In a reversal, homosexuality is now illegal in 66 nations

Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…

Trinidad and Tobago reinstates laws against homosexuality

The slow, decades-long progress toward recognition of the human rights of LGBTQ people has encountered a setback with the March 2025 decision by the Trinidad and Tobago Court of Appeal to reinstate that country’s laws against homosexuality, and the early 2025 adoption of a new homophobic penal code by the West African nation of Mali.

Before those reversals, the number of nations with laws against gay sex had fallen to 64 from more than 90 at the beginning of the 2000s. The latest countries to end the criminalization of same-sex intimacy are Namibia in Africa and Dominica in the Caribbean in 2024, Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and the Cook Islands in the South Pacific in 2023, following in the footsteps of Singapore in Southeast Asia, Antigua & Barbuda, Saint Kitts & Nevis, and Barbados in the Caribbean — all in 2022.

Map of 66 countries that criminalize homosexuality — Map of the 66 countries where sexual relations between people of the same sex are illegal. YELLOW countries have sodomy laws that are currently being challenged before local courts. Sri Lanka, in PINK, currently has a bill before its parliament to repeal its sodomy law. Indonesia, in ORANGE, has laws that criminalize homosexuality only in some subnational jurisdictions. All states in RED have nationwide sodomy laws and no known legislative efforts or court challenges to remove them.

For more information, see the Erasing 76 Crimes page “List of 66 countries where homosexuality is illegal.” There you will find:

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A full list of nations with anti-homosexuality laws.
Recent history of many nations repealing or overturning those laws and a few nations newly adopting them.
A comparison of this site’s list with the similar list compiled by ILGA, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.