As this month’s Supreme Court Masterpiece Cakeshop decision reminds us, the struggle for first-class citizenship and equality continues. Here are some highlights from LGBTQ Stats: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer People By The Numbers that put the Masterpiece decision in context: 

• During the past three years, more than three hundred bills restricting LGBTQ rights have been introduced in state legislatures.
• Eighty seven percent of the U.S. population believes—incorrectly—that it is illegal under federal law to fire someone for being LGBTQ. In fact, federal law does not protect private sector or non-federal LGBTQ workers from discrimination.
• It is legal in twenty eight states to deny housing or to fire workers on the basis of sexual orientation.
• The first Supreme Court decision to deal affirmatively with homosexuality came in 1958, inOne, Inc. v. Olesen. The Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Postal Service was required to deliver One: The Homosexual Magazine, which postal officials had argued was obscene because it addressed homosexuality.
• The first militant queer resistance to police abuse in U.S. history occurred in August 1966, when transgender people rioted outside Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco.
• The first Pride march took place in New York City on June 28, 1970, commemorating the Stonewall uprising of the previous year. More than two thousand people participated.
• An estimated 3 million people attended São Paulo’s 2006 Pride parade—making it the world’s largest-ever LGBTQ event. 

• In 2015 Gallup asked 1,527 Americans if they would vote for a presidential candidate who was gay or lesbian. Seventy four percent answered yes.
• According to a 2017 Harris Poll survey, 20 percent of millennials identify as LGBTQ; 63 percent describe themselves as straight allies.
• Worldwide, more than 2.7 billion people live in countries where being LGBTQ is punishable by imprisonment, violence, or death.
   

Described as “the most comprehensive portrait of LGBTQ life around” by acclaimed economics professor M.V. Lee Badgett and as an “astounding handbook [based on] a monumental amount of research,” (Booklist, starred review), LGBTQ Stats presents thousands of facts and figures that chronicle the ongoing LGBTQ revolution. The book won a 2018 Stonewall Honor Book Award from the American Library Association; David Deschamps, who co-authored LGBTQ Stats with Bennett Singer, will be accepting the award at the upcoming ALA conference in New Orleans on June 25.

Check out more eye-opening facts in LGBTQ Stats, or learn more at www.lgbtqstats.org.