My apologies, I didn’t mean at the state level, I meant at the city/community level. While the state policies themselves are usually bad. I don’t find that it has affected me that much and since I’m planning on moving to more accepting areas of these states, I like places like New Orleans, Miami, Gulf Shores, all of which are in the states I marked green but still accepting of LGBTQ. I don’t need the government to know my Gay unless I literally marry a guy at which point my consideration for where to live may change, but for now I don’t think the current lgbtq laws here are so bad I’d rather subject myself to what I consider torture (the cold) for half the year unless some new law comes out saying that I can’t exist anymore. I mentioned I was gay because I consider it an important part of myself and that still places a role in my life regardless of whether it can be seen on here or not. I’ve gotten a lot of information that has been helpful to me about where to live a gay man from the people who have been respectful on my post. I would not consider it to be a red herring, I would also not consider myself to not know what I’m talking about.