LGBTQIA+ Community Taking Businesses, Economic Impact To Places That Will ‘Love You Back’

Amid one of the toughest civil rights climates in a generation for LGBTQIA+ rights, some members of the community are ditching red states and taking their incomes, businesses and economic impact with them. 

A slow migration has begun as the legislative landscape turns hostile in states like Florida, which has expanded its controversial so-called Don’t Say Gay law, and Texas, whose legislature this year approved a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youths. 

It is too soon to assess where members of the LGBTQIA+ community are going or to chalk up regional wins and losses, real estate players in the community told Bisnow. But their numbers are steadily growing as LGBTQ+ people and those with LGBTQ+ children abandon their homes for safer regions and states, according to the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance’s annual report and anecdotal reports.

That could have implications for CRE, which tends to follow the money — and has controversially followed the community, which has been both heralded and blamed for gentrifying neighborhoods across the country over the past few decades.

More than 340 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills were introduced across the nation in 2023, according to the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance report, with Texas alone accounting for 51, or 15%. The national total has more than tripled from a previous high of about 100 such bills in 2015.

“Why would you want to contribute to a place that doesn’t love you back?” said Stephan Hengst, executive director of the Provincetown Business Guild in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Provincetown is known for having the largest gay community in the country, and it is getting even larger of late. There are 300 members in the guild, which Hengst likened to a “gay chamber of commerce,” up from 265 members last year. 

Hengst has seen the LGTBQIA+ population of the city, especially the number of young gay business owners, swell in recent years, partly due to people moving from red states, he said.

“I recently met a young man from Texas who just moved up and was like, ‘I can't handle the environment anymore. I want to be in a place where I feel welcome and included,’” Hengst said. “He just got a job working in Provincetown two weeks ago.” 

No comprehensive research has been conducted to assess the migratory impact of anti-gay and anti-transgender legislation, but a 2023 study from the University of California, Los Angeles Williams Institute released about 10 months after Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill passed found that 56% of LGBTQ+ parents had considered moving out of Florida due to the bill. About 17% had already taken active steps to do so. 

“Texas and Florida are leading the way, trying to criminalize our community,” said Bob McCranie, a Dallas Realtor and broker associate who runs Texas Pride Realty Group as well as fleeredstates.com, a service aimed at helping people relocate to more LGBTQ-friendly places.

McCranie's company promises to help individuals and families sell their homes in red states and find new ones in safer havens, noting on his site that "our marriages, our families, and even our safety are at risk."

Since he reversed the purpose of his business from attracting people to new homes to facilitating leaving them, McCranie has helped 27 groups of people relocate from Texas. The exodus has been “slowly building” since 2019, he said. 

“I used to tell people if you stay in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex or you're in Houston or Austin, you're fine,” McCranie said. “That's been my pitch for a long time with Texas Pride Realty Group. We were here to help you find a place that you want to live in Texas. You can never tell somebody it’s safe, but you feel OK here.”

Now, though, “I can't say that anymore,” McCranie said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 12 into law on June 18. Effective Sept. 1, it will be illegal to perform "sexually explicit" shows in front of children. Although a specific mention of drag was removed, the bill classifies explicit conduct as the use of “accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics.”

This could push out any business owners who host drag shows, McCranie said.

Julie Mabry, the owner of the Houston lesbian nightclub Pearl Bar, said the bill led to the bar being denied renewal of its business insurance because it hosts drag shows.

The Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce eventually helped connect the club with a different, willing provider, but the fact new laws have put businesses' futures in jeopardy is hard to swallow, said Anita Legacy Blue, a Houston Realtor and president-elect of the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance.

“As an entrepreneur, a person who is in business, we want to go and serve the community,” she said. “When someone decides to come and take us out of business due to rhetoric, dislike, discrimination, biases, it is totally unfair. It will have a great impact if any business is harmed by biases or people's prejudices.” 

There were more than 450 attendees at the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce’s Pride in Business event last week, and they discussed supporting each other’s businesses more in these trying times, Blue said.

“We had 450 people in that room for Pride in Business. Imagine if we had 400 people move out to another location and say, ‘We are here,’” Blue said. “We are strong in numbers.”

Pushing out people in the LGBTQIA+ community and their businesses could have a detrimental economic effect. More than 4% of Texans identify as LGBTQ+, and they have an estimated personal income of $57.8B, according to OutLeadership.

Research dating back to the 1960s has shown that legal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are associated with an increase in per capita gross domestic product. In a national study released this month in conjunction with Pride Month, Wells Fargo found that gross state product is positively correlated with LGBTQ+ representation. 

