The Human Rights Campaign released its State Equality Index for 2018. The report measures statewide laws and policies affecting the LGBTQ community. And Arizona ranks near the bottom.
Arizona falls in the category, “High Priority to Achieve Basic Equality.” Catherine Oakley is with the Human Rights Campaign or HRC and the co-author of the report. She says Arizona lacks nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people
"These are absolutely critical protections and the state equality index is looking at a variety of different nondiscrimination protections, but the most critically important are in employment, housing and public accommodation," she said.
Arizona does have a non-discrimination policy for state employees but for sexual orientation only; there are no protections when it comes to gender identity.
"It’s important to say not all forward momentum is captured on a score card like this," Oakley said. "This is a snap shot. I think pointing to the election of Kyrsten Sinema is a really important thing. Obviously her election is historic for a lot of reasons including that she is the first openly bisexual woman to be elected to the United State Senate."