2023 World Same-Sex Marriage and LGBT Rights Progress – Part 5: Europe

Earlier in this series – Part 1: North America | Part 2: Latin America & Caribbean | Part 3: Asia | Part 4: Africa and Oceania

Somewhat like America, Europe continues to be divided between states that are rapidly advancing LGBT rights and those where queer rights are under threat. However, in Europe, it does appear like the long-term trend is that more and more states are joining the pro-LGBT side, even as there are warning signs we must remain vigilant of.

Before we look at the the individual countries, we should spend some time talking about the European Union, which has been one of the most important organs for advancing LGBT rights not only on the continent but across the world. Despite many challenges, the process of European integration took some big steps in 2023. Croatia joined both the Schengen Area and the Eurozone, cementing its ties to the bloc. Bulgaria expects approval to join the Eurozone in the new year beginning in 2025, and both it and Romania will phase-in joining the Schengen Area from March 2024 for air and sea travel. And the EU voted to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, and to grant candidate status to Georgia. All three will have to make progress on human rights and rule of law in order to actually join the bloc.

Finland officially joined NATO (which is not part of the EU, but is part of the overall trend of Euro-Atlantic integration), and Sweden is awaiting final approval from Hungary and Turkey to do the same.

The European Parliament voted to pass a law requiring all EU member states to recognize parent-child relationships that are established in any other member state. This has become particularly important as states that don’t recognize same-sex marriage, surrogacy, or same-sex couple adoption rights have made it difficult for same-sex parents to travel around the EU safely. The proposed law now goes to the European Council where the member states must unanimously agree to implement it – which may be a tall order given the strongly anti-LGBT governments in Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Bulgaria, and Romania.

The European Union also ratified the Istanbul Convention on Domestic Violence, by a vote of its own Parliament. The Convention has proved surprisingly controversial in some countries, as extremists claim that its protections for women in all types of families and its mention of the social construction of gender imply that the convention will require members to legalize same-sex marriage and transgender rights. As of December 2023, five EU states remain outside the Istanbul Convention: Lithuania, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Additionally, three Council of Europe states are outside it: Turkiye, Armenia, and Azerbaijan – Turkiye denounced the treaty in 2021, and Azerbaijan has never signed it. Finally, Kosovo, Belarus, and Russia are not eligible to sign, as non-members.

And the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, which is not part of the EU) issued its strongest ruling ever finding that signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) must offer a form of relationship recognition to same-sex couples in Fedotova and Others v. Russia (although, since Russia is no longer party to the Convention, it doesn’t really apply there). The ruling is legally binding, but requires each country to actually implement it.

Western Europe

UK: The UK’s omnishambles governance continued unabated in 2023, and the only real question at this point is how long into 2024 Prime Minister Sunak is going to drag out his own misery before an election that sweeps a Labor government into office. A long-delayed conversion therapy ban bill never materialized and the government essentially kicked it into touch in an effort to appease a growing, vitriolic anti-trans hysteria sweeping conservatives in the UK.

Speaking of, after the devolved government of Scotland passed a contentious bill that expanded trans people’s right to gender self-identification, the UK government swiftly stepped in to disallow it, over concerns that people will abuse Scotland’s laxer standards for updating legal gender compared to the rest of the union. Scotland appealed to the courts, but lost. The UK government has since confusingly announced that they’re going to update the list of countries they accept ‘gender recognition certificates’ from, to bar any country that allows gender self-identification. It’s not clear how that works in practice, since these countries tend not to issue ‘gender recognition certificates’ – whatever the hell those are – but instead just update birth certificates and ID.

The Labour Party has pledged to ban conversion therapy and come up with some updated form of legal gender recognition when it takes office. There are also private member’s bills to ban conversion therapy in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, but it’s unlikely either will pass before the end of the term.

The Northern Ireland Assembly didn’t sit in 2023, so no progress was made on a conversion therapy bill there, either.

The Church of England (Anglican Church if you prefer) began blessing (but not performing) same-sex marriages in December. A Labour MP had earlier in the year submitted a private member’s bill to allow the Church of England to perform same-sex marriages – it is currently prohibited from doing so.

The government began offering pardons for women who were convicted for acts related to homosexuality in June; previously, pardons were only available to men convicted under sodomy laws which hadn’t applied to women.

Among the Crown Dependencies, the Isle of Man has proposed updates to its family law to recognize automatic parental rights for same-sex parents. We covered the British Overseas Territories in the section on the Americas.

Ireland: In June, the government announced plans to ‘disregard’ all historical convictions under anti-gay laws. A long-stalled conversion therapy ban bill has still not been tabled. Maybe next year?

Also in 2024, Ireland will hold a referendum on March 8 on amending the constitution to remove outdated language about a woman’s place being in the home, and adding language clarifying that the constitution protects all kinds of families. Seems nice and wholesome.

