The 2024 EU Rainbow Map: Conversion Practices & More

Human rights - denied over and over again in our own home countries to those within the LGBTQI+ community. From parenthood to trans-specific healthcare we continue to see a loss of fundamental rights especially with the recent rise of the far-right party across the world in 2024.

Bullying, harassment, and violence have reached high levels and continue to become more common.

Whilst the LGBTQI+ community faces numerous challenges these vary drastically from country to country. The Rainbow Map has become a report I often rely on to understand changes and the current status of legislation.

Every year, ILGA-Europe publishes the Rainbow Map, this is a comprehensive ranking of 49 European countries based on their laws and policies affecting the human rights of LGBTQI+ people.

This map scores each country on a scale from 0% to 100%, where 0% indicates severe violations of human rights and rampant discrimination, and 100% represents full equality and respect for human rights.

The Rainbow Map evaluates countries across seven critical categories: equality and non-discrimination, family, hate crime and hate speech, legal gender recognition, intersex bodily integrity, civil society space, and asylum.

All of the data provided is free to access and readily downloadable which makes it a fantastic tool for policy changes, human rights reviews, research, and more.

The report also dives into qualitative information covering events and changes in each country and the annual review presents a detailed narrative of factors behind the scores including a more complete picture of the LGBTQI+ rights over the past year(s).

In this article I aim to summarise a few of the key reported changes in the Rainbow Map in 2024.

Main Findings 2024

CONVERSION PRACTICES ARE ONLY BANNED IN 10 COUNTRIES.

Shocking? Very.

Conversion Practices are interventions aimed at changing, repressing or suppressing the sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression of LGBTQI+ persons.

It is extremely worrying that many countries continue to legalise these acts whilst the mental and emotional damage they cause has been extensively researched and displayed.

MARRIAGE EQUALITY FOR SAME-SEX COUPLES IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN 21 COUNTRIES.

Malta maintains its top ranking on the Rainbow Map (score of 88%), having done so for nine years running.

With a score of 78%, Belgium, which outlawed conversion practices as well, is currently ranked third.

Russia (2%), Azerbaijan (2%), and Turkey (5%), are the three nations at the opposite end of the Rainbow Map spectrum. The federal law that forbids legal gender recognition and transgender-specific healthcare cost Russia seven points and three ranking points.

HATE CRIME AND HATE SPEECH ON THE GROUNDS OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, AND SEX CHARACTERISTICS ARE PROHIBITED IN BELGIUM, DENMARK, ICELAND, MALTA AND SOME REGIONS IN SPAIN AND THE UK.?

Belarus started classifying LGBTQI+ content as "pornography," which has limited LGBTQI+ people's freedom of expression. Greece and Bulgaria lost points for failing to defend LGBTQI+ public activities in the context of civil society.

Because it did not propose updated rules on asylum and hate crime, nor establish a new equality action plan, Montenegro lost the most points (-13%) and fell nine places in the rankings.

Greece, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Estonia, Germany, and Iceland have the largest score jumps. Hate crimes in Germany are forbidden on the grounds of sex traits, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Both Estonia and Greece modified their legal frameworks to permit same-sex unions and child adoption; however, Greece also closed any loopholes in its anti-discrimination laws, providing complete protection for members of the LGBTI community. Liechtenstein gave same-sex couples the ability to adopt.

These are some of the key highlights from the 2024 report - for the full information breakdown please check out the following page.

To Conclude

Exercise your right to vote. Speak up. Don't neglect each other and don't forget the importance of change.

It can be very worrying to witness countries and areas taking steps back, introducing new harmful legislation, and removing certain rights from the LGBTQI+ community. Often this is done by a small number of highly influential and yet highly misinformed people.

We must continue to work on a culture and society that is inclusive for ALL - so find and support politicians and leaders around you that reflect the image of the community you want to build.

Also, take the time to share this information - the Rainbow Map is an absolutely incredible tool and it can help to raise awareness and support you in trying to create change.

Check out the full list of the 49 countries and their current rankings below.

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