If you are searching for the most gay-friendly cities in the U.S., you are really asking a science-of-people question: Where do laws, culture, and community line up so LGBTQ people can live ordinary lives (or at least as “ordinary” as straight people)?
There is no single “gay meter,” so this list blends policy signals like the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index, lived reality like gay bars and lesbian bars, and the stuff you feel on a sidewalk: social attitudes, visible pride events, and whether queer people can hold hands without doing a threat assessment first.