"We the People of the United States..."

Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama are always at the bottom of the state rankings while Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Minnesota are always at the top.

One set of states has empathy for its citizens and one set doesn't.

One set of states cares about its citizens and one set doesn't.

One set of states believes in human rights, one set doesn't.

You want to guess what the state that are always on the top and the  states always on the bottom have in common?

The bottom dwellers are all Republicans and the cream is are all Democrats.

U.S. States: "General Welfare" Performance & Political Correlation (2026)

State	Political Lean	Current Ranking Stats	Why it holds this position
Massachusetts	Democratic	#1 Education, #1 Health Access	Universal healthcare, highest school funding, elite universities.
Minnesota	Democratic	#1 Quality of Life, #2 for Families	High social well-being, low poverty, Mayo Clinic healthcare hub.
Connecticut	Democratic	#2 Education, #3 Health Outcomes	High per-pupil spending, strong public health infrastructure.
New Jersey	Democratic	#1 Public Safety, #1 K-12 Quality	Strict school standards, high median income, public safety focus.
Vermont	Democratic	#1 Environment, Lowest Crime	Investment in clean energy, small class sizes, public safety.
Mississippi	Republican	Bottom 5 in Health, Education, Poverty	Minimal social safety net, low tax-base for schools.
West Virginia	Republican	Bottom 5 in Health, Infrastructure	Lowest life expectancy, struggling rural healthcare systems.
Louisiana	Republican	Bottom 5 in Poverty, Safety, Literacy	High inequality, low investment in early childhood programs.
Arkansas	Republican	Bottom 5 in Health Outcomes	High rates of chronic disease, limited healthcare access.

*Rankings based on consolidated 2025-2026 data across Education, Healthcare, and Poverty metrics.

But there is one other category that divides us...

What states are the most dangerous for LGBTQ+ people? Here are the worst 15

A lot of states are passing laws that target the LGBTQ+ community — but these 15 are the absolute worst.

LGBTQ Nation

Ryan Adamczeski

Dec 23, 2025

These are the 15 worst states for LGBTQ+ people

A lot of states are passing laws that target the LGBTQ+ community — but these 15 are the absolute worst.

Over 1,000 anti-LGBTQ+ laws have been proposed across every state legislature in the U.S. over the past two years, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, and 126 have passed into law. Less than two months into the 2025 legislative session, 390 laws targeting LGBTQ+ people have been proposed.

While marriage equality and anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity are still guaranteed federally by U.S. Supreme Court rulings (for now), LGBTQ+ people are still concerned about their rights being taken away, especially when only 15 states have "shield laws" protecting access to gender-affirming care and abortion.

Based on laws surrounding marriage, family rights, health care, education, and youth collected by the Movement Advancement Project, here are the 15 worst states for LGBTQ+ people.

You have seen many of the names of the state in what I wrote above... Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

If you take the Preamble to the Constitution as the mission statement* then the Republicans are...

1. Privatizing the Common Good: When education is shifted to vouchers and healthcare is left to the market, "Welfare" stops being "General" (for everyone) and becomes "Individual" (for those who can afford it).

2. The "Race to the Bottom": By cutting the federal standards that protected air, water, and labor, the country moves toward the "Swamp" model—where a state might be "open for business" but the citizens are breathing toxic air or working without a safety net.

3. Fiscal Neglect: In those bottom-ranked states, the government often claims they "can't afford" better schools or clinics while simultaneously giving tax breaks to the wealthy. On a national level, the 2026 Tariffs and Tax Cuts are creating a similar gap, where the public purse is emptied, leaving nothing to "promote" the well-being of the average person.

*I ask Gemini to write how the Republicans are meeting the goals in the Preamble to the Constitution

The Republicans are removing the very systems—the EPA, the Department of Education, Medicaid—that were built specifically to fulfill that mission. They are cutting education and healthcare while banning abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. We are moving backward toward the eras of Jim Crow and the Lavender Scare. By dismantling these systems, the federal government is essentially saying, "The mission statement is too expensive; let's just see what happens if we stop trying."

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With all the changing anti-trans laws this booklet is more important than ever!

The Transgender Law Center puts out this booklet "Peeing in Peace" where,,,

This Resource Guide is a first of its kind publication combining basic information about how someone (or some group of someones) can protect themselves with common sense steps that can be taken to change the way in which an employer, school administrator, business  owner, or government official handles bathroom access issues. It provides basic tools you can use to affect how someone sees the issue of bathroom access and safety by questioning who should be able to access which bathroom and why we divide most public bathrooms into Men’s and Women’s facilities in the first place.

The Transgender Law Center receives numerous complaints each year from community members around the state about bathroom related harassment and discrimination. We also hear regularly from people who want to do something beyond responding to individual examples of discrimination in order to make bathrooms more accessible to everyone.

Started in 2003, our Safe Bathroom Access Campaign (SBAC) focuses on the real world problems that are created for transgender people and our partners, families and friends because of the way that society views gender and the stereotypes associated with it. Working closely with People in Search of Safe Restrooms (PISSR), SBAC has been able to open a dialogue in California about this important issue. Many of the lessons we have learned through that work and the solutions that we have helped to devise are encompassed in this resource guide. It is our hope that the hundreds of people who have contacted us about this issue since we opened our doors in 2002 will be able to take all or some of the information in this guide and share it with friends and allies who are also interested in challenging the current bathroom situation.

It is a sad cometary that we need a book like the Blacks needed back in the era of Jim Crow.