FRA’s survey is one of the biggest of its kind globally. It analyses the experiences of over 100,000 LGBTIQ people of all backgrounds aged 15 years and above in the EU and neighbouring countries. This is the third wave of the survey FRA first conducted in 2012 and again in 2019. It presents results showing gradual progress in equality over time. The findings contribute to developing legal and policy responses to meet the needs of LGBTIQ people and protect their fundamental rights. The report sets out ways forward for the EU and Member States to ensure dignity and equality. Now is a critical moment to step up efforts.
In this report:
All EU Member States have a legal obligation to tackle discrimination against LGBTIQ people. Yet, FRA findings continue to show that LGBTIQ people in Europe face discrimination, harassment and even violence in their daily lives.
The EU’s first-ever LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020 - 2025 invited FRA to continue collecting data on the experiences of LGBTIQ people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics.
In 2023, FRA ran the third wave of its LGBTIQ survey. The findings provide national and European policymakers with much needed evidence on progress made in the EU, as well as in candidate countries of Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia.
They will support the European Commission and the Member States in the implementation of the LGBTIQ Equality Strategy, and advance policies to further protect and promote the human rights of LGBTIQ people.
Directly comparing results over time in online self-selection surveys is challenging.
For comparisons between the 2019 and 2023 survey findings, the report only uses data for respondent categories who were surveyed in both surveys. This includes LGBTI people aged 15 years and older from the EU-27 Member States, North Macedonia and Serbia.
For the 2023 survey findings, the report also uses data on respondents from Albania, as well as pansexual and asexual or queer people who are not trans or intersex.
Due to these differences in the sample make-up of the 2019 and 2023 surveys, small differences can appear in the percentages for the 2023 survey. This occurs when comparing the 2019 survey with the 2023 survey versus the 2023 full survey results, covering all 30 countries surveyed and including all LGBTIQ categories.
Further details will be provided in the technical report in 2025.
This section presents developments between the 2019 and 2023 surveys.
For comparisons between the most recent 2019 and 2023 surveys, FRA only uses data for respondents who were included in both survey waves, except where specified otherwise. This includes LGBTI people aged 15 and older from the EU-27 Member States, North Macedonia and Serbia.
There are signs of slow but gradual progress. LGBTI people now live more openly. While discrimination remains high, it is slowly decreasing. However, harassment, bullying and violence are higher than before.
The findings highlight that every group faces different challenges. The EU averages also mask huge differences between countries.
The 2023 survey findings show that discrimination decreases in locations where LGBTIQ equality is more publicly discussed. Prejudice, intolerance and violence towards LGBTIQ people can also drop as they become more visible in daily life.
LGBTIQ people also think that ‘positive changes in law and policy’ and ‘support by public figures and civil society’ lower discrimination against them.
The situation deteriorates when society holds negative attitudes towards LGBTIQ people, for example when public figures, politicians and political parties have a negative stance in public discourse, community leaders and civil society are unsupportive, and existing laws are not enforced.
FRA calls on Member States to take action in the following areas:
This section presents the findings for 2023. It includes the experiences of all LGBTIQ respondents in 30 countries. Most questions cover the experiences of LGBTIQ people in the year before the survey, unless stated otherwise.
Over a third of LGBTIQ people (37%) say that they experienced discrimination in the year before the survey. The highest rates are in Cyprus and Bulgaria (both 50%), the lowest in Finland (24%) and Sweden (21%).
People feel most discriminated against when at work (18%), entering a café, bar or a restaurant (17%), in education (15%) and when accessing healthcare (14%).
Overall, 45% do not disclose being LGBTIQ at work. The rate is highest in Cyprus (71%) and Lithuania (69%) and lowest in Denmark (24%), Malta and the Netherlands (both 28%).
Even though 60% are aware of an equality body, only 11% reported an incident to any official body. Almost half (49%) say that nothing would change if they reported it.
In terms of sexual orientation, people who identify as lesbian (42%) and pansexual (45%) reported the highest rates of discrimination, followed by gay respondents (36%).
