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A San Francisco address that was once the site of a pre-Stonewall transgender uprising has been added to the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of historic sites, buildings, and objects in the United States.
The National Park Service added the building at 101-102 Taylor St. in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood to its official list of historic U.S. places worthy of preservation on January 27, without any public statement or press release, The Bay Area Reporter first reported.
The address was the location of Compton’s Cafeteria in the 1960s. One night in August 1966, a riot broke out at the 24-hour eatery between its trans and queer patrons and police officers after a drag queen threw a cup of coffee at a cop who was trying to arrest her. The café’s windows were shattered and a police car destroyed amid the protest against police harassment, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
The site is likely the first landmark to be registered specifically for its connection to the history of the transgender community, trans scholar and historian Susan Stryker, whose 2005 documentary Screaming Queen details the riot, told The Bay Area Reporter.
“There is Stonewall and sites connected to individual people like Pauli Murray, who was nonbinary,” Stryker noted. “But this is the first thing put on the register specifically because of its connection to the history of the transgender movement.”
Madison Levesque, an architectural historian with the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, first submitted a request for the site to be added to the national registry in 2022 as part of their master’s thesis in public history.
“Today, the Compton’s Cafeteria riot is remembered as a turning point towards militant resistance in the LGBTQ, and particularly transgender, community,” Levesque wrote in their 2022 application. “The property is significant at the national level because of its influence on the future political and social representation of transgender and gender-variant people within the United States.”
Stryker, whose work informed Levesque’s initial application and a revised version submitted late last year, credited Levesque with making the registration happen.
Historian and historic preservation planner Shayne Watson said that the news was “something to celebrate” amid the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on transgender rights. In just his first two weeks in office, President Donald Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders intended to further marginalize transgender Americans.
Earlier this week, the National Parks Service removed the letters T and Q from the “LGBTQ+” initials on its website for New York City’s Stonewall National Monument, effectively erasing trans, queer, and gender-nonconforming people’s leading role in the 1969 uprising that is widely recognized as the beginning of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. The move appears to be an effort to comply with Trump’s executive orders prohibiting any federal recognition of trans people in any aspect of civic life.
The hubs and duds of queer life in modern America have been revealed, thanks to a report from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The good news: wherever you are, you’re not alone. Overall, 14.1 million people reported that they “identify as LGBT” between 2020 and 2021, making up a significant portion of the population at 5.6 percent. By state, there wasn’t a single area with an LGBTQ+ population of less than 4 percent.
However, compared to others, some states still have less than half as many queer people proportionally.
While the report did not give any reasoning as to why some states have larger LGBTQ+ demographics than others, the states with the lowest percentages of queer people all but one have pushed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation this year.
Here are the states with the smallest queer communities, and the legislation facing them.
5. South Carolina (Tie)
South Carolina’s 192,800 LGBTQ+ adults account for 4.9 percent of the state’s population. There were 32 anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed this year, according to the ACLU’s legislation tracker, with one passed into law — an extreme ban against gender-affirming care for youth, as well as requiring school staff forcibly out them to their guardians.
5. North Dakota (Tie)
North Dakota’s LGBTQ+ population also accounts or 4.9 percent of its overall population, but their queer community is fewer in number, with 28,400 members. There were no anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed this year in the state, which pushed 17 anti-LGBTQ+ bills last year, 10 of which became law.
4. Iowa
Iowa‘s 113,600 LGBTQ+ adults account for 4.7 percent of the population. 37 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been considered in the state in 2024, four of which passed — including religious exemptions for discrimination.
3. Alabama
Alabama has 173,000 LGBTQ+ people, making up 4.6 percent of the population. Four anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been proposed in the state this year one of which passed that forces universities to implement trans bathroom bans.
2. North Carolina
North Carolina‘s LGBTQ+ population accounts for 4.4 percent of the state’s population, with 353,100 people. There were six anti-LGBTQ+ bills proposed in the state, none of which have yet been defeated or advanced.
1. Mississippi (Tie)
Mississippi’s 93,300 LGBTQ+ adults account for 4.1 percent of the population. There were 23 anti-LGBTQ+ bills been proposed in the state this year, four of which passed. The laws include a ban against trans people using the public facilities that align with their identities, and a legal redefinition of gender that incorrectly conflates it to biological sex.
