Europe Reaches New Low as LGBTI People Face Renewed Criminalisation

26.02.2026

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From Pride bans in the EU to prosecutions under “propaganda” and “extremism” laws, a new report from ILGA-Europe shows that attacks on LGBTI communities have evolved into systemic suppression of dissent and individual freedoms.

Brussels, 26 February: ILGA-Europe’s Annual Review, published today, reports a sharp escalation over the past year: tactics once used selectively against LGBTI people have consolidated into broader authoritarian governance. Europe has entered a new phase in which the tools of suppressing dissent are deployed at scale, with LGBTI people and organisations among the primary targets.

According to Katrin Hugendubel, Deputy Director/Advocacy Director of ILGA-Europe: “Over the past ten years, ILGA-Europe’s Annual Reviews have traced a pattern that is familiar from history: propaganda, scapegoating, and disinformation escalate into the denial of basic rights, which has now translated into laws that criminalise and silence. While the pace and intensity vary across countries, the underlying trajectory is unmistakable and deeply concerning.”

Recriminalisation gaining alarming momentum

Over the past decade, ILGA-Europe’s Annual Review has tracked governments adopting the playbook of restrictive measures first tested against LGBTI communities. This year’s report finds those tactics have hardened into formal policy: criminalising individuals, cutting off civil society funding, imposing de facto bans on organisations, and misusing courts and administrative powers.

In Hungary, the mayor of Budapest was investigated as a Pride organiser, leading to an indictment; similar proceedings targeted a Pride organiser in the Hungarian city of 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, leading to raids, prosecutions, website blocks, and a database of LGBTI individuals.

Legal harassment and smear campaigns reinforce the crackdown. In Turkey, journalists reporting on LGBTI-related policies face investigations under disinformation laws, including the Editor-in-Chief of the LGBTI news portal KaosGL.org who was arrested for alleged membership of a terrorist organisation. 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.

Targeting and erasure

Across Europe, there is a marked shift away from rights-based governance toward measures that restrict trans and gender-diverse people’s ability to participate fully in public life. An increasing number of policies are grounded in the premise that only two “biological sexes” exist, defined strictly by sex assigned at birth. This framework effectively erases legal recognition of trans people and narrows access to documentation, healthcare, and equal treatment.

Examples in 2025 include developments in the United Kingdom, where the Supreme Court interpreted “woman” and “sex” as referring to biological sex at birth; Hungary, where constitutional amendments define sex as an immutable biological endowment; and Georgia, where lawmakers advanced changes removing references to “gender” and “gender identity” from equality legislation.

This erasure often begins in classrooms and youth spaces. In Hungary, the Child Protection Act restricts school content deemed to “promote deviation” from sex assigned at birth or homosexuality. Pressure is also mounting elsewhere. In Italy, school projects addressing gender identity face political pushback, while in France and Germany, equality and diversity education programmes have been publicly challenged or curtailed.

Reversing trends and resisting

The report also documents that backsliding is not inevitable. In Poland, the final remaining “LGBTI-free zone” resolution was repealed in April, formally closing a chapter that had come to symbolise the institutional stigmatisation of LGBTI people and signalling a renewed alignment with European non-discrimination standards. In Spain, several regional parliaments pushed back against attempts by the far right party, Vox, to dismantle equality frameworks. These developments demonstrate that democratic institutions can still act decisively to uphold rights when political will is present.

Hugendubel concluded: “The human rights safeguards established after the Second World War are now in serious jeopardy. This is not about so-called ‘wokeism’ or ideology. It is about real people being targeted and persecuted. Our leaders must respond with urgency. Without decisive action, we face a rapid and dangerous democratic collapse.”

About ILGA-Europe’s Annual Review

ILGA-Europe have been publishing the Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex People in Europe and Central Asia for 15 years. It brings together research and expertise from ILGA-Europe staff and members, including 200 plus activists and legal professionals across 54 countries, to document developments in legal protections, discrimination, freedom of assembly and expression, health rights, asylum practices, hate crimes, intersex bodily integrity, civil society space, and more. The Review also assesses how regional and international institutions, including the European Union, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, and the OSCE, have engaged with or impacted LGBTI human rights.