This information design communicates the shifting landscape of proposed LGBTQ+ legislation over the past fourteen years, illustrating how the balance between positive and negative bills has transformed across key policy areas. The streamgraph format reveals not only the volume of activity each year, but also the momentum and volatility of different categories from youth and education to health, safety, non-discrimination, and criminal justice. Early years show a more balanced mix of supportive and harmful proposals, yet toward the present the negative waves sharply intensify, particularly in legislation targeting LGBTQ+ youth and health & safety. Peaks, dips, and surges across the timeline make it easy to see political turning points and record-setting years, emphasizing how legislative focus has shifted from protections to restrictions. Overall, the design highlights an escalating trend of anti-LGBTQ+ policymaking while underscoring the disproportionate impact on young people communicating a visual narrative of both progress and backlash.

Data for these inforgrapics is from the HRC's 2024 State Equality Index.

About the Process: First, data was researched, collected and formatted in an Excel spreadsheet. Next, Flourish was used to intially visualize the streamgraphs. Further work on the infographic and overall design was completed in Adobe Illustrator.

The HRC defines the category of Youth Education Laws and Policies as those that evaluate a range of measures concerning the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ youth, including safe school laws, laws to protect youth from dangerous and discredited conversion therapy, and laws to address youth homelessness. Recognizing that schools play an especially important role in the growth and development of young people, we looked at a number of measures relating to bullying prevention and school safety. Additionally, this category expanded last year to include criteria that examines laws and policies that require intentional misgendering of public-school students, forcible outing of LGBTQ+ youth, and restrictions on transgender people accessing gendered facilities in public schools.

The HRC defines the category of Health & Safety Laws and Policies as those that evaluate a range of measures relating to the health and safety of LGBTQ+ people, including access to healthcare, the ability to obtain appropriate identity documents, and the collection of health survey data of LGBTQ+ people. Data collection pertaining to LGBTQ+ populations is especially important because, over time, it will allow us to assess and address health disparities among LGBTQ+ communities. This category expanded last year to include criteria that examine laws and policies that restrict transgender people from using restrooms in certain public spaces and drag performances.

Use of streamgraphs

Streamgraphs are an effective choice here because they show change over time in a fluid, immediately comparative way. The layered, flowing shapes make it easy to see how categories of LGBTQ+ legislation, such as Youth & Education and Health & Safety expand, contract, and shift from mainly positive proposals to increasingly negative ones. Their undulating forms highlight both volume and momentum, making surges and declines instantly recognizable and long-term turning points more visible than in traditional bar or line charts. By stacking categories across the timeline, the streamgraph makes the cumulative pressure of these legislative shifts clear, revealing not just how much legislation has been proposed, but how its overall balance and focus have transformed over time. The form matches the message: waves of legislation swelling and crashing. You can feel the shift toward negative bills in a way no other chart type communicates.