1. West Virginia (Tie)
West Virginia’s LGBTQ+ community also accounts for 4.1 percent of the population, but their 60,000 queer adults are less in number than Mississippi. West Virginia has considered 33 anti-LGBTQ+ bills this year, one of which passed — enacting barriers to accurate legal identification.
Takeaways
The states with the fewest queer people are also some of the states proposing the most anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
While there is no data (yet) around mass queer exoduses from these states, some could be moving to avoid legislation. Others may not feel comfortable coming out for census data.
And while it may not seem as if the South is a popular place for LGBTQ+ people, by raw population, the region actually has the largest percentage of queer adults. The 5.2 million LGBTQ+ people in southern states account for 36.9 percent of the queer people in the U.S.
While we may not be the majority, LGBTQ+ people across the country have an enormous and undeniable presence wherever they call home.
Since 2020, there has been a growing legislative attack on transgender people, and particularly on transgender youth. This includes a growing number of bills (and now laws) that explicitly require school staff—and in some cases, any government or public employee—to out transgender youth to their families, often without regard for whether doing so might put the child at risk of harm. Importantly, however, these laws vary in their actual requirements, as shown below. Click the “Citations & More Information” orange button for more detail.*Notes: –States with a caution icon have policies that vary, but generally have vague requirements to notify parents about any “health” or behavioral concern, but that do not make any explicit mention of gender or gender identity. Because these laws could be broadly interpreted and used to target both transgender youth and LGBTQ youth in general, these may contribute to a hostile school climate for LGBTQ youth even without explicitly requiring forced outing. Note that laws that require general parental access to student records are redundant of existing federal law, and so are not included here. See the “Citations” tab or click “Citations & More Information” beneath the map legend for more detail on each state’s policy.
–Note, Nevada’s policy is via regulation, not legislation. –Note, Utah’s law applies only to official changes to a student’s education records (e.g., their gender marker or name officially noted on their record), not daily interaction with the student (e.g., conversational use of preferred name/pronouns). –Note, Virginia’s policy is via agency policy, not legislation or regulation. However, state law requires school districts to adopt this model policy—though there has been resistance, and so implementation or enforcement may vary across the state. See “Citations & More Information” for more detail.
State law forces the outing of transgender youth if they make specific disclosures or requests about their gender identity to school staff (5 states) – Dark Orange
State law requires forced outing of transgender youth, but only if parents ask school staff for the information (2 states) – Medium Orange
State law requires forced outing of transgender youth before school staff can use a student’s preferred name/pronouns, but a student’s mere request to use a different name or pronouns does not itself require forced outing (7 states) – Light Orange
State law does not force the outing of transgender youth in schools (36 states , 5 territories + D.C.) – Yellow
State does not force outing but may contribute to hostile school climate (see note beneath map) (4 states)
The following is a letter I sent to President Trump in response to his comments about gender on day one of taking Office. I was seeking a publication with a wide audience to get this message out. The lives of my daughter and countless others depend on it.
Dear Mr. President,
Sometimes words from our leaders can shake a parent’s entire world. On Monday, your words shook me to my core. As I listened to your statement, I felt a physical pain in my chest – the kind of visceral fear that only a parent can understand when they sense their child’s future, safety, and very existence might be at risk. This isn’t just momentary panic — it’s now a chronic, gnawing terror that follows me through every hour of every day. The thought of feeling this sick with fear, wondering what each new declaration might bring, is unbearable. As I write this letter, my hands are shaking. I am writing to you today not as a political advocate, but as a mother with a story I believe you need to hear.
In 2006, I gave birth to a son. However, by seven months of age, my baby was already showing signs that would challenge everything we thought we knew about gender. In our local KB Toys store, my child repeatedly crawled from the boy toy aisle directly to the girl toy aisle with unwavering determination. At nine months, there was a persistent refusal to wear boys’ clothes, tearing them off in favor of being draped in blankets or towels like dresses.