In terms of gender identity, the highest rates of discrimination were reported by trans women (64%) and trans men (63%), followed by non-binary and gender-diverse respondents (51%).
Intersex people continue to say that they experience high rates of discrimination – more than every second intersex respondent (56%) felt discriminated against.
Young LGBTIQ people experience more discrimination – 45% of 15–17-year-olds feel discriminated against compared to 26% of those over 55.
Ethnic, religious and migrant minority groups face more discrimination. For example, 54% of LGBTIQ people who identify as ‘asylum seeker or refugee’ feel discriminated against. People who struggle to make ends meet also face more discrimination with 56 % being affected.
Over one in 10 LGBTIQ people (13%) say they were attacked in the 5 years before the survey.
The highest rates are in Bulgaria (19%), Latvia, Romania, Poland, France and Germany (all 16%). The lowest rates are in Malta, Slovenia and Portugal (all 8%) and in Sweden (7%).
Trans women (29%), trans men (23%) and intersex (32%) people experience more attacks than other groups.
However, less than one in five (18%) reported the most recent incident to any organisation.
Many people experience physical and sexual violence repeatedly. 46% say that they were attacked two to five times.
The majority (63%) of all victims of physical or sexual attacks experience negative psychological consequences (e.g. depression or anxiety). More than half (52%) are afraid to leave the house or visit places.
Most people who experienced hate-motivated violence (78%) say the perpetrator of the most recent physical or sexual attack was a man.
In the year before the survey, every second person (54%) was harassed because of being LGBTIQ. The rates are higher among trans women (77%), trans men (72%), non-binary (66%) and pansexual (62%) people, as well as intersex (67%) respondents.
Young LGBTIQ people, those who belong to a religious or ethnic minority group, and people who face financial difficulties are at higher risk of hate-motivated harassment.
For example, 70% of those aged 15–17 years old experienced it in the last year, compared with 41% of those over 55.
Most often, hate-motivated harassment happens in person. But less than one in 10 (8%) victims reported the most recent incident to any organisation.
Three quarters of those who experienced hate-motivated harassment (73%) say they avoid certain locations for fear of being assaulted, threatened or harassed.
Most LGBTIQ people (63%) say they encounter often or always hateful statements about the LGBTIQ community online.
Most often, they saw references to LGBTIQ propaganda or ‘gender ideology’ (76%), references to LGBTIQ people posing a threat to ‘traditional values’ (75%) or statements considering LGBTIQ people to be unnatural or mentally ill (64%).
Over a third (38%) of respondents saw online calls for violence against LGBTIQ people.
16% experienced online harassment compared to 52% who experienced it in real life.
The survey findings are cause for both concern and cautious optimism.
LGBTIQ issues are now more openly and positively addressed at schools, according to 17 % of respondents aged 15–17 years.
The findings also reveal a sharp rise in bullying at schools. Two thirds of LGBTIQ people (67%) say that during their time in school they suffered bullying, ridicule, teasing, insults or threats because they are LGBTIQ. This is 21 percentage points higher than in 2019.
Bullying is highest in Ireland (76%), Portugal (74%) and Austria and Cyprus (both 73%) and lowest in Czechia (52%) and Slovenia (56%).
Almost half of respondents (46%) say that they never openly discuss being LGBTIQ at school. Moreover, most (64%) hide or disguise being LGBTIQ at school.
Most (59%) said that they have never encountered problems when going to bathrooms or changing rooms but 21% said that they encountered problems ‘often’ or ‘always’.
Many LGBTIQ people face difficulties when accessing healthcare.
Some 14% say they faced discrimination in healthcare in the year before the survey with significant differences between groups.
Trans men (40%) and trans women (39%) are most likely to experience discrimination in healthcare, followed by intersex people (31%).
Some 18% of trans women and 17% of trans men have foregone medical treatment they needed for fear of discrimination and negative reactions.
Some 10% say that they faced difficulties in accessing emergency care. And 13% of trans women say that they were refused medical treatment.
The proportion of LGBTIQ people who had cancer prevention medical checks in the past year is notably lower than that for the general population, except for colonoscopy.
