGBTQ+ communities like those experiencing homelessness, those with HIV/AIDS and seniors. As for Brown, he’s already eyeing programs for next year, including a focus on LGBTQ+ elders, promoting LGBTQ-owned small businesses and reducing violence against LGBTQ+ Atlantans. And with more anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being forecast for the 2024 Georgia legislative session, the City of Atlanta and organizations like Georgia Equality are already planning their strategy to fight for the rights of queer and transgender Georgians.
“We want the policies that got Atlanta a perfect score to be a floor, not a ceiling,” Graham said. “So we can keep this work going to support the great diversity of LGBTQ+ communities that exist within the city of Atlanta.”
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