As language developed around age one, so did clearer expressions of identity. By eighteen months, my child was dancing and twirling, using any available fabric as a skirt or dress. Then, at two and a half years old, came the clear, unprompted declaration that would confirm what these early signs had been telling us: “I’m a girl.”
One moment stands crystallized in my memory as both beautiful and heartbreaking. When my daughter was three, on Halloween – traditionally a night when children can be anything they want to be – she chose to dress as Snow White. The transformation I witnessed wasn’t just about putting on a costume; it was about watching my child truly emerge. Before that moment, she had been withdrawn, depressed, observing life from the sidelines. But as Snow White, she didn’t just walk – she floated, radiating joy, her smile stretching from ear to ear as we trick-or-treated through our Sherman Oaks neighborhood. She carried her treat bag with a prop poison apple, fully embodying her character. I had never seen her surrounded by such light; she was finally her whole, authentic self.
That magical evening was shattered by her father’s words: “Next year, it’ll be Batman or Superman, but no more of this girl s**t.” This moment drove the first wedge in our family, eventually leading to our divorce. The pain of watching one parent reject what the other parent could so clearly see – our child’s true identity – created fractures that would ultimately break our family apart.
Mr. President, I want to be clear: My views on gender identity are more conservative than some might assume. I don’t disagree with the basic concept that there are two genders: male and female. However, I need to make an important distinction. My daughter’s experience — evident from infancy and consistent throughout her life — represents something fundamentally different from today’s broader gender discussions. What I’m talking about is not about fashion, social movements, or choosing pronouns. I’m talking about individuals who are genuinely born with a profound misalignment between their brain and body — a real, medical condition that causes deep, persistent suffering if not addressed.
“My daughter’s experience — evident from infancy and consistent throughout her life — represents something fundamentally different from today’s broader gender discussions.”– Jessica, mother of a trans daughter
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There’s another crucial distinction that needs to be made. My daughter’s experience is fundamentally different from those who transition later in life, such as Caitlyn Jenner. My daughter could have never lived as a male until adulthood — she would have died before being forced to live that inauthentically. This wasn’t a gradual realization or a choice made in maturity — this was a primal, innate truth present from her earliest moments of consciousness. When someone’s identity is this deeply hardwired from birth, there is no ‘choosing’ to wait or conform. For my daughter, living as her true self wasn’t a choice — it was a matter of survival from her very first awareness of self.
Mr. President, here’s something fundamental about human development that many people don’t realize: Every human fetus begins as female. It’s only through a complex cascade of hormones, genes, and chromosomal influences that some fetuses develop as male. This isn’t ideology — it’s basic embryology. If we can accept that nature’s developmental process can result in variations affecting any other aspect of human development — from heart formation to limb development — why is it so hard to understand that this same complex process of gender development might not always follow a perfect path? When you consider that every human starts as female, and that it takes multiple biological steps to shift that development toward male, the possibility of variations in this process becomes straightforward and logical. This isn’t about ideology or choice — it’s about understanding that the same biological processes that can result in other developmental variations can affect gender development in the brain.
Mr. President, you speak of defending women and “biological truth,” suggesting that transgender individuals are somehow a threat to women’s spaces. Let me be clear — my daughter has never been a threat to anyone. From the moment she could crawl, she has simply been trying to live authentically as who she is. This isn’t about “gender ideology extremism” — this is about a child who, from her earliest moments, consistently and persistently knew who she was. When you speak of “ideologues,” you’re not describing my family’s reality. We’re not pushing any agenda – we’re simply living our truth, one that revealed itself long before my daughter could even speak.
Furthermore, Mr. President, you’re conflating two entirely different concepts. Gender, as we know it today, is actually a social construct that wasn’t even conceptualized until the mid-20th century — it’s about roles, expectations, and societal norms. What my daughter experiences isn’t about gender as a social construct — it’s about something far more fundamental and biological. It’s about brain structure, neural pathways, and hormonal influences during fetal development. When you dismiss transgender individuals by reducing this to a debate about “gender ideology,” you’re missing the critical scientific distinction between socially constructed gender roles and the hard-wired biological reality of one’s innate identity.
