Experience

RAINBOW EUROPE MAP AND INDEX 2025 | United Kingdom, Hungary and Georgia drop dramatically on LGBTQIA+ rights ranking

Posted by Timothy on

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has dropped six places on this year‘s ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map and Rainbow Index, as Hungary and the Republic of 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.

Hungary has dropped seven places to 37th on ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map with the first pride ban in the European Union, closely followed by the United Kingdom dropping six places to 22nd after a Supreme Court ruling in its wording defined a woman strictly by ‘biological sex’.

ILGA-Europe’s 2025 Rainbow Map and Index.

Reasoning for removing LGR points from the UK on the 2025 Rainbow Map May 2025

On 16 April 2025, the UK Supreme Court released its judgment in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, finding, in brief, that in the UK 2010 Equalities Act, the terms ‘woman’, ‘man’, and ‘sex’ are based on ‘biological sex’ and are immutable, including for those who have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), the UK’s version of legal gender recognition (LGR). 

This means that for the purpose of equality law in the UK, trans men are considered ‘biological women’ and trans women are ‘biological men’. Further, holders of GRCs are legally unable to avail themselves of sex-based protections in the UK 2010 Equalities Act.

This ruling was followed by an interim update to guidance issued by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission on 25 April, which clarified that the judgment means that trans people should not be allowed to use single-sex facilities that align with their gender identities and in some cases should also not be allowed to use the facilities that align with their sex assigned at birth (termed ‘biological sex’ in the interim update).

ILGA-Europe consider the judgment and resulting interim update to indicate that a person’s GRC no longer functions in all areas of life, undermining the coherence of legal gender recognition in the UK. 

Legislative or administrative frameworks for LGR presume, in alignment with Goodwin v. the United Kingdom (ECtHR no. 28957/95), that once a person’s documents are changed, the change shall have universal impact, meaning that a trans woman is a woman for all legal purposes and a trans man is a man for all legal purposes, including access to spaces and services. 

Thus, with the judgment and interim update in place, LGR in the UK does not and cannot meet this functional definition. It is in fact impossible for a trans person to be fully legally recognised in their gender identity within the legal framework created by the judgment and interim update.

As such, ILGA-Europe has removed all legal gender recognition-related points from the UK in the 2025 Rainbow Europe package. This includes points for:

  1. No legal framework making legal gender recognition impossible;
  2. Existence of legal measures; Existence of administrative procedures;
  3. No compulsory medical intervention required;
  4. No compulsory surgical intervention required;
  5. No compulsory sterilisation required;
  6. No compulsory divorce required.

Point 1, ‘No legal framework making legal gender recognition impossible’, is the superior point in this set; without it, the ILGA-Europe methodology does not allow awarding any of the other points on this list. It is ILGA-Europe’s understanding that because the GRC no longer functions to ensure that a person is universally recognised as the sex denoted in their GRC, that there is no functioning LGR in the UK, and thus this point and all following subsidiary points fall. A GRC that does not function across all legal domains and all areas of life is not legal gender recognition.

Union Jack.

Georgia

Georgia has also dropped seven places following a sweeping anti-LGBTI law package that mirrors the Russian anti-democratic playbook.

Flags of Georgia and Hungary.

Part of a broader trend

Hungary’s prohibition of pride events and criminalisation of participants, the UK Supreme Court’s ruling restricting the legal recognition of trans people, and Georgia’s sweeping ban on all forms of LGBTI representation and assembly are not isolated incidents. 

They are merely the most striking examples of a broader trend in which LGBTI human rights are being systematically dismantled under the guise of preserving public order. In reality, such measures pave the way for sweeping restrictions on fundamental freedoms, including the rights to protest and to political dissent.

While pride is being targeted in Hungary to suppress the right to assemble, the Italian Government is advancing Bill 1660, which similarly threatens freedom of assembly. The bill proposes harsh penalties, including fines and up to six years’ imprisonment, for protests that block roads, railways, ports or airports. It also allows authorities to pre-emptively ban individuals from public spaces based solely on prior reports or charges, without requiring a conviction.

Bulgaria and Slovakia have also regressed, adopting laws that further restrict the rights to assembly, association and expression.

Alongside the UK Supreme Court ruling, Georgia and Hungary have removed references to ‘gender identity and expression’ from their legislation, but the erosion of trans rights extends beyond what can be easily captured by the Rainbow Map. 

Across Europe, anti-trans measures are being weaponised primarily through healthcare restrictions that are harder to quantify but equally damaging.

Too few protections

With LGBTI people being targeted and made vulnerable to attack, too few countries are adopting laws that advance LGBTI rights. Germany was the only country to reform legal gender recognition to a self-determination model last year; only Austria extended protections against discrimination through amendments to the Federal Equal Treatment Act; and no country banned conversion practices or adopted laws prohibiting unnecessary medical and surgical interventions on intersex children.

Only Belgium, the Brčko District in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ireland, the Netherlands, Scotland and Sweden have affirmatively strengthened their laws and policies on hate crimes this year.

