What countries is being gay accepted
Rainbow Map
2025 rainbow map
These are the main findings for the 2025 edition of the rainbow map
The Rainbow Map ranks 49 European countries on their respective legal and policy practices for LGBTI people, from 0-100%.
The UK has dropped six places in ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map, as Hungary and Georgia also register steep falls following anti-LGBTI legislation. The data highlights how rollbacks on LGBTI human rights are part of a broader erosion of democratic protections across Europe. Read more in our press release.
“Moves in the UK, Hungary, Georgia and beyond signal not just isolated regressions, but a coordinated global backlash aimed at erasing LGBTI rights, cynically framed as the defence of tradition or public stability, but in reality designed to entrench discrimination and suppress dissent.”
- Katrin Hugendubel, Advocacy Director, ILGA-Europe
Malta has sat on top of the ranking for the last 10 years.
With 85 points, Belgium jumped to second place after adopting policies tackling hatred based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.
Iceland now comes third place on the ranking with a score of 84.
The three The Human Rights Campaign tracks developments in the legal recognition of same-sex marriage around the planet. Working through a worldwide network of HRC global alumni and partners, we lift up the voices of society, national and regional advocates and divide tools, resources, and lessons learned to empower movements for marriage equality. There are currently 38 countries where same-sex marriage is legal: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the Together Kingdom, the Together States of America and Uruguay. These countries have legalized marriage equality through both legislation and court decisions. Liechtenstein: On May 16, 2024, Liechtenstein's government passed a bill in favor of marriage equality. The law went into effect January 1, 2025. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to regulation on same-sex marriage, the 71% of Americans in 2014 who say their communities are good places for gays and lesbians to live is not one of the uppermost percentages in the earth, but it is also far from the lowest. Across 124 countries, this hospitable attitude ranges from as high as 87% in Spain and the Netherlands to as short as 1% in Senegal. On average, about one in three adults (34%) say their city or area is a excellent place for gay and lesbian people to live. These rankings do not contain more than two dozen countries where the scrutinize was not asked, including China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Malaysia and a host of other nations in the Middle East and Central Asia. Of the countries where more than three in four residents feel their areas are most accepting of homosexual and lesbian people, all but Canada (84%) and Uruguay (79%) are in Europe. With the recent passage of a ballot initiative in Ireland, all of the countries whe Around the world, queer people continue to face discrimination, violence, harassment and social stigma. While social movements have marked progress towards acceptance in many countries, in others homosexuality continues to be outlawed and penalised, sometimes with death. According to Statistica Research Department, as of 2024, homosexuality is criminalised in 64 countries globally, with most of these nations situated in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In 12 of these countries, the death penalty is either enforced or remains a possibility for personal, consensual same-sex sexual activity. In many cases, the laws only apply to sexual relations between two men, but 38 countries possess amendments that include those between women in their definitions. These penalisations represent abuses of human rights, especially the rights to freedom of expression, the right to develop one's own traits and the right to life. The Wahabbi interpretation of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia maintains that acts of homosexuality should be disciplined in the sa ILGA World maps are among the most common visual representations of how LGBTIQ people are affected by laws and policies around the world. The scope of our long-standing rights mapping has expanded thanks to the ILGA World Database. With that platform, ILGA maps have develop interactive and constantly updated, to greater cover sexual orientationrefers to a person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to - and intimate and sexual relations with - individuals of a other gender or the same gender or more than one gender. More, gender identityrefers to a person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth. More and statement, and sex characteristicsa term that refers to physical features relating to sex - including genitalia and other sexual and reproductive anatomy, chromosomes, hormones, and secondary physical features emerging from puberty. More (SOGIESCabbreviation standing for sexual orientation and gender self & expression, and sex characteristics. More) issues globally. Our LGBTIQ rights maps cover more than 100 topics, as well as how SOGIESCabbrev
Marriage Equality Around the World
Current State of Marriage Equality
Countries that Legalized Marriage Equality in 2025
European Countries Among Top Places for Gay People to Live
Story Highlights
Which countries impose the death penalty on gay people?
Which countries enforce the death penalty for homosexuality?
Saudi Arabia