I’ve never shared this publicly before, but I need to tell you something profound that opened my eyes to the biological reality of gender development. While undergoing fertility treatments to conceive my daughter, our fertility specialist urgently warned us about my husband’s use of Finasteride, explaining that this common hair loss medication could affect a fetus’s reproductive organ development in the womb. During the same visit, I was asked if I wanted a girl or a boy because they could spin the centrifuge so the weaker (male) sperm fall off, separating the two. Mr. President, if we can actually control a fetus’s biological sex through such simple medical interventions — if a common hair loss medication can influence sexual organ development, and if we can separate sperm by sex through basic centrifugal force — how can anyone definitively claim that gender identity is always simple and binary?
If you acknowledge that babies can be born with obvious physical variations — a missing limb, an extra finger, a heart on the wrong side — how can it be so hard to understand that variations in gender identity could occur in the brain during fetal development? This isn’t ideology — it’s basic human biology. Nature doesn’t always follow a perfect blueprint. Medical science clearly recognizes that countless factors during gestation can affect human development — why is it so hard to accept that gender identity could be one of them?
Mr. President, with all due respect, what medical or scientific expertise allows you to declare that my daughter — who has known her true identity since infancy — doesn’t exist? What qualifies anyone, even a president, to dismiss 18 years of lived experience? How do you explain away a seven-month-old baby’s determined crawl toward their truth, or a toddler’s consistent, unwavering knowledge of who they are?
“Mr. President, with all due respect, what medical or scientific expertise allows you to declare that my daughter — who has known her true identity since infancy — doesn’t exist?”Jessica, mother of a trans daughter
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When you declare there are only two genders and that trans people don’t exist, you’re not just making a political statement — you’re telling my daughter that her entire journey, her struggles, her joy in finally being herself, are all invalid. You’re telling me that the light I saw in her eyes that Halloween night when she was three, the first time she could truly be herself, was somehow a delusion.
The fear your words have sparked isn’t just about today or tomorrow — it’s about survival. Every news alert makes my heart race. Every headline about gender sends me into a spiral of anxiety about my daughter’s future. How do I protect my daughter in a world where the president himself denies her existence? Where do we turn when the highest office in our nation tells us that what we’ve lived through isn’t real?
My daughter is now 18 years old. That determined child who once crawled through toy store aisles, who lit up the night as Snow White, has grown into a beautiful, smart, talented, and charismatic young lady. She is my one and only, my heart, and I love her more than anything in the world. Her journey to becoming the remarkable woman she is today demonstrates what is possible when a transgender child is loved and supported. Yet now I find myself sick with fear about her future in a world where her very existence is being denied.
What you may not know is that my daughter is only one degree of separation from someone in your immediate family. When you make such sweeping declarations about gender, you never know who your words are hurting. It could be someone much closer to you than you realize. These issues of gender identity touch all of our families, directly or indirectly, often in ways we cannot see.
It’s taken my ex-husband, my daughter’s father, a long time to accept that his child is transgender, but he did come around. If someone from a traditional background, who was once firmly set in his conservative beliefs and initially struggled to understand, can make this journey of understanding and acceptance, I have hope for the rest of us. His transformation reminds us that change is possible, that understanding can grow, and that love can ultimately transcend our initial prejudices and fears.
This journey of acceptance doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to understand, accept, and even embrace — but it does happen. While our family’s path has been an 18-year-long struggle in many ways, there are no regrets at all. None. The only regret would have been denying my daughter the chance to live as her authentic self.
Understanding often comes through personal experience, through knowing and loving someone who is transgender. But right now, I’m terrified. Your words have the power to shape not just policy, but public opinion and understanding. They have the power to either illuminate the complexity of human biology or to deny the reality that families like mine live every day. I implore you to consider the weight of declaring that people like my daughter don’t exist, and the fear such declarations instill in parents like me who have witnessed their child’s truth from the very beginning.
At our core, we are all human beings trying to live authentically in this world. The measure of our humanity lies in how we treat those whose experiences we may not fully understand. In the end, beneath policies and politics, beyond declarations and debates, we are all simply humans deserving of respect, dignity, and the right to exist as our true selves.
With hope for understanding, Jessica
Jessica is a mother professional organizer and LGBTQIA youth advocate from Los Angeles.
