2024 LGBTQ Global Rights Progress - Global trends, and what's in store for 2025
Challenges ahead as the far right surges globally, but some reasons to be hopeful
This is the final part of my look back at how the fight for global LGBTQ rights has evolved over the previous 12 months, focusing on global trends and looking forward to 2025.
You can also still read my previous entries on North America, Latin America & Caribbean, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
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2024 was a year of big gains for the global LGBT community. Here’s a summary of our major victories:
Equal marriage: Estonia (came into effect); Greece (passed and came into effect); Liechtenstein, Thailand (passed); Netherlands: Aruba & Curacao; Mexico: Chiapas (codified); USA: California, Colorado, Hawai’i (constitutional restrictions repealed)
Adoption rights: Greece, Czechia (stepchild adoption only), Thailand (passed); UK: Jersey and USA: Massachusetts (automatic parenthood)
Civil unions: Czechia (enhanced)
Sodomy decriminalized: Namibia, Dominica; Barbados (codified)
Hate crime/speech laws: UK: Scotland (came into effect); USA: Michigan; Mexico: Hidalgo (passed), Mexico City (enhanced); Australia: New South Wales, Queensland; Seychelles, Ireland, South Africa; Cyprus (enhanced)
Discrimination protections: Seychelles; Lesotho; Timor-Leste (limited); USA: New York (constitutional); Mexico: Michoacan (constitutional); Denmark: Greenland; Italy: Apulia
Blood donation bans end: Denmark, Estonia, Czechia, Netherlands, Honduras, Bermuda (UK)
Conversion therapy banned: USA: Kentucky, Pennsylvania; Switzerland: Valais and Vaud; Australia: New South Wales, South Australia; UK: Isle of Man; Norway, Portugal (came into effect); Mexico (passed and came into effect); Peru (administrative)
Gender self-identification: USA: Michigan; Mexico: Yucatan, Campeche; Australia: New South Wales, Queensland, ACT; European Union (all member states must recognize each other’s gender recognition); Germany, Ecuador;
Gender change liberalized but still medicalized: Sweden and Hong Kong (liberalized, but still medicalized)
And there were some setbacks
Sodomy criminalized: Iraq (explicitly); Burkina Faso and Mali (laws not yet in effect)
Same-sex marriage ban enacted: Vanuatu
Restrictions of LGBT speech passed: Bulgaria, Georgia, Uganda; Ghana and Namibia (not yet signed into law)
But the biggest setbacks came at the ballot boxes, where far-right parties aligned against LGBT people won major victories in countries around the world, notably in the United States, when the incoming Trump administration and Republican congress is likely to wreak havoc on LGBT rights both at home and abroad.
Still, there are a few spots to hope for in 2025.
Equal Marriage
There aren’t any pending equal marriage bills already tabled this year, but there’s reason to suspect that will change.
Sint Maarten is the last part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands without equal marriage, and after last year’s Court of Cassation ruling against Aruba and Curacao, it’s only a matter of time before a legal challenge, or a government bill is brought forward to change that.
Japan is probably the next most likely country to have to figure this out. With about 90% of the country living in a jurisdiction that has same-sex partnership registries, a half-dozen court cases winding their way to the Supreme Court, and a bare majority of parliamentarians now supporting same-sex marriage, something has to give sooner or later.
I would still rate Cyprus a dark horse possibility to pass same-sex marriage this year. Its government appears committed to improving LGBT rights and bringing the state in line with EU standards.
Czechia will have parliamentary elections this autumn, and the debacle over same-sex marriage in 2024 will likely be an issue. In any event, it won’t get resolved until there’s a new parliament.
Debate over same-sex marriage in Israel similarly will only advance after there’s a new Knesset. Elections aren’t scheduled until 2026, but the situation in the country remains extremely volatile.
I’ve teased the possibility that the UK government could extend civil unions or equal marriage to its holdout territories. There’s no talk about this yet from the government but it’s a possible scenario.
