Randy Yohe Published

Huntington’s LGTBQ+ Rating Leads State

A city crosswalk composed of multi-colored stripes.
A "Pride" crosswalk in downtown Huntington.
Randy Yohe/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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The city of Huntington begins the new year as a state and national leader in creating an inclusive community for the LGTBQ+ population.

With some civil rights under attack at the state level, and a new, more conservative Huntington mayor taking office, will the River City’s inclusivity stay strong? 

The Human Rights Campaign is the country’s largest LGTBQ+ civil rights organization. Every year, the group releases a Municipal Equality Index, ranking more than 500 U.S.cities on factors including non-discrimination laws, municipal employment policies, inclusiveness of city services and municipal leadership on matters of equality. For 2024, both Huntington and Morgantown received, for the second year in a row, a perfect score of 100. 

Outgoing Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said when he began his first term, 12 years ago, the city’s Equality Index was far from perfect.     

“Our score was 43 and it broke my heart, because I know the hearts and the caring the people in Huntington have,” Williams said.  “The one thing I learned immediately is that you have to be intentional in everything that you’re doing.”

Williams, a Democrat, created a Huntington Human Relations Commission, and worked to get an anti discrimination ordinance passed. The mayor said there had to be actual inclusion within the administration, so he created an LGBTQ advisory committee.

Huntington City Council member Ally Alyman is also a founding member and president of the non-profit Huntington Pride Organization. She said the group was founded in 2018 specifically for the city’s LGBTQ+ community in Huntington. 

“We offer free events for the community,” Layman said. “We’ve hosted pride festivals. We’ve hosted different types of artistic creative events for the community to get together and have places to go and have community and conversation. We’ve also helped to put together a health and safety resource guide for Cabell County. It’s one of the few that are available in the state of West Virginia.”

Willams said Huntington’s purposeful inclusivity is a catalyst in attracting new business and business minded familes. 

“Every week I end up hearing and meeting someone who said, we’ve heard about what you’ve been doing with the LGBTQ community and with diversity and inclusion within the city, and we didn’t think that was present in Appalachia, he said”

Layman agreed with that assessment.

“I think it shows diversity within the workforce,” she said. “We’ve honestly had a few folks from other states move to Huntington and open their businesses for local businesses from Texas and other places. We’ve had doctors move to the area because of this municipal Equality Index.”

For the eighth consecutive year, the Human Rights Campaign has designated Huntington as an “All-Star” city for scoring above 85 points. The Campaign says that’s despite being from a state without LGBTQ+ inclusive  non-discrimination laws at the state level.  

Layman said she takes pride in Huntington and 15 other West Virginia cities creating their own non-discrimination ordinances.   

“There’s always a concern with our Republican supermajority in the state of West Virginia,” Layman said. “I know last session there were, I think, about 45 laws that were written that may not have moved out of committee and they may not have moved to the floor, but it just shows the attack on human rights from a state level. I mean, yes, there’s always concern, but we have a lot of folks within our legislature, Democrats, independents, Republicans, that also fight for our community.”

Incoming Huntington Mayor Patrick Farrell, a Republican, did highlight the importance of diversity in his campaign platform. Farrell says he has no plans to take away any citizen rights and will continue advancing diversity gains.  

“All of our cities need to be a place where people feel safe and welcome,” Farrell said. “No matter where you’re from, what you look like, how you pray or who you love, this is a place that we want people to feel safe, so that will certainly continue when I’m mayor.”

Five other West Virginia cities were included in the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index. Charleston scored a 96, Wheeling a 75, Charles Town tallied a 53, Lewisiburg a 37 and Parkersburg scored a 26.