Criminalisation of LGBTI people returns to Europe’s doorstep

Across Europe and Central Asia, the criminalisation of LGBTI people is quietly returning, not through explicit bans but through a growing web of “propaganda” laws, foreign-agent rules, and restrictions on civic space.

Every year, when we launch our Annual Review, we take a step back to look honestly at what’s really happening around us. This isn’t theory or abstract analysis. It’s a clear picture built from what we see every day in our work at ILGA-Europe, combined with the evidence and documentation shared by over 200 activists and legal experts in 55 countries.

We organise the report by key themes, and we include individual country chapters as well as a dedicated institutional chapter. This structure helps us compare how institutions at the EU level, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations respond to the issues we are tracking.

Over the course of 2025, there have been some positive developments. For instance:

• Denmark adopted a policy and action plan to improve healthcare responses for LGBTI people.
• Courts in Italy ruled on parenthood recognition.
• Lithuania advanced recognition of same-sex partnerships.
• At the Council of Europe, the Committee of Ministers unanimously adopted a Recommendation on the Human Rights of Intersex People, setting standards on bodily integrity, legal recognition and protection from discrimination.

But this year, more than ever, we felt an urgent responsibility to highlight the rapid decline in human rights, democracy, and the rule of law across Europe and Central Asia, and this comes with a deeply concerning, and fast escalating new trend.

Not long ago, many of us believed that the criminalisation of LGBTI people was largely behind us in much of our region. But as we look closely at our current Annual Review, we can clearly see an alarming shift: criminalisation is re-emerging in many ways and contexts.

The Overview

Across very different political systems, we are seeing the same kinds of tools and tactics being used. These include:

• Criminal laws framed around “propaganda” or “extremism”,
• Foreign funding controls,
• The misuse of administrative powers that force organisations to close.
• Constitutional amendments define sex in strictly biological binary terms, erasing trans, intersex and non-binary people from public life.
• Restrictions on assembly, sentencing and censorship are justified through “child protection” and “public order”.

When we look at these measures together, we see how they limit who among us can organise, who can speak out, who can gather, and even who can be legally recognised.

Step by step, they change the rules of civic participation. They redraw the boundaries of what is considered legal, and who is allowed to exist within those boundaries.

What the Report Finds

Here are some clear examples of how this has been playing out:

• In Hungary, the mayor of Budapest was investigated as a Pride organiser, leading to an indictment. Similar legal proceedings targeted a Pride organiser in Pécs.
• In Turkey 11 activists from the Young LGBTI+ Association faced charges under the Associations Law.
• In Belarus new amendments classify so-called “propaganda” of homosexuality and gender reassignment as harmful to children, paving the way for criminal sanctions.
• In Kyrgyzstan a draft bill proposes prison sentences for disseminating information that creates a “positive attitude” toward so-called non-traditional sexual orientation.
• In Russia authorities intensified enforcement of the 2023 “international LGBT movement” extremist designation. This led to raids, prosecutions, website blocks, and the creation of a database of LGBTI individuals.

Legal harassment and smear campaigns reinforce the crackdown. For example:

• In Turkey the Editor-in-Chief of the LGBTI news portal KaosGL.org who was arrested for alleged membership of a terrorist organisation. Other journalists reporting on LGBTI-related policies also face investigations under disinformation laws.
• The targeting extends beyond LGBTI communities, illustrated by Turkey’s arrest of Council of Europe Youth Delegate Enes Hocaoğulları after he addressed the Council about police violence, democratic backsliding and the erosion of local governance.
• This isn’t just paperwork or legal technicalities. Real people are being charged with crimes and could end up in prison.

On top of that, more and more LGBTI groups are being effectively shut down, not always through official bans, but by authorities using the courts and administrative rules to block, harass, or disable their work.

• In Georgia, following a package of anti-LGBTI legislation, further restrictions were introduced through a foreign agents registration act, requiring organisations receiving foreign funding to register as foreign agents and introducing heavy fines for non-compliance.
• In Serbia, a draft law proposes mandatory registration for NGOs and media outlets receiving more than 50 per cent of their funding from abroad.
• More and more policies are based on the idea that there are only two sexes, fixed at birth and never changing.

When governments take that approach, it ends up limiting trans and gender-diverse people’s ability to live openly and take part fully in everyday public life, from legal recognition to work, school, and basic services.

• In Slovakia, constitutional amendments under discussion would recognise only two sexes and severely restrict legal gender recognition.
• In the United Kingdom, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of “sex” as biological sex at birth has effectively blocked protections for trans people under equality legislation.
• In Georgia, lawmakers advanced changes removing references to gender and gender identity from equality law.

Erasure often starts in schools and places where young people spend their time.

It begins when certain identities simply aren’t acknowledged, talked about, or included, sending a message early on that some people don’t belong, which will have far-reaching consequences. Even measures that may appear minor signal deeper shifts.

• Hungary’s Child Protection Act restricts school content deemed to promote deviation from sex assigned at birth or homosexuality.
• In Italy, school projects addressing gender identity face political pushback.
• In France and Germany, equality and diversity education programmes have been publicly challenged or curtailed.
• In Austria and Germany, authorities disallowed gender-inclusive language in certain contexts.

All of these developments go hand-in-hand with a rise in homophobic and especially transphobic hate, online and offline, including in parliamentary debates. And yet, backsliding is not inevitable. For instance:

• In Poland, the final remaining “LGBTI-free zone” resolution was repealed last April, closing a chapter that had symbolised institutional stigmatisation.
• In Spain, regional parliaments pushed back against attempts to dismantle equality frameworks.
• Despite criminal charges against Pride organisers and a chilling climate of attacks on equality policies, more and more Pride marches are taking place across the region.

These examples show that democratic institutions can take strong, concrete action when they choose to, including by tying funding to basic rights standards and by showing clear political leadership.

The blunt message

This year’s Annual Review sends a blunt message: progress can be undone, and it can happen fast. Rights that were won can be rolled back. That’s why prevention matters, it’s far easier to protect gains than to rebuild them after they’ve been dismantled.

Look at Ukraine. Even while defending itself against Russia’s ongoing invasion, civil society groups there are still pushing to strengthen hate crime laws and secure legal recognition for

partnerships. That level of commitment shows what’s really at stake. Not just individual rights, but the health of democracy itself and people’s ability to participate in public life.

And this goes beyond LGBTI communities. It’s about who gets to exist openly in society, who is allowed to organise, who can speak out, and who is recognised by the law. The same tactics first used against LGBTI groups are now being used to shrink civic space more broadly.

The real question for European institutions is whether they will match the resolve of those on the ground who continue defending rights, even as the pressure on them grows.