Lack Of LGBTQ Protections Has Some Young West Virginians Ready To Leave

Casey Johnson lives in Pittsburgh’s North Shore, a couple of blocks from one of the most colorful buildings in the nation, Randyland, a utopian-esque public art installation with walls, chairs, and trinkets in every possible shade and hue.

When apartment shopping in the Steel City, Johnson, who is pansexual, gender non-binary and uses non-gendered pronouns, searched to find a neighborhood that was the “most accepting.” North Shore, they said, fits the bill.

But if Johnson were ever to move back home to West Virginia, where they grew up, they know that acceptance isn’t certain and often a matter of where someone chooses to live.

Johnson was raised inside the city limits of Martinsburg, one of just over a dozen cities in the state to protect LGBTQ individuals from discrimination in housing and employment.

Read more: https://www.wvpublic.org/government/2021-05-19/lack-of-lgbtq-protections-has-some-young-west-virginians-ready-to-leave