Some 10% say that they had a mammography in the last year compared with 36% of the general population. About one in four (27%) had a cervical smear test in the year before the survey, compared with 36% of the general population.
Some 57% of intersex people say neither they nor their parents gave informed consent before surgery or hormonal treatment to modify their sex characteristics, which usually happens at a very young age.
Over a third (37%) of LGBTIQ people have considered suicide in the year before the survey – this proportion is much higher for pansexual people (59%), trans women (59%), trans men (60%) or non-binary and gender diverse respondents (55%).
Some 62% of young LGBTIQ people, 66% of LGBTIQ people with disabilities and 58% of those who struggle to make ends meet have thought of suicide during the year before the survey.
One in four (24%) were forced to undergo some kind of ‘conversion’ practice to change their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.
These conversion practices vary from interventions from family members (11%) to physical (3%) or sexual (1%) violence, and verbal abuse and humiliation (14%).
Almost half of trans women (47%) and trans men (48%) were forced to undergo such practices.
The survey results show that housing difficulties and homelessness affect LGBTIQ people disproportionately compared to the general population.
Homelessness is a major concern especially for intersex people; 6% of intersex people had to sleep rough at least once in their life, compared with 0.2% of people across the EU generally.
13% of LGBTIQ people have to stay with friends and relatives temporarily. This affected mostly non-binary and gender-diverse people (18%), intersex people and trans women (both 17%) and pansexual respondents (18%). The percentage across the EU generally is 3%.
The survey was open to LGBTIQ people aged 15 years and over. In terms of sexual orientation, it included people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, pansexual or other sexual orientation. In terms of gender identity and expression, it included people who are transgender, cisgender, non-binary, and other gender-diverse categories. It also surveyed intersex respondents, people born with variations of sex characteristics.
The survey asked respondents about many issues, including:
The aim was to identify progress and challenges, and inform about the impact of EU law and policy on the lives of LGBTIQ people, in particular within the framework of the EU LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025.
The survey was carried out online between June and August 2023 across the 27 EU Member States and the EU candidate countries of Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia.
The survey builds on the experience and methodology of previous FRA surveys. FRA further developed the methodology for this survey after consultation with national, European and international human rights organisations, and experts in the area. FRA also consulted European umbrella organisations representing LGBTIQ people in several phases of the project.
The survey collected data from people who selected their own sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics through a fully anonymous open online survey tool.
Each respondent selected what best describes them in terms of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics. Individual respondents could identify as belonging to more than one of these groups, revealing a dynamic landscape of intersectional LGBTIQ profiles and identities.
After an open call for tender competition, a consortium of Agilis SA, Metron Analysis SA and Homoevolution, collected and processed the data under FRA’s guidance and supervision. FRA analyses the data in the report.
In analysing and presenting the findings, FRA breaks down respondents based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.
FRA used online surveying as LGBTIQ people can be ‘hard to reach’ when using traditional survey methods – such as door-to-door random sampling. The online survey allowed respondents to complete the survey when and where it was most convenient for them, at their own pace, and in one of the 31 languages used for this survey.
The survey also allowed respondents to find out about FRA, the organisations managing the data collection, organisations that could provide victim support in their country, and how the collected data would be used. It guaranteed full anonymity and confidentiality.
FRA and the consortium used various channels to inform LGBTIQ people about the survey and promote participation on- and offline. This also included the help of national survey promoters. They worked together with civil society and human rights organisations (LGBTIQ and non-LGBTIQ) in all survey countries.
In total 100,577 people who identified themselves as LGBTIQ completed the survey.
The respondents are 29 % gay men, 25 % bisexual, 21 % lesbian women, 13 % pansexual and 8 % asexual people, 4 % selected another type of sexual orientation.
Of the respondents 37 % are cisgender women, 32 % cis men, 5 % trans women, 6 % trans men, 20 % non-binary and gender diverse, 1 % selected another gender identity.
2 % are intersex.
The countries with the largest samples are Germany (17 % of the sample), France (12 %) and Poland (10 %). Malta and Cyprus have the smallest sample (each less than 0.5 % of all respondents).