Just over a decade ago, in 2014, TIME magazine declared on its front cover that we were at the “The Transgender Tipping Point“.
The cover itself was simple, a full body shot of actress Laverne Cox – who was then playing Sophia Burset on Netflix game-changer Orange Is the New Black – and a byline for writer Katy Steinmetz, who said in the piece that trans rights would be the next civil rights frontier.
“We are in a place now,” Cox told the magazine at the time, “where more and more trans people want to come forward and say, ‘This is who I am.’ And more trans people are willing to tell their stories. More of us are living visibly and pursuing our dreams visibly, so people can say, ‘Oh yeah, I know someone who is trans.’ When people have points of reference that are humanising, that demystifies difference.”
“The Transgender Tipping Point” was a phrase, Jude Ellison S. Doyle noted for Xtra Magazine on the cover’s 10th anniversary, that quickly became ubiquitous across the media, with – often more than not cis – academics and cultural commentators alike pointing to the piece as an example of a paradigm shift on trans visibility and representation in public life.
But, as many more have since pointed out, the catch-all-ness of the phrase is oversimplified and ignores the intersectional struggles and delicate nuances of trans people’s lives that go far beyond ‘being visible’. It also became somewhat of an ironic joke between trans folks who had to wake up the day after that edition of TIME hit the shelves go about their lives, this supposed-watershed moment of greater visibility not helping them pay their bills, access gender-affirming care or walk through the streets without fear.
“If trans people have ‘tipped’ in any direction, it’s backward,” Doyle wrote.
For activist Raquel Willis, co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movementalongside Eliel Cruz, the fight for trans rights and universal bodily autonomy has to move past the visibility era to be truly impactful.
“This idea of simply using visibility as a means to bring about the kind of culture and society that’s going to receive trans folks with the respects that we deserve is over,” she told PinkNews, “and so we have to be thinking in new ways about how to protect ourselves, our voices, our histories and our brilliance without relying on a lot of the institutions that have really pushed the visibility vehicle.”
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Speaking exclusively with PinkNews, Willis and Cruz discussed the organisation, intersectionality and the need for radical defiance in a second Trump presidency.
Activists with the Gender Liberation Movement protest in the House Cannon building, including Chelsea Manning (bottom right) and Racquel Willis (bottom left), on December 5, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Maansi Srivastava for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Gender Liberation Movement (GLM) describes itself as an “emergent and innovative grassroots and volunteer-run national collective that builds direct action, media, and policy interventions centering bodily autonomy, self-determination, the pursuit of fulfilment, and collectivism in the face of gender-based sociopolitical threats”.
Mace, a Republican representative from South Carolina, admitted her proposal to ban trans folks from spaces such as bathrooms and changing rooms on Capitol Hill which match their gender was put forth solely in response to Democrat Sarah McBride joining Congress as the first out trans person.
McBride condemned the move as a “blatant attempt from right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing”.
“Half of us went in understanding that we were facing arrest in order to really send a message, particularly because some elected leaders, even some people potentially in the movement spaces, queer people, might see bathrooms as a side issue and not important,” Cruz said.
“But we see bathrooms as the inroad for a larger anti-trans project to eliminate trans people from public spaces and so this was important for us to say, ‘this is the line’ and we’re not allowing this to move forward without a response.”
In a bathroom that was located close to Mace’s office, the protesters held a banner that read “flush bathroom bigotry” and chanted “Speaker Johnson, Nancy Mace, our gender is no debate” and “Democrats, grow a spine! Trans rights are on the line!”, calling out the Dems lacklustre criticism of Mace’s proposal in the wake of their party’s defeat to Donald Trump’s MAGA 2.0 campaign.
“It was really disappointing to see the lack of fight that […] Sarah McBride put forth with these attacks – understanding that she is coming into a new role in a historic way – but also understanding at some point we have to get beyond this idea of career politicians saving us,” Willis said.
“Let’s just be clear, I know for me, I would never be able to – as a Black trans woman – simply say that bathroom access is a ‘distraction’. I come from folks who experienced acutely Jim Crow in the US South and so for me, all of these attacks on our access to public spaces and navigating societies is rooted in a long fight for collective liberation within this country.”
