Kansas City got perfect score on LGBTQ equality. But there’s more to do, leaders say
The Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, awarded Kansas City’s municipal government a score of 100% on its laws, policies and services meant to promote the equality of people with marginalized genders and sexual orientations.
The organization released its 15th annual Municipal Equality Index report at the end of November. It reviewed the local ordinances and programs in 506 cities around the country, awarding them points based on the presence of LGBTQ protections and programs.
Other municipalities in the metro also received scores in the report. Kansas City, Kansas earned a score of 63%, while Overland Park got 92% and Olathe got 71%. Independence received a score of just 25%.
How did Kansas City earn a perfect score?
The Human Rights Campaign awarded 120 cities at least a perfect score of 100% — that’s nearly one quarter of the cities studied. Due to the report’s methodology, many of these cities earned over 100 points for having additional LGBTQ protections like bans on conversion therapy, funding services for people living with HIV/AIDS and other measures.
These additional programs earned cities “flex” points that could boost their total but wouldn’t count against them if they were not earned. Kansas City accrued 108 points out of a total possible 117, but was given a score of 100% because it surpassed the 100-point mark. Without these “flex” points, it would have earned a 96% on basic municipal protections.
“We want cities to be striving and working towards a goal,” said Sarah Warbelow, the Human Rights Campaign’s legal director. “And this has actually created a lot of healthy competition amongst cities.”
Kansas City’s scores have been consistently high for the past decade. The city earned a perfect score of 100% in 2014 to 2017, as well as in 2021 and 2022. It scored in the 90s in 2018 to 2020, and earned 85% in 2012 and 2013.
Kansas City’s “perfect” score drew concern from some local leaders in the LGBTQ community, who said it may give the impression that the city has no further need for improvement on LGBTQ equality.
“I was curious about why 100% scores are given in the first place — why any city would be able to get what is essentially a perfect score,” said Stacy Busch, the executive director and co-founder of No Divide KC, a local arts organization focused on amplifying marginalized voices. “That doesn’t leave any room for progress.”
Warbelow said the report is meant to demonstrate the progress many cities have made on LGBTQ issues.
“What we have found is (that) if folks can’t ever feel like they have a moment of success, and a moment of achievement, they stop being interested,” she told The Star.
Other municipalities scored far lower this year, causing concern among their city leaders. The lowest score in the metro was Independence’s 25%.
“The City of Independence Human Relations Commission unanimously decided that the MEI score of the city needed to be one of their top priorities for 2023,” city spokesperson Meg Lewis told The Star, adding that the commission will “begin to have discussions on how to increase the city’s score.”
How did the Human Rights Campaign come up with its scores?
Many of the report’s points were awarded based on the presence of laws, regulations and committees designed to protect LGBTQ people.
The Human Rights Campaign’s researchers awarded cities points in five categories: non-discrimination laws, the city’s policies toward its own employees, municipal services for LGBTQ people, law enforcement’s relationship with the LGBTQ community and city leadership on LGBTQ equality.
Kansas City, Missouri only lost points on required sections by being awarded eight out of 10 possible points for its nondiscrimination laws for both housing and employment. The Human Rights Campaign took off points for any policies that had religious exemptions singling out sexual orientation or gender identity.
Kansas City’s city code makes such exceptions. Its employment discrimination code states that “it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for a religious organization… to discriminate in its employment decisions on the basis of religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.”
It’s the same for housing. While housing discrimination in general is banned, the city’s housing code states that “nothing in this section shall prohibit a religious organization… from discriminating in the sale, rental or occupancy of dwellings… on the basis of religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, or from giving preference to persons on those bases.”
These exemptions apply to all nonprofit religious organizations in Kansas City, including local homeless shelters and other resource centers.
Local LGBTQ leaders find shortcomings in KC’s score
Some in Kansas City said that the report’s approach offers an incomplete picture of LGBTQ rights at the city level.
“The scorecard from HRC takes into account the policies on the books, not how they are enacted and experienced,” wrote James Moran, a spokesperson from Our Spot KC, a nonprofit LGBTQ resource and advocacy group based in Kansas City, Kansas. “[The] score is misleading because its assessment criteria are not universally reflective of our community’s experiences.”
Warbelow acknowledged this shortcoming, saying that the report can’t possibly capture every individual person’s experience with city laws and policies.
“This is not intended to be a tool that shows every individual’s lived experience,” she said. “There are lots of things that LGBTQ people care about that are not reflected in this. It’s just one tool to push cities towards doing better.”
Moran noted that the law enforcement category awarded a total of 22 points for two criteria: the existence of an LGBTQ liaison in the police department and whether the city reported its 2020 hate crime statistics to the FBI.
“These criteria have nothing to do with the fair and equitable enforcement of the law, which our
community knows does not favor LGBTQ+ people,” Moran said. “Simply sending a report on hate crimes to the FBI does not carry any guarantees on those reports’ accuracy or how those cases were investigated.”
Kansas City received full points on the law enforcement section, while Kansas City, Kansas received zero points, significantly lowering its overall score. Moran said these scores don’t line up with his group’s experiences with both police departments.
The KCPD’s LGBTQ liaison position was replaced years ago with a “diversity officer” role intended to serve all marginalized communities, Moran told The Star. Officer Kim Shaw-Ellis held the position until her retirement in March of 2021, and KCPD spokesperson Leslie Foreman told The Star that the position has been empty ever since.
The KCPD received full points on this category, even though the department doesn’t meet the requirements the HRC laid out.
Warbelow couldn’t speak to the specific points awarded to individual cities, but said that a webpage describing the position and listing Shaw-Ellis may have been available when researchers were scoring Kansas City earlier this year.
Moran said that the KCKPD has made far more effort to collaborate with his group, despite Kansas City, Kansas receiving no points on its law enforcement evaluation.
“It is interesting to note that the LGBTQ+ officers’ group within the Kansas City, Kansas PD has reached out to our organization on multiple occasions to facilitate better relationships between our agencies,” he said.
More work to be done
Warbelow said that cities’ overall scores have been rising year over year, and that the organization has been adding new criteria to its scoring to “push cities to do more.”
“When we first looked at transgender inclusive health care benefits at the city level, there were only a tiny handful of cities that were offering (them),” she said. “And so we decided to spend some time educating cities before we began to hold them accountable for that.”
Kansas City got full points for providing transgender inclusive health care benefits to municipal employees.
She added that some programs, particularly municipal services, will likely remain in the “flex” category rather than being “required” because of funding limitations in smaller cities.
LGBTQ leaders told The Star that the work of supporting LGBTQ+ people in Kansas City needs to continue, despite the city’s sky-high score.
“It takes so much effort from everyone that is working in the community,” said Busch of No Divide. “I would feel comfortable with Kansas City being ranked highly, particularly in comparison to all the cities in the country. But there’s still a long way to go.”
Do you have more questions about LGBTQ equality in the Kansas City area? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.
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