Just as members of the LGBTQ community, at any age, must give more thought than non-LGBTQ people about where to live abroad, the same applies to retiring domestically. Though most legal protections, such as marriage equality and laws forbidding job and housing discrimination, have been federalized, some states led the way early on.
Note that the LGBTQ population of all the recommended states below exceeds 5%, though not all state surveys are as up-to-date as the 2024 Gallup poll, which showed LGBTQ identification in the U.S. at 9.3%. According to the same Gallup survey, the LGBTQ cohort in Gen X — born from 1965 to 1980, that’s the group nearing retirement — clocks in at 5.1%.