“States that are interested in lifting their economic growth rates, I think, should take this research as an interesting finding and perhaps try to dig in a little bit more about what’s really going on here,” Jay Bryson, chief economist on the study, told U.S. News & World Report.

Up until 2016, research conducted by SmartOut found that LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs were more likely than average Americans or straight entrepreneurs to flock to California, Massachusetts, New York, Colorado, Washington, Illinois and Washington, D.C. All except Colorado have higher-than-average LGBTQIA+ representation. 

Then, norms relaxed amid a flurry of pro-gay legislation, including a 2016 Supreme Court decision that gay marriage was the law of the land. As a result, LGBTQIA+ cluster communities took a hit, as community members moved away from traditional refuges — a trend that was further fueled by the pandemic and the rise of remote work, per a New York Times analysis.

Today, though, 15 states, including Texas, have fallen into the high-risk category for the LGBTQ+ community, largely due to a torrent of legislation perceived as discriminatory, according to OutLeadership’s LGBTQ+ Business Climate Index published this month.

Texas’ score decreased from 45.63 to 44.7 from 2022 to 2023, according to the report, which ranks states on a safety scale that tops out at 100. Florida is considered a notable risk with a 2023 score of 50.6. By comparison, California is considered no risk with a score of 86.5, unchanged from 2022. 

Naomi Thorne, a Realtor who lives in Marin County, California, said there is no noticeable gay community or area in the county. There is no need for one.

“We're doing all sorts of different jobs and contributing vastly to this community and to this economy to help it to thrive,” Thorne said. “We're just people out there doing the jobs that everyone is.”

But when Thorne and her wife moved to Florida for a stint to launch a house-flipping business, that wasn't the case, even in Wilton Manors, the country’s second-largest city for same-sex couples behind Provincetown, according to Visit Florida.

While Thorne and her wife felt safe in the confines of Wilton Manors, venturing to surrounding areas came with challenges. Even buying a bed became uncomfortable when the salesperson realized it was for two women.

“Those types of experiences, we just don’t have here,” Thorne said of California.

After a year in Florida, she and her wife returned to California, where they live with their 6-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter.

“We bought a new bed here, actually, in Novato a couple of weeks ago,” Thorne said. “It was such a different experience because we haven't bought a new bed in so long, and it felt so normal, for lack of a better word. Normal and comfortable.”

Thorne has close friends who remain in Florida and recognizes that there are kind, accepting people in these places. But she said she wouldn’t move back and doesn't blame anyone for leaving.

“Because of the laws, I'm staying in California,” Thorne said. “I would never move my family to Florida or Texas. I know that there are a lot of really wonderful people there. But we have to protect our families.”

Blue said since she is an older member of the community and doesn't have to worry about children, she feels a responsibility to stay in Houston and fight for her rights.

“Somebody fought for us to be where we are today,” Blue said. “So it's huge for me to say, ‘Hey, I'm an advocate. I'm here. I'm not moving out. And nobody is going to run me out.’”

Dave Gervase, a Fort Lauderdale Realtor, said he feels the same way about staying in his home and community in Florida. But he is seeing friends leave due to the reddening of the state, which he said attracted a wave of new conservative residents drawn by its lax masking requirements.

One friend, a teacher in Wilton Manors, was asked to take a family picture off his desk because of the Don’t Say Gay bill, Gervase said. When that same friend’s daughter came out as lesbian, they decided to move to Los Angeles, selling their dream home to rent a two-bedroom apartment, Gervase said. Meanwhile, many members of the Florida LGBTQIA+ community are turning to GoFundMe to help fund departures from the state.

“It’s a crime that we don’t feel safe in the largest gay community in the country,” Gervase said.

Considering the hundreds of anti-LGBTQIA+ bills considered or passed this year and the Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning the monumental Roe v. Wade decision, some, including McCranie, worry that the right of gay people to marry could be next. That would likely spawn an even larger migration to blue states.

“If we lose the decision on gay marriage … then it goes back down to the states to decide,” McCranie said. “So if we have to get to that level, which states will protect our relationships? Which states will protect our marriages?”

Blue states are already taking advantage. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made it clear that his state will remain friendly to the LGBTQIA+ community, signing a trans refuge bill last year. Maura Healy, the openly lesbian governor of Massachusetts, declared the state a “safe haven” for people across the country who have had their civil rights denied in other states. 

In places like Provincetown, the already-strong gay business community is just getting stronger, Hengst said. 

“We are definitely seeing an influx of individuals coming to places like Provincetown and New York and other places in the Northeast and in more affirming communities, because they want to feel like they're welcomed in the place that they live,” Hegnst said. “And it's a shame that everyone can't experience that.”