United Kingdom Falls Several Places in Annual Ranking of LGBTQ+ Rights in Europe

Rainbow Europe has released its annual ranking of countries based on LGBTQ+ rights, and after a significant drop for the United Kingdom last year, the decline has continued. Initially in 10th place in 2021, the UK fell to 14th place in the 2022 ranking and has fallen even further to 17th place in this year’s results.

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The Rainbow Europe Map was set up as a way to analyze the state of LGBTQ+ equality across Europe. It is released annually, around IDAHOBLIT (the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Lesbophobia and Transphobia), with a complete list and full report detailing their findings. Ranking all 49 countries on a scale from 0% (highly discriminative) to 100% (full equality), each entry is rated based on laws and policies and the social climate.

The ranking is ultimately based on the analysis of the following 7 categories.

- Equality and non-discrimination

- Family

- Hate crime and hate speech

- Legal gender recognition

- Intersex bodily integrity

- Civil society space

- Asylum

The 2023 data shows that Malta takes the top spot, with a rating of 89% with regards to achieving success in the seven categories. Belgium, Denmark, Spain and Iceland make up the rest of the top 5. The bottom five countries in the Rainbow Europe Map are currently Belarus, Russia, Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan (which has a rating of 2%).

The United Kingdom used to be considered among the top nations on the Rainbow Europe Map country ranking but has now fallen to a third of the way down the list. British LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall commented on the immense drop in placement for the UK.

“On this trajectory, the UK could be out of the Top 20 in a couple of years.”

According to the report, a large contributing factor towards the UK drop in the ranking is due to the slow process of banning conversion therapy for all LGBTQ+ identities. “Despite years of civil society advocacy and government promises, the process of banning so-called ‘conversion therapies’ continued to be stalled this year in most of the UK,” read the report.

Access the complete country ranking and read the 2023 Rainbow Europe report here.

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