In terms of socio-demographics, respondents are predominantly young with an average age of 30. 42 % are between 25-39 years old, 33 % are between 18-24 years and 7 % are 15-17. 13 % are between 40-54 years old and only 4 % of respondents are over 55.
48 % have a university education. 51 % live in a big city.
The online survey allowed all interested LGBTIQ people with internet access to take part. However, an opt-in online survey does not in principle deliver a random probability sample that would fulfil the statistical criteria for representativeness.
To mitigate this inherent problem of opt-in online surveys, FRA ensured that the survey is ‘as representative as possible’, for example by careful mapping of the LGBTIQ population in each country. FRA also developed and applied a comprehensive weighting methodology to achieve better estimates and a more faithful picture of the situation building on the very large sample of over 100,000 respondents. This allows to balance out and compensate for over and under-representation of some LGBTIQ groups, including age groups, in the sample and between countries.
Although the results cannot be considered as representative of all LGBTIQ people in the EU, they constitute by far the largest collection of empirical evidence on discrimination and hate crime against LGBTIQ people worldwide since FRA’s surveys in 2012 and 2019.
FRA used several measures to guarantee data security, privacy and confidentiality of the survey respondents. The survey did not collect any personal data that could be used to identify an individual. All data collected, including respondents’ anonymous answers regarding personal experiences, perceptions, and views of discrimination and hate crime victimisation, were stored securely and kept confidential, according to European data protection law.
Throughout the survey, respondents had access to detailed information on how their data will be stored and processed.
No respondent can be identified in the survey results. The answers were combined with those of others who took part in the survey and only anonymous statistical data are used for the report. The data collection and the analysis process were performed without reference to any personal or sensitive data capable of identifying people.
The survey also contained an ‘open’ response option where respondents could write more about their experiences. The report includes quotes from this open response option, but none of the quotes allow for the identification of any individual.
This LGBTIQ Survey included powerful tools and methodologies to tackle falsification attempts and campaigns that aimed to undermine the survey.
There were several survey questions to filter and secure the participation of LGBTIQ people.
Taking part in the survey could require up to 45 minutes, which would also likely dissuade non-genuine respondents. As past surveys have shown, responses in almost all cases are genuine, given the time and attention needed to complete a detailed questionnaire in a coherent manner, and taking into account various reliability checks that were done.
Before data analysis, FRA checked the responses for consistency. If there were specific contradictions/inconsistencies, and failures in various other survey checks, the cases were removed from the dataset. The responses were assigned a combined quality score and were deleted if they failed to meet data quality standards.
In total, FRA excluded 1,425 responses (1.4 %) reaching a final sample of 100,577 respondents.
FRA uses appropriate scientific methods to allow comparisons of the results of the three survey waves (2012, 2019 and 2023).
For comparisons between the 2019 and the 2023 surveys, FRA only uses data for respondent categories who were included in both surveys. This includes LGBTI people aged 15 and older from the EU-27 Member States, North Macedonia and Serbia, and excludes the UK that was part of the 2019 survey. The comparison does not include respondents from Albania, as well as certain respondent categories (pansexual, asexual and queer people who are not trans or intersex) who were not surveyed in 2019.
Due to these differences in the sample make-up of the 2019 and 2023 surveys, small differences can appear in the report figures. This occurs when comparing the two surveys versus the full 2023 survey results, covering all 30 countries surveyed and all LGBTIQ categories. Further details are provided in the forthcoming technical report.
FRA aims to make the microdata and full dataset available in 2025.
The external contracts for the 2023 LGBTIQ survey in 30 countries cost €640,000.
An online survey represents the most cost-effective method for documenting the experiences of LGBTIQ people. In the absence of alternative data sources on LGBTIQ people, surveys like this remain an important source of information for the EU and its Member States. The data collected can be used to assess the impact of policies and legislation.
FRA does not rank countries in its reports. However, people will soon be able to use the survey’s data explorer to see individual countries’ results relative to other countries with respect to specific survey questions.
These files provide key survey findings for each country:
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