Even in countries where progress has been made on this year’s Rainbow Map, the influence of the far right continues to grow. In Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, recent elections have seen far-right groups gaining ground, threatening the hard-won human rights and freedoms of LGBTI people.

According to ILGA-Europe’s Advocacy Director, Katrin Hugendubel: “The big headlines about the UK and Hungary draw attention, but democracy is being eroded quietly across Europe, like a thousand paper cuts. Centre and far-right actors in the EU are targeting NGO funding to weaken organisations that defend rights, while at the national level we are seeing laws introduced that do not address any genuine societal need but are designed purely to marginalise. Hungary’s constitutional amendment stating that ‘the mother is a woman and the father is a man’ and that ‘gender is defined by birth’ is a clear example.”

Hugendubel continued: “Along with mirroring the Russian playbook, these developments closely echo the tactics seen in the United States so far under Donald Trump’s second term. Measures such as his executive orders restricting access to trans-specific healthcare and the rollback of DEI initiatives in federal agencies seek to undermine protections for trans people and limit LGBTI inclusion. Similar 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.”

Notable gains

There are signs of progress in countries where LGBTI rights have faced significant challenges. 

Poland, last year’s lowest-ranked EU country on the Rainbow Map, has moved up three places after abolishing the last of its so-called ‘LGBT-free zones’ and ending state obstructions for LGBTI public events. 

Czechia rose three places with a new law extending rights for same-sex partners, granting registered partnerships. Still falling short of the longstanding demand

for marriage equality, the new law grants nearly the same legal recognition as marriage, except for joint adoptions. 

Latvia advanced four places thanks to its new law allowing same-sex couples to enter civil unions, becoming the second Baltic state to offer partnership rights for same-sex couples.

Resilience through court cases

While overt and covert attacks on LGBTI human rights continue to spread, activists and civil society across Europe remain resilient, often turning to the courts to defend and advance fundamental freedoms. 

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) advanced rights in the EU by ruling that Hungary must correct the gender markers of transgender refugees without requiring proof of surgery, and by declaring that France‘s gender-based railway ticketing system violated GDPR, discriminating against non-binary and transgender individuals.

In Czechia, the Constitutional Court struck down the requirement of sterilisation for legal gender recognition, although the government has yet to implement the ruling. 

Lithuania’s Constitutional Court invalidated the country’s ‘anti-propaganda’ law, a significant victory that has already come into effect. 

In Slovenia, the Constitutional Court affirmed that same-sex partners and single women must be granted access to medically assisted insemination.

Spain’s Constitutional Court blocked attempts by Madrid’s regional authorities to curtail federal LGBTI and trans protections, safeguarding national legal standards.

In Croatia, rainbow families continue to challenge administrative barriers to adoption through strategic litigation. 

In Italy, thousands of court cases are underway, defending the rights of rainbow families, trans people and LGBTI asylum seekers. Across the region, despite mounting challenges, activists are securing meaningful victories, demonstrating that determined legal action can uphold and expand LGBTI rights even in hostile environments.

Flags of Germany, Italy, Latvia, France and Spain.

Conclusion

According to the Executive Director of ILGA-Europe, Chaber: “The Rainbow Map 2025 offers a stark snapshot of where Europe stands on LGBTI human rights, and highlights the pressing need to defend and advance these rights in the context of acute democratic erosion. If left unchallenged, these tactics risk spreading further across Europe, undermining a human rights framework that has taken decades to build. The time to push back is now, before the targeted attacks we’re seeing in countries like Hungary, the UK and Georgia become the norm rather than the exception. Political leaders must lead by example and turn their words into action. It’s time for people to stand up, make their voices heard, and hold our governments to account before it’s too late.”

Executive summary

The Rainbow Map – ILGA-Europe’s annual benchmarking tool – comprises the Rainbow Map and Index and national recommendations. ILGA-Europe have produced the Rainbow Map and Index since 2009, using it to illustrate the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Europe.

The Rainbow Map and Index ranks European countries on their respective legal and policy practices for LGBTI people, from 0-100%.

In order to create the country ranking, ILGA-Europe examines the laws and policies in 49 countries using 75 criteria, divided between seven thematic categories: equality and non-discrimination; family; hate crime and hate speech; legal gender recognition; intersex bodily integrity; civil society space; and asylum. More information on the list of criteria and their weight on the total score can be found at https://rainbowmap.ilga-europe.org/about/.

Policymakers, researchers and journalists are able to go ‘behind’ the points and see the original information sources that we base our Map ranking on. This additional layer of information is available through our interactive website at https://rainbowmap.ilga-europe.org/.

Top 10

  1. Malta (89%)
  2. Belgium (85%).
  3. Iceland (84%).
  4. Denmark (80%).
  5. Spain (78%).
  6. Finland (70%).
  7. Greece, Germany, Norway (69%).
  8. Luxembourg (68%).
  9. Portugal (67%).
  10. Sweden (66%).

Bottom-end

LGBTQIA+ and travel