ILGA published "Laws on Us" report

One-third of the world still criminalises consensual same-sex acts.

More than 30 percent of the world’s countries still criminalise LGBTQ+ people for engaging in consensual same-sex acts, a new report has revealed.

ILGA World’s new flagship publication Laws on Us has documented legal developments in all 193 UN member states, several non-UN member entities and a number of sub-national jurisdictions, between January 2023 and April 2024.

“Our communities celebrated important victories during the past two years,” Lucas Ramón Mendos, research manager at ILGA World and Laws on Us’ lead co-author, said ahead of the report’s publication. “And yet, resistance and detraction have materialised almost everywhere.”

Published just ahead of Pride Month the report showed that 32 per cent of the world continues to criminalise consensual same-sex acts – including 60 UN member states by law and two more de facto.

The report did, however, note several positive steps taken in various countries.

During the past 16 months, four UN member states (Andorra, Estonia, Greece and Slovenia) made marriage equality a reality for LGBTQ+ couples, while Nepal issued an interim order to facilitate such unions, and Bolivia and Latvia legalised same-sex civil unions.

There were also major gains in terms of same-sex acts being decriminalised, including in the UN member states of Singapore, Mauritius and Dominica, and in non-UN member the Cook Islands, in the South Pacific.

In addition, five UN states (Ecuador, Finland, Germany, New Zealand and Spain) and the state of Yucatán in Mexico legalised gender recognition based on self-ID.

Nine UN states now have legal protections against non-consensual interventions on intersex minors.