Willis added she was concerned by the lack of support McBride was given by leading Democrats and “what kind of signal that sends to trans youth who are already fearful of the incoming Trump administration”.
A transgender rights supporter takes part in a rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court as the court hears arguments in the US v. Skrmetti a case about Tennessee’s law banning gender-affirming care for minors and if it violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee on December 04, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Prior to this moment of “radical defiance” – the phrase Willis uses to describe what is needed of protest and civil disobedience at this time – GLM had been fighting for the right to bodily autonomy for trans and cis folks alike; namely access to abortion and gender-affirming care. Having worked previously with those that organised the Brooklyn Liberation March and national Women’s March, in September the group led the first-ever Gender Liberation March in Washington D.C. and at the start of this year launched as an official national organisation to further its work.
Cruz said those involved were “collective” of “queer and trans creatives from nonprofit and advocacy world, as well as folks who are in the art world and fashion world”.
“We really started to think about what was needed in terms of bringing together a larger collective of folks fighting around bodily autonomy and self determination,” Willis said of formalising the organisation, “particularly thinking about the attacks on abortion access and the attacks on access to gender affirming care. That kind of led to this plan for our march in September and from there we realised that we needed this work to continue going on and needed to continue to be the glue between these various movements.”
For many, access to abortion and gender affirming care might be thought of as different social issues impacting distinctly different groups of people; things to campaign for separately but not together. This line of thinking is similar to how trans rights and women’s rights more widely are often framed by the right-wing press as in direct contrast with one another when instead they are not opposites sides of a coin but rather intricately intertwined.
New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noted this in response to Mace’s bathroom ban, telling reporters in November that such restrictions endanger “all women and girls” because “people are going to want to check their private parts in suspecting who is trans and who is cis”.
“The idea that Nancy Mace wants little girls and women to drop trou in front of, who, an investigator, because she wants to suspect and point fingers at who she thinks is trans is disgusting. It is disgusting. And frankly, all it does is allow these Republicans to go around and bully any woman who isn’t wearing a skirt because they think she might not look woman enough,” AOC added.
The intersectionality between the two issues hence sits at the very core of the GLM’s mission because “many of the same forces and entities that are targeting access to abortion are also targeting access to gender affirming care”, Willis said.
Cruz explained: “In the United States, legal precedents are being used to try to pass one another. So these connections are already there in terms […] of those who are making these attacks and for us it was important to marry the different groups of people that people may not necessarily talk about in the same ways.
“Really bringing those connections together in a very intentional way.”
People gather outside the Lincoln Memorial for a People’s March rally in Washington, D.C., United States, on January 18, 2025. (Photo by Nathan Morris/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Ahead of Trump’s return to the White House, Cruz said GLM has been having a number of internal conversations about what form their work will take but it is about “being a little bit nimble and prepared for preparing for the worst, and doing some safety planning and contingency planning”.
Cruz went on to say whilst “Trump is awful” and “put us through it the first four years” the Democrats have “not been the best” either, noting the fact Roe vs Wade fell under a Dem administration and just before Christmas president Joe Biden signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 which contained an anti-trans healthcare clause for children of members of the armed services.
“There’s a lot of catastrophising that we can think about under Trump and without remembering that we’ve kind of already been dealing with a lot, even underneath the Dem administration,” Cruz said.
“We really to lean on our history and our elders. We have been through really horrific eras before and we have gone through it. Our community knows how to build together and come together and keep each other safe.
“So [we] can look at the reality of what’s to come and also remember who we are and our roots and our background, and know that we will get through it together whatever may come.”
Willis echoed this, noting that “before you could simply be as open about who who you are and your identity” leaning on mutual aid networks was a vital resource.
“We have always had organisations, particularly on the grassroots local level, that have fed and housed and closed and safeguarded our people,” she explained.
“Somewhere along the way, we forgot that those entities are the lifeblood of our movement.
“So, it’s remembering that and also being willing to heal some of those past fissures between various parts of our movements and communities and embrace the fact that we’re going to need unlikely accomplices moving forward so we have to be letting go of some of this capitalistic ego around what work a group may own versus another.