Sadly, a major outbreak in far-right, anti-immigrant violence has prompted the government to attempt to update its incitement to hatred laws, but the effort is proving controversial and has been punted to the new year.

Spain: In February, the national government passed a sweeping trans rights law that allowed gender self-identification from age 16 and with a judge’s permission from age 12, banned unnecessary surgeries on intersex children, banned conversion therapy, and also enshrined the right of single women and women in same-sex couples to access assisted reproduction (previously only covered by regulation).

But then right-wing parties swept local elections, and they’ve started to take action to roll back LGBT rights. The regional government of Madrid just passed a law repealing LGBT discrimination and hate crime protections, repealing a conversion therapy ban, and repealing the ability to change legal gender. For now, queer and trans people are still covered by the national laws protecting them, but this is part of a clear effort to chip away at rights, and a blueprint for what the right intends to do if they win the national government.

And they almost did! National elections in 2023 were inconclusive, as neither the right nor left-wing blocs won a majority of Parliament. Finally, the left-wing government was able to cling to power by forging an agreement with a Catalan separatist party.

Portugal: In December, Parliament passed a law banning conversion therapy.

Andorra: The same-sex marriage law passed last year came into effect on schedule. Per the law, civil unions are no longer available. In September, Prime Minister Xavier Zamora officially came out as gay.

Netherlands: Netherlands amended its constitution in February to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. The government also took a stand against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act by cutting relations. In November, a far-right populist party won the most seats in Parliament, although talks on government formation are still ongoing. The party is rabidly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim, but is generally pro-LGBT (at least to the extent it enables anti-Muslim animus).

I discussed the Netherlands’ Caribbean territories in the Americas section.

Belgium: In July, Parliament passed a law banning conversion therapy. That same month, regulations on blood donation reduced the deferral period for men who have sex with men to four months of abstinence before donating.

Luxembourg: Openly gay Prime Minister Xavier Bettel’s party lost the 2023 election, although he continues to serve in government as Foreign Minister.

Germany: Cabinet approved a gender self-determination law, but it remains to be debated in Parliament. The government also removed the deferral period for blood donations from men who have sex with men.

Austria: A bill to ban conversion therapy appears to have stalled. Elections are due in the fall, but the far-right is currently leading in the polls.

Liechtenstein: Parliament passed a law allowing same-sex couples to adopt, in response to a Constitutional Court ruling, and eliminating the last objection of the Prince to same-sex marriage. Parliament duly began consulting on a same-sex marriage bill, and will likely publish its results in the early new year, ahead of the next session in March. It’s almost a certainty Liechtenstein will legalize same-sex marriage in 2024; Parliament previously voted 23-2 calling on the government to do so.

Switzerland: A bill to ban conversion therapy was proposed last December, but it will likely be years before it is passed in Switzerland’s notoriously slow legislative process. Meanwhile, the canton of Neuchatel passed its own conversion therapy ban.

The government also reduced the blood donation deferral period for men who have sex with men to four months of abstinence.

Italy: Italy’s far-right government continued its campaign of abuse against LGBT parents by enacting a regulation that blocks local authorities from registering the children of same-sex couples born abroad. The government even began removing parents from birth certificates that had already been registered. The policy drew condemnation by the European Parliament. The government also took aim at surrogacy, introducing a bill that would make it a crime to travel abroad to conceive a child via surrogacy — that bill has passed through the Chamber of Deputies and awaits debate in the Senate.

A court in Rome ruled against a school that fired a trans professor over her gender identity, another court allowed a lesbian couple to foster a child, and other court rulings found that a minor could do so with parental permission and a psychological assessment, and that a transwoman could change her gender identity without having any planned sex reassignment or hormone therapy (previous rulings established that trans people could update their name and gender, but in that case, surgery was already planned). None of these cases sets a binding precedent, however.

The Vatican: I actually have to include the Holy See this year, because of the Pope’s announcement that same-sex couples may be blessed by priests in the Catholic Church. The announcement has caused some deep confusion and dissent among bishops across the world, although some are welcoming the chance to bring queer people back into the church.

Northern Europe and Scandinavia

Estonia: Estonia’s new left-leaning coalition acted quickly to pass a same-sex marriage and adoption law, which went into effect on January 1. It also finally enacted the implementing regulations for the civil union law that was passed in 2016.

The government also introduced a bill to regulate hate speech, after it was found to be not in compliance with EU law. The bill has proved controversial, and the government does not intend to advance it before the spring.

The minister of social protection has talked about introducing legislation for gender self-determination, including non-binary recognition.

