Alabama gay

HB 354 - “Don’t Tell Gay” Extension

Background: HB354 will grow the ban that was passed in 2022 by the Alabama state legislature. Existing legislation prevents classroom instruction on the topics of “sexual orientation or gender identity” “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards” to public school students in kindergarten to fifth grade. The new regulation would prohibit all order on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to eighth grade. For students in ninth through twelfth grade, instruction would still be limited dependent on if the manual was deemed age or developmentally appropriate.

Our Position: We challenge HB354. The ACLU of Alabama supports allowing teaching on inclusive topics appreciate sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom. The Don’t Say Homosexual bill in Alabama schools already prevents the learning on and acceptance of LGBTQ students in classrooms. Expanding this ban from fifth grade to eighth grade and limiting the discussion of the topic in all Alabama schools walks back education in a state where there is already significant educational need. This

LGBTQ Rights

The ACLU of Alabama works to create a Alabama free of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This means a Alabama where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) people can live openly, where our identities, relationships and families are respected, and where there is fair treatment on the job, in schools, housing, public places, health care, and government programs.

Since taking its first LGBTQ rights case in 1936, the ACLU has been involved in many high-profile legal challenges to discriminatory laws and policies that impact the LGBTQ community. The ACLU of Alabama recently enjoyed a major victory for LGBTQ rights by challenging and succeeding in overturning the state’s discriminatory law banning gay men and lesbians from adopting.

The ACLU’s LGBTQ rights strategy is based on the belief that fighting for the population we want means not just persuading judges and government officials, but ultimately changing the way world thinks about LGBTQ people. To end discrimination, the ACLU seeks both to change the law and to convince Americans that sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination is wrong.

Alabama's Equality Profile

Sexual Orientation

of population
fully protected

of population only
partially
protected

Legend

State
Protections
County
Protections
City
Protections
No
Protections
Protections
Banned

County map only shows areas with occupied protections for sexual orientation (i.e., discrimination prohibited in private employment, housing, and public accommodations)

City and County Numbers:

0 counties out of 67 have an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in secret employment, housing, and widespread accommodations (full protections).

2 cities have an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in private employment, housing, and public accommodations (full protections).

1 municipality, not including those listed above, has an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in private employment, housing, or public accommodations (only partial protections). Watch table below.

4% of the state population is protected against discrimination based on sexual orientation in private employment, housing, and public accommodations (full protections).

Does Alabama have an LGBTQ history?

Posted by Eric Gonzaba

Does Alabama have an LGBTQ history? In her 1997 travel guide The Queerest Places: A Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic Sites, Paula Martinac provides readers wonderful descriptions of historical places of interest related to queer history. She divides her summaries by states from five regions: New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest, the West, and the South. Yet, while Martinac lists eleven states in her Southern chapters, no entries from Alabama are included (one of just five states without any listings).

See the full map

Despite this, there does remain a queer history of Alabama, and a loaded one at that. Historians have long focused their work on the epicenters of gay American society in the last century, principally in the gayborhoods of San Francisco and New York. However, lgbtq+ life existed outside the American coasts, even in places commonly caricatured as inhospitable for LGBTQ animation, like the American South. To try to more closely understand these histories of the queer American South, our team is currently underway on a digital mapping project studying ignored queer geography. In February 2020, we pl