This project was conducted in partnership with the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving (The Foundation) with the shared goal to illuminate the current state of the LGBTQIA+ community in the Greater Hartford area. It is our hope that this information will aid organizations and funders in better directing resources to meet the needs of this community.

The project was undertaken in the context of an increasing number of people identifying as LGBTQIA+ in Connecticut, alongside increased introduction of anti-transgender bills in state legislatures nationwide. The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic magnified existing disparities including those affecting the LGBTQIA+ community.

While the focus was on the Greater Hartford area, due to issues with data availability, much of the quantitative data concerns Connecticut residents as a whole.

As discussed in the qualitative section, this may offer a more holistic view of the population being served by Hartford-area organizations due to the need to travel across regions within the state to access the most appropriate resources and care.

The goals of this research project were to understand the landscape of programs and policies as well as the health and wellbeing of LGBTQIA+ people in the Greater Hartford region. The two main research questions guiding our efforts were:

● What is the availability of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data in the Greater Hartford region?
● What is the health and wellbeing status of the LGBTQIA+ community in the Greater Hartford region?