LGBTQ rights by country or territory

• 1. Introduction

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  LGBTQ rights by country or territory covers a legal landscape with almost no common ground. In 38 countries, same-sex marriage is recognized by law. At the other end of the scale, a small number of governments treat consensual same-sex acts as a crime that can end in execution. Between those extremes sit rules about parenting, schooling, military service, and even who may donate blood. Which countries sit at the most punishing end, and what does the law actually do there? How do outsiders measure progress across so many legal systems? And where did the oldest rules about same-sex relationships come from, and which of them still shape statute books today?

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• 2. The Harshest Penalties

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  Iran and Afghanistan are the only two countries believed to impose the death penalty on consensual same-sex acts. That count leaves out non-state actors and extrajudicial killings. Four other places keep a death penalty in their official law but generally do not carry it out. They are Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Somalia, where the law applies in the autonomous state of Jubaland.

  The Russian region of Chechnya sits outside this legal picture. LGBTQ people there face extrajudicial killings, which means deaths carried out without any court process. Sudan took one step away from the harshest end in 2020, when it rescinded a death penalty that had gone unenforced. That penalty covered anal sex of any kind, whether between a man and a woman or between two men.

  Stoning adds a second layer. Fifteen countries have stoning on the books as a punishment for adultery. Because gay marriage is illegal in those countries, gay sex falls under that offense by default. Legal authorities actually enforce the penalty in Iran and in the northern third of Nigeria. Outside those lands, the United Nations began asking governments to change course in 2011.

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• 3. Measuring Progress

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  In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed its first resolution recognizing LGBTQ rights. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights then issued a report. It documented hate crimes, the criminalization of homosexual activity, and discrimination. After that report, the United Nations urged every country that had not yet acted to enact laws protecting basic LGBTQ rights.

  Researchers have also tried to put numbers on the stakes. A 2022 study used ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Index to score LGBTQ rights. It found that stronger rights were correlated with less HIV/AIDS among gay and bisexual men. That link held independently of risky sexual behavior.

  Rankings give a second view. The 2023 Equaldex Equality Index places the Nordic countries, Chile, Uruguay, Canada, the Benelux countries, Spain, Andorra, and Malta among the best for LGBTQ rights. Its lowest ranks go to Senegal, Oman, Brunei, Afghanistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Gambia, and Iran. Some religious groups back these rights too, including progressive Christian denominations, Inclusive churches, and progressive Jewish organizations.

  One Benelux country holds a particular first. In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.

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• 4. What Laws Cover

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  Fourteen distinct kinds of law touch the lives of LGBTQ people, and the list is described as non-exhaustive. Some concern family life: recognition of same-sex relationships through marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships, plus same-sex parenting, adoption, and access to assisted reproductive technology.

  Others protect people from harm. Anti-discrimination laws cover employment, housing, education, and public accommodations. Anti-bullying legislation protects LGBTQ children at school. Hate crime laws raise the penalty when violence is motivated by prejudice.

  A third group does the opposite. Sodomy laws penalize consensual same-sex activity. Some target males only, some cover males and females, and some leave certain homosexual acts legal. Adultery laws can apply to same-sex couples. Age of consent laws may set a higher age for same-sex activity.

  The remaining categories are narrower. They include bathroom bills on access to sex-segregated facilities for transgender people and rules on military service. Further rules limit blood, cornea, and tissue donation by men who have sex with men. The last two cover gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy, and legal recognition of a person's affirmed gender. These categories mostly describe the modern state, yet some of the oldest legal writing already dealt with the same questions.

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• 5. Ancient Scriptures

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  The Arthashastra of ancient India punished Ayoni, meaning non-vaginal sex of every type. Homosexual acts counted as a smaller offense there and drew a fine. Unlawful heterosexual sex carried a much harsher punishment. Later texts followed a similar pattern. The Vashistha Dharmasutra prescribed against non-vaginal sex, and the Yajnavalkya Smriti set fines for such acts, including those between men. The Manusmriti prescribed light punishments. The scholar Vanita explained one set of verses, about sex between a woman and a maiden, as a reflection of the strong emphasis on a maiden's sexual purity.