The U.S. is home to over 168 million women, whose health and well-being are essential to their quality of life and happiness. However, access to affordable health care remains a challenge, and more than one-third of women in the U.S.skip needed medical care because of the cost.
Even though there are efforts across the nation to support women’s health, some states provide better conditions for women to thrive than others. In order to highlight the best states for women’s health and the ones that need to improve the most, SmileHub compared each of the 50 states based on 18 key metrics. The data set ranges from the maternal mortality rate to the quality of women’s hospitals to the affordability of a doctor’s visit.
With the exception of “Total Score,” all of the columns in the table above depict the relative rank of that state, where a rank of 1 represents the best conditions for that metric category.
Methodology
In order to determine the best states for women’s health, SmileHub compared the 50 states across three key dimensions: 1) Health & Living Standards, 2) Health Care Policies & Support Systems and 3) Safety Risk.
We evaluated those dimensions using 18 relevant metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the highest level of women’s health. For metrics marked with an asterisk (*), the square root of the population was used to calculate the population size in order to avoid overcompensating for population differences across states.
We then determined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the states.
Health & Living Standards – Total Points: 45
Women’s Life Expectancy at Birth: Full Weight (~4.50 Points)
Female Uninsured Rate: Full Weight (~4.50 Points) Note: This metric accounts for females ages 16 and older.
Share of Women with Good or Better Health: Double Weight (~9.00 Points)
Women’s Preventive Health Care: Full Weight (~4.50 Points) Note: This metric measures the share of women who were up-to-date on cervical and breast-cancer screenings.
Share of Physically Active Women: Full Weight (~4.50 Points)
Share of Women Who are Obese: Full Weight (~4.50 Points) Note: This metric measures the percent of females aged 18 years and older who have obesity. Obesity is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a body mass index greater than or equal to 30.0.
Maternal Mortality Rate: Full Weight (~4.50 Points)
Heart Disease Mortality Rate for Women: Full Weight (~4.50 Points)
Female Smoker Rate: Full Weight (~4.50 Points)
Health Care Policies & Support Systems – Total Points: 35
Health & Wellness Charities per Total Number of Women*: Full Weight (~4.38 Points)
Quality of Women’s Hospitals: Full Weight (~4.38 Points)
Share of Women Ages 18-44 Who Reported Having One or More People They Think of as Their Personal Doctor or Health Care Provider: Double Weight (~8.75 Points)
Lower health care costs;
Greater use of preventive services, such as flu shots or mammograms;
Fewer emergency department visits for non-urgent or avoidable problems;
Increased patient satisfaction;
Improvements in chronic care management for chronic conditions such as hypertension and high cholesterol.
Abortion Policies & Access: Full Weight (~4.38 Points)
2 – Most or very protective: the state has most or all of the protective policies;
1.5 – Protective: the state has some protective policies;
1 – Some restrictions/protections: the state either has few restrictions or protections, or has a combination of restrictive and protective policies;
0.5 – Restrictive: the state has multiple restrictions and later gestational age ban;
0 – Most or very restrictive: the state either bans abortion completely or has multiple restrictions and early gestational age ban.
Unaffordability of Doctor’s Visit: Double Weight (~8.75 Points) Note: This metric measures the percentage of women who could not afford to see a doctor in the past year due to costs.
Domestic Violence Support Services per Total Number of Women: Full Weight (~4.38 Points)
Safety – Total Points: 20
Suicide Rate for Women: Full Weight (~5.00 Points)
Depression Rate for Women: Full Weight (~5.00 Points)
Prevalence of Rape Victimization Among Females: Double Weight (~10.00 Points) Note: This metric measures instances of rape. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 91 percent of rape victims are female, and 9 percent are male.
Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States Mortality DataBase, United Health Foundation, U.S. News & World Report, Guttmacher and National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Both are encouraging shareholders to vote against resolutions asking them to reevaluate their commitment to DEI. A shareholder resolution is a means by which those who hold stock in a company can seek to influence the company’s policies. Most are nonbinding and most do not receive a majority vote, as the bulk of shareholders usually vote among company lines. But if a resolution receives even 10 percent support, it’s hard for the company to ignore.