Latvia: Latvia’s Parliament elected Edgars Rinkēvičs as President – the first openly gay man to hold that post in Latvia, or in any post-Soviet country. Parliament also passed a civil union law, codifying a court decision from 2020. Unfortunately, the law is on hold while opponents attempt to gather enough signatures by January 5 to force a referendum on it – thankfully, early reports indicate that the signature gathering is not going well at all.

Parliament also passed a law in June barring foreign same-sex couples from adopting Latvian children. After much debate, Parliament ratified the Istanbul Convention on Domestic Violence.

Lithuania: In January, the European Court of Human Rights fined the government over its LGBT censorship law, which forbids the depiction of non-traditional relationships to minors.

Then, the government fell and was replaced by a slightly more left-leaning one. For a time, it appeared the new coalition would make progress on LGBT issues, but this has sputtered out. A bill to repeal the censorship law failed in Parliament, and a bill to enact civil unions with limited rights for same-sex couples has had its final vote put on hold because the sponsor isn’t certain they’ll have enough votes to override a likely Presidential veto. The coalition partners don’t look ready to uphold their promise to pass it, and the opposition parties (even the left-leaning one) are withholding their votes to spite the government. They’re hoping they can bring it back in the new year as they continue negotiations. Elections are scheduled for the fall. The leftists in the coalition were also hoping to ratify the Istanbul Convention, but have not made progress – the Convention was sent to the Supreme Court for consideration instead.

Iceland: Parliament unanimously passed a ban on conversion therapy in June. A previous promise to reduce the gay blood donation deferral period to four months is yet to take effect.

Norway: Parliament passed a bill banning conversion therapy in December, and finally brought into force long-promised regulations allowing for automatic recognition of same-sex parents.

The Church of Norway also removed a ban on cohabiting couples being employees of the Church.

Sweden: The government has begun the process of removing the deferral period for blood donations from gay men.

Finland: The government enacted gender self-identification legislation this year.

Eastern Europe

Poland: One of the most vicious anti-LGBT governments in the EU came to an end as a left-leaning coalition won elections and took power in December. Among the new government’s promises are a same-sex civil union law, hate crime laws, and liberalization of abortion, as well as a general restoration of democratic norms and rule of law. It remains to be seen how much of this agenda they’ll be able to get past the President, who remains from the outgoing Law and Justice Party and holds a veto power.

The European Court of Human Rights also ruled against Poland for not offering civil unions for same-sex couples, which adds impetus to the new government’s agenda. A Polish couple also appealed to domestic courts seeking a right to same-sex marriage.

Czechia: After Czech voters elected a President who supports same-sex marriage, Parliament spent a lot of time debating various bills that would legalize same-sex marriage or ban it in the constitution. While equal marriage is popular with the electorate, MPs are lukewarm to it at best, and it doesn’t appear that the current Parliament has the votes to pass it.

Instead, it appears that legislators may arrive at a shitty compromise: a broad expansion of the existing civil union law, to make unions legally equivalent to marriage in all but name, while Conservatives withdraw their constitutional amendment. Varying reports differ on if this will include adoption rights. LGBT activists and the public do not seem to be happy with the compromise at all. So, we’ll see what 2024 brings.

Progressives were also hoping to ratify the Istanbul Convention; Cabinet has approved it, and it’s believed Parliament will deal with it in early 2024, along with proposed reforms to domestic violence and children’s rights laws.

Slovakia: Parliament worked on a couple of anti-trans bills this year. One, which would criminalize gender change, failed. Another, which would restrict legal gender change to those whose gender was wrongly assigned at birth and proven by genetic testing, has advanced but not yet passed into law. Still, another bill was introduced to abolish the surgical requirement for gender change, but it is unlikely to pass, too.

The Minister of Health also published long-delayed standards of care for trans people – previously, the lack of regulations had made doctors wary of providing gender confirming care, but doctors are still reportedly nervous because of the political situation.

Elections returned a populist, pro-Russia, anti-LGBT PM Fico to power.

Russia: The situation in Russia continued to be dominated by the ongoing war in Ukraine and Putin’s increasingly authoritarian grip on power. In July, Putin signed a bill banning gender-affirming care, automatically annulling the marriages of trans people, banning legal gender change, and banning trans people from adopting, after it was passed unanimously in Parliament.

In November, the Supreme Court agreed with the Ministry of Justice that the “International LGBT Movement” is an extremist organization, effectively banning it in the country. The next day, police began to raid gay nightclubs, bars, and saunas across Moscow.

Sham elections are scheduled for 2024.

Belarus: Parliament began debate on a bill to criminalize promotion of homosexuality, mirroring Russia’s law.

Ukraine: Of course, the war has had an even more deleterious effect in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Ukraine is pinning its hopes on eventual accession to the EU, with membership negotiations beginning this year.

A bill was introduced in March to allow same-sex civil unions, and is being examined in committees after having received the support of the relevant ministries. In June, the ECtHR ruled that Ukraine violated the Convention by not having an option for same-sex couples to have their relationship legally recognized.

