Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC), the educational arm of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) civil rights organization, announced that the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood achieved a perfect score on HRC’s 2016 Municipal Equality Index (MEI) for establishing LGBTQ-inclusive local laws, policies and services. West Hollywood received 14 bonus points in recognition of services to LGBT people and people with HIV/AIDS, for LGBT elected and appointed leaders, for being welcoming place to work, and more. This is the fifth year in a row that Los Angeles received a perfect score.

The MEI rated 506 cities across the US based on non-discrimination laws, recognition of relationships, fairness and inclusiveness as an employer, municipal services, law enforcement, and relationship with its LGBT community. The MEI examines the laws, policies, and services of municipalities of various sizes from every state in the country and rates them on the basis of their inclusivity of LGBT people living and working in those cities. This year’s score once again places Los Angeles and West Hollywood at the top of rated municipalities in the nation.

The MEI assessed 57 cities in California that achieved an average score of 73 out of 100, while the national average was 55. The full report, including detailed scorecards for every city, as well as a searchable database, is available online at www.hrc.org/mei.

Since the MEI’s debut in 2012, the number of cities earning perfect scores has more than quintupled, and today at least 24 million people now live in cities that have more comprehensive, transgender-inclusive non-discrimination laws than their state or the federal government. Progress on transgender equality has been particularly noteworthy in cities across America this year, continuing a positive trend that the MEI has tracked and encouraged since 2012. Transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits are offered to employees of 86 municipalities this year – up from 66 in 2015 and five in 2012 – and the growth of cities offering those benefits to their employees outpaces the growth in the number of cities rated.