  The Law of Moses, the Torah, takes a sterner tone. Leviticus 18 forbids people from lying with someone of the same sex. Genesis 19 tells of an attempted homosexual rape in Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities are then destroyed with "brimstone and fire, from the Lord." Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at the destruction. Deuteronomy 22:5 separately condemns cross-dressing as "abominable."

  The Assyrians took a very different view of the same acts.

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• 6. Assyrian Omens

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  A clay tablet called the Šumma ālu, written in Akkadian, once treated a same-sex encounter as a sign of good luck. It reads: "If a man copulates with his equal from the rear, he becomes the leader among his peers and brothers." Assyrian society punished sex crimes the same way whether they were homosexual or heterosexual. A man faced no penalty for penetrating an equal in social class, a cult prostitute, or someone whose gender roles were not considered solidly masculine.

  Social rank decided whether an act brought luck or trouble. Relationships with fellow soldiers, slaves, or royal attendants were treated as bad omens. So were relationships in which a social better was the submissive or penetrated partner.

  The Middle Assyrian Law Codes, dating to 1075 BC, were severe about the military. They state: "If a man have intercourse with his brother-in-arms, they shall turn him into a eunuch." A similar code reads: "If a seignior lay with his neighbor, when they have prosecuted him (and) convicted him, they shall lie with him (and) turn him into a eunuch." That second law condemns homosexual rape. Any Assyrian male could visit a prostitute or lie with another male, provided no false rumors or forced sex were involved. Rome drew its lines according to citizenship instead.

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• 7. Rome's Citizen Rule

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  The Lex Scantinia in ancient Rome imposed penalties on anyone who committed a sex crime, called stuprum, against a freeborn male minor. The bodies of citizen youths were strictly off-limits. Acceptable same-sex partners were males who lacked a citizen's legal protections. These were slaves, male prostitutes, and the infames, such as entertainers whose lifestyles set them outside the law. A male citizen who willingly performed oral sex or received anal sex was disparaged, yet evidence of legal penalties against these men is limited. Courtroom and political rhetoric accused "democratic" politicians, the populares, of effeminacy. Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were among the targets.

  Rape law protected men too. As early as the 2nd century BC, Rome ruled that even a man who was "disreputable and questionable" held the same right as other citizens not to be forced into sex. A law probably dating to Julius Caesar's dictatorship defined rape as forced sex against a "boy, woman, or anyone." The penalty was execution, which was rare in Roman law. An infamis could not legally be raped, and neither could a slave, who counted as property. A slave's owner could instead prosecute for property damage.

  In the army of the Republic, sex between soldiers violated military discipline and could bring death. The Greek historian Polybius, in the 2nd century BC, listed deserters, thieves, perjurers, and "young men who have abused their persons" among those subject to the fustuarium, clubbing to death. A young soldier accusing a superior had to show that he had not willingly taken the passive role or prostituted himself. Soldiers could have relations with their male slaves. What the law barred was the use of a fellow citizen-soldier's body, not homosexual behavior itself. By the late Republic and through the Imperial period, evidence grows that men whose lifestyle marked them as homosexual in the modern sense served openly.

  Marriage was a different matter. Roman law did not recognize marriage between men, and Romans generally saw marriage as a heterosexual union meant to produce children. Even so, in the early Imperial period some male couples celebrated traditional marriage rites. The poet Juvenal remarked with disapproval that his friends often attended such ceremonies. The emperor Nero married two men, once as the bride to a freedman named Pythagoras and once as the groom. His consort Sporus appeared in public as Nero's wife, wearing the regalia customary for an empress.

  The prosecution of homosexuality as a general crime began in the 3rd century of the Christian era. Philip the Arab banned male prostitution. By the end of the 4th century, after the empire had come under Christian rule, passive homosexuality was punishable by burning. The Theodosian Code prescribed "death by sword" for a "man coupling like a woman." Under Justinian, all same-sex acts, passive or active, were declared contrary to nature and punishable by death. Centuries later, another empire carried harsh laws across much of the world.

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• 8. The British Empire's Legacy

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  In 1861, the British Empire introduced Section 377 of the British Colonial Penal Code. It outlawed consensual sexual activity between same-sex couples. It also labelled third gender communities, such as the apwint people and the Hijra, as "outlaw tribes." The law targeted acts "against