The Apple and Costco resolutions were both submitted by National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank. Both cite the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, holding that race-based affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional. The Apple resolution also cites the high court’s 2024 ruling in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, which found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating in transfer decisions even if the transfer didn’t cause great disadvantage.
The resolutions say that DEI programs pose financial and reputational risks to companies, noting that a white employee sued Starbucks for racial discrimination and won $25 million. DEI programs vary from company to company, but their generally promote inclusive practices for groups that have historically suffered discrimination, including people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and women.
“With 310,000 employees, Costco likely has at least 200,000 employees who are potentially victims of this type of illegal discrimination because they are white, Asian, male or straight,” the resolution to the retailing giant states. “Accordingly, even if only a fraction of those employees were to file suit, and only some of those prove successful, the cost to Costco could be tens of billions of dollars.” The Apple resolution doesn’t mention those groups, but it does go into the potential cost of lawsuits.
Apple, in its proxy statement (a document sent to shareholders ahead of the annual meeting), recommends a vote against the resolution because “the proposal is unnecessary as Apple already has a well-established compliance program and the proposal inappropriately attempts to restrict Apple’s ability to manage its own ordinary business operations, people and teams, and business strategies; and our Board and management maintain active oversight of legal and regulatory risks and compliance for our global business.”
“Apple is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in recruiting, hiring, training, or promoting on any basis protected by law,” the statement continues. “Apple seeks to operate in compliance with applicable non-discrimination laws, both in the United States and in the many other jurisdictions in which we operate, and in that regard monitors and evolves its practices, policies, and goals as appropriate to address compliance risks. The proposal inappropriately seeks to micromanage the Company’s programs and policies by suggesting a specific means of legal compliance.”
Apple has a supplier diversity program, set up in 1993, which works with groups such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council and National Veterans Business Development Council, CNN reports. It also has a vice president of inclusion and diversity, a position established in 2017, and 67 employee groups called diversity network associations. The first of these dates from 1986. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, is gay (although he did donate personal funds, not company ones, to anti-LGBTQ+ President-elect Donald Trump’sinauguration).
“We are simply asking for a consideration,” Stefan Padfield, executive director of the NCPPR’s Free Enterprise Project, told CNN. “The proposal, if approved, would not automatically result in the abolishment of DEI.”
Costco’s directors, however, say this is the ultimate goal of such resolutions. “The proponent professes concern about legal and financial risks to the Company and its shareholders associated with the diversity initiatives,” the proxy statement reads. “The supporting statement demonstrates that it is the proponent and others that are responsible for inflicting burdens on companies with their challenges to longstanding diversity programs. The proponent’s broader agenda is not reducing risk for the Company but abolition of diversity initiatives.”
The NCPPR published a document called “Balancing the Boardroom” in 2022, Costco notes. It said CEOs and other corporate executives who are “woke” and “hard-left” are “inimical to the Republic and its blessings of liberty” and “committed to critical race theory and the socialist foundations of woke” or “shameless monsters who are willing to sacrifice our future for their comforts.”
“Our efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion remind and reinforce with everyone at our Company the importance of creating opportunities for all,” Costco’s statement says. “We believe that these efforts enhance our capacity to attract and retain employees who will help our business succeed. This capacity is critical because we owe our success to our now over 300,000 employees around the globe. … We believe that our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are legally appropriate, and nothing in the proposal demonstrates otherwise.”
Costco’s annual shareholder meeting will be held January 23. Apple’s will be held February 25.
Date & Time: Last Friday of each month ~ Jan 31, Feb 28 & Mar 28 | 4pm – 5:30pm
Location: Brew – Santa Rosa | 555 Healdsburg Ave Brew has a delightful selection of coffee, beer, wine, or food choices. Brew is LGBT owned and is considered a LGBT hang out! View their website for food items HERE.
https://www.instagram.com/positiveimages?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Join Positive Images and North Bay LGBTQI Families for our monthly family friendly get together. Each month we explore a different place in Sonoma County so check back often to see where we will be this month!
State does not force outing but may contribute to hostile school climate (see note beneath map) (4 states)