Moldova: Parliament passed a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. EU accession negotiations also began this year.

Hungary: The government passed a draconian law calling on citizens to report same-sex couples to the government, even if they’re not breaking any laws (in fact, Hungary recognizes same-sex civil unions). The law was vetoed by the President. Various EU states have taken Hungary to the European Court of Justice over its anti-gay laws and other infringements of democratic norms, and have upheld EU funding to Hungary over these issues. Hungary has responded by blackballing funding for Ukraine unless it gets EU funding, and has largely succeeded in getting EU funds for Hungary unfrozen. Hungarian PM Orban is increasingly revealing himself to be a shill for Russia inside the EU, and at some point, the rest of the union is going to have to do something about this rot at its core.

Southeastern Europe

Greece: After winning reelection, Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis announced plans to legalize same-sex marriage and adoption during his term (so before 2027, but it’s expected he’ll introduce the bill in early 2024). The idea has sparked dissent within his own party, but much of the opposition supports it. The current opposition leader is an openly gay man who married his partner in New York.

Cyprus: Parliament banned conversion therapy. Newly elected president Christodoulides campaigned on legalizing same-sex marriage and possibly adoption, but that will depend on Parliament. I would expect this to happen after Greece, if at all. Meanwhile, prospects for reunification seem to have dwindled further, as Turkiye has continued to take a harder line on maintaining independence for North Cyrprus.

Slovenia: Parliament updated its Family Law in accordance with the Constitutional Court’s same-sex marriage ruling from last year. The new law does away with the old civil unions.

Croatia: Opposition parties introduced a slew of pro-LGBT bills in Parliament this year, including equalizing civil unions to marriage in all but name (restricted by the constitution), a hate crime bill, banning conversion therapy, and improving access to trans health care. Naturally, none of these has advanced.

Just this week, the Constitutional Court returned a verdict in a ten-year-old case that sought to have Croatia’s “life partnership agreements” (civil unions) declared unconstitutional. The Court denied the application, instead finding that the right to family life is guaranteed to all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity under both the Croatian Constitution and the European Convention. Croatia’s Constitution does, however, include a prohibition on same-sex marriage, which was added by citizen-initiated referendum in 2013. Life partnerships were introduced in 2014 and are legally exactly the same as marriage, with full adoption rights being granted by the courts in 2022.

Serbia: Serbia’s slide into authoritarianism continues. December elections that President Vucic’s party claimed to win in a landslide were marred by irregularities, and an opposition coalition is continuing to contest them. The upshot is that openly lesbian PM Ana Brnabic keeps her job for now.

Serbia and Kosovo spent much of the year in diplomatic and actual skirmishes, the upshot of which is that it doesn’t look like a settlement between the two is getting any closer, which means Kosovo will remain unrecognized by many states for a while yet, further hampering its integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. However, Kosovars were given the right to visa-free entry to the Schengen Area (Europe’s borderless free-travel zone) starting January 2024.

Romania: The ECtHR ruled that Romania was infringing same-sex couples’ rights by not offering civil unions, and the government has responded by saying “so what?” Officially, the government response is that Romania will not recognize same-sex couples because society is not ready.

Bulgaria: The ECtHR ruled that Bulgaria was infringing same-sex couples’ rights by not offering civil unions, but the government has taken no action. The government did pass a law imposing stiffer sentences on sexual orientation-based hate crimes.

In February, the Supreme Court ruled that sex is immutable and binary, and gender cannot be changed under the terms of Bulgarian law and the constitution.

There is growing concern that the left-wing parties in Bulgaria are taking a nationalist, pro-Russia turn, along with sitting President Radev.

Turkiye: Increasingly authoritarian strongman President Erdogan won reelection this year, in a significant blow for minority rights and democracy activists, as well as for those hoping for more peaceful relations within the region. Erdogan explicitly campaigned against LGBT rights, although his promised referendum on same-sex marriage did not actually happen.

Armenia and Azerbaijan: The human rights situation here was overwhelmingly impacted by the war over Nagorno-Karabach, which ended with Azerbaijan reasserting control over the territory, and the evacuation of its entire Armenian population. The unrecognized state of Artzakh which governed the territory no longer exists – for those keeping track, it didn’t have a great record on LGBT rights either.

One upshot of the war was something of a realignment, where Armenia seems to be realizing that Russia no longer has its back. While Armenia has kept ties with Russia so far, it did ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, putting it at odds with Russia. The ICC has a warrant out for Putin’s arrest over the Ukraine war.

Georgia: The situation continued to be tense in Georgia, even as the country was granted EU candidate status. Tbilisi Pride was cancelled again this year due to threats, and a proposed hate speech law has been criticized by foreign observers as a front for shutting down expression critical of the government.