Poland’s civil union will likely come to a vote in 2025, though it may have to wait until after presidential elections in May.
Lithuania might bring forward its civil union bill somehow – there ought to be a parliamentary majority in favor of passing it, but the current government’s junior partner is strongly opposed to it, so they may continue to block it.
A long-stalled civil code, including civil unions, might finally be brought to a vote in Kosovo.
Possibly Ukraine will find the will to pass its proposed civil unions bill.
And there’s still hope that tiny Monaco might do something to enhance its civil union law or even bring in some form of marriage recognition.
Sodomy Laws
We’re likely to see sodomy criminalized in at least Burkina Faso and Mali, and probably Niger in 2025. Although, it’s also possible these countries will all cease to exist this year as they contemplate federating, so the total number of criminalizing states may shift in unexpected ways.
But we’re also very likely to see sodomy decriminalization decisions finally come in Grenada and St. Lucia. I’m not sure if an appeal has been filed on the St. Vincent and the Grenadines decision yet, but even if it has, the decision is unlikely to come this year.
There’s at least a decent chance the new government of Sri Lanka moves to decriminalize sodomy too, after supporting the idea in last year’s elections.
Last year, we gained three equal marriage countries and two states decriminalizing. I had already been counting Iraq as a criminalizing state because of its other laws that are used to target LGBT people, and I am not counting Burkina Faso and Mali until their laws are published. That closed the gap between the number of equal marriage/sodomy criminalized states by a total of five. 2025 doesn’t look at this point like it’s going to dramatically change those numbers at this point.
Discrimination protections and conversion therapy
The UK government is due to bring forward a conversion therapy ban, but who knows with the current anti-trans hysteria? A conversion therapy ban has also been proposed for Northern Ireland. Jersey and Gibraltar may bring forward hate crime legislation.
Ireland has been proposing a conversion therapy ban for years. Maybe 2025 is the year.
Singapore is debating a workplace discrimination law this week, and some are calling for amendments to protect LGBT people.
Western Australia’s government has promised a trans-inclusive anti-discrimination law if it’s reelected in March.
India’s government appears committed to fighting discrimination against LGBT couples with everything short of actual legislation or marriage rights. We’ll see how this manifests over the year.
Thailand’s government is still working on a gender recognition bill.
Switzerland’s national government is working on a conversion therapy ban; its various cantons are working on local bans in the meantime, and we may see them come from some of the larger ones.
European integration
Even with the rise of the far right across Europe, I still believe that the process of European integration has been an important driver of progress on LGBT rights on the continent.
This year, the EU Commission adopted as a priority expanding LGBT rights across the continent, including by banning conversion therapy and improving safety.
To that end, there were a couple of important milestones this year. Romania and Bulgaria both joined the Schengen zone. Sweden joined NATO. And it looks like Bulgaria may soon join the eurozone, if it can ever sort out its internal governance problems.
As for new members of the EU – accession talks have been crawling for the Western Balkan states for more than a decade, with the only real bright spot being Montenegro, which closed 3 accession negotiation chapters this year, for a total of 6/33 since it started talks in 2012.And accession of Georgia is off the table unless the Russia-aligned group that stole last year’s election is somehow deposed. But prospects for Moldova grew somewhat brighter when the country narrowly voted to enshrine accession to the EU as a goal in its constitution.
Commonwealth of Nations
The decriminalization of sodomy in Dominica and Namibia shifted the balance slightly between criminalizing and non-criminalizing member states in the Commonwealth, it’s now 27 non-criminalizing to 29 criminalizing. If we win the upcoming court cases in St. Lucia and Grenada, that balance will shift to 29 non-criminalizing to 27 criminalizing, the first time non-criminalizing states will be in the majority.
And that’s my wrap up of 2024!
Regular programming at this newsletter will resume Wednesday with a look at what’s been happening this week! Thanks for following along!
It seems that Hong Kong is omitted.