Green Bay earns a perfect score in LGBTQ+ rights for the first time while national culture shifts rightward | Green Bay Press Gazette
GREEN BAY — Ever since the city flunked its first grading on how LGBTQ-friendly its laws and policies were, scoring a 28 out of 100 back in 2018, Green Bay has leapt toward a perfect score year after year, but never quite got to 100 until now.
The Human Rights Campaign queer rights advocacy group passed Green Bay with flying colors in its 12th annual Municipal Equality Index with a perfect score of 100 while national trends have culturally bucked in the other direction. The 100 ranking means the city’s leadership, laws and services are considered as LGBTQ-friendly as those in Madison and Milwaukee, which have consistently gotten 100s over the past several years.
Getting a perfect score has been a goal for Andrea Fox since she first started her job as the city’s workplace specialist in 2023, Fox said during a Sept. 12 Equal Rights Commission meeting. The year Fox started was when Green Bay fell four points shy of perfection.
Graded on a total of five categories, the HRC judged whether the city’s laws discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, whether law enforcement is fair and just toward the LGBTQ+ community, and if the city’s leadership is committed to its queer residents. On those counts, the city received perfect evaluations.
Where it missed four points were in the other two categories that gauge equal workplace treatment and equal access to city services. The city didn’t get the available two points on being an “inclusive workplace” and having “[nondiscrimination ordinance] enforcement by Human Rights Campaign.”
To make up those four points before submitting the city’s survey in early August to the HRC, Fox said she started the Pride Employee Resource Group for city employees, which Fox had hoped would get the city those two points for the “inclusive workplace” subcategory.
For the two points left to get to 100, Fox hoped that the city would receive what the HRC calls “Flex points,” given for programs and criteria “not accessible to all cities at this time,” according to the fine print of the Municipality Equality Index. And the city far exceeded the two Flex points needed to get to 100.
For having openly LGBTQ+ elected or appointed leaders, for city services to LGBTQ+ youth, seniors, those with HIV and AIDS, those who identify as transgender, and those who are homeless, the city received a total of 12 Flex points.
The index doesn’t allow extra credit to push scores past 100, otherwise Green Bay would’ve gotten 110.
Still, the city flew past Appleton, which got 99 points; Kenosha, which got 62; Oshkosh, which got 95; and Racine, which fell to 81 points this year from last year’s perfect 100.
Racine’s backsliding was something Fox warned about during the Sept. 12 meeting. Without city leadership pushing LGBTQ-friendly ordinances and laws, “we could potentially go backwards someday, so we need to make sure we show the need for it,” she said.
President-elect Donald Trump heavily pressed the issue of transgender bathroom use and surgeries while running for his second term. Most recently, the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson declared bathroom use in certain Capitol buildings would correspond with biological sex, not gender identity.
The HRC’s president, Kelley Robinson, noted in her introductory remarks to this year’s index that, “The story of 2024 is one of contrast,” a theme that both the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets played off heavily. “In city after city,” Robinson continued, “we’re seeing local leaders step up to protect their LGBTQ+ residents, even when faced with restrictive state legislation,” as well as precedents set at the very top of government.
Some Democratic states have pledged to resist many of the policies that would be passed federally by a Republican Congress, including those that would target members of the LGBTQ+ population.
Whether Green Bay will keep its perfect score in 2025 or go the way of Racine will be up to its Democratic mayor and its voting population that remains Democratic in a state and nation that went red for Trump.
Jesse Lin is a reporter covering the community of Green Bay and its surroundings, as well as politics in northeast Wisconsin. Contact him at 920-834-4250 or jlin@gannett.com.
