Fort Worth has received a perfect score for the city’s inclusiveness of LGBTQ individuals.
The Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index measures how inclusive a city’s policies, services and municipal laws are for LGBTQ people.
Cities are scored in five categories:
- Non-discrimination laws
- Municipality as employer
- Municipal services
- Law enforcement
- Relationship with the LGBTQ community
In the 2016 Municipal Equality Index scorecard, Fort Worth received a perfect score in every category except two.
Fort Worth received a zero out of six for transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits, in the municipal as an employer category.
The city also lost one point for leadership’s pro-equality legislative or police efforts, in the relationship with the LGBTQ community.
The loss of points gave Fort Worth a score of 93, however, the city gained 14 bonus points giving it a perfect score.
Scores cannot exceed 100.
Ten of Fort Worth’s bonus points came from the municipal services category, which assesses the cities efforts to ensure LGBTQ individuals are included in the city services and programs.
The other four bonus points come from the section, “cities are pro-equality despite restrictive state law” within the relationship category.
Fort Worth’s score placed them on the Municipal Equality Index: All-Star Cities list.
According to the Human’s Right Campaign, the All-Star Cities list is a list of the 37 cities that received at least 85 points even though they are in a state that does not have LGBTQ inclusive statewide non-discrimination laws.
The Human’s Rights Campaign has all-star cities that, “set a standard of LGBTQ inclusiveness with exemplary, best-practice policies such as local non-discrimination laws, providing transgender-inclusive health benefits for city employees, and offering LGBTQ-inclusive city services.”
Four Texas cities made the list including Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.
Dallas and Austin also earned a 100 on the national scorecard while San Antonio got a 95.
Other cities in the metroplex scores varied from Plano’s score of 74 to Irving’s 6.
Other metroplex cities’ scores are:
- Arlington – 44
- Grand Prairie – 12
- Garland – 22.
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price did not return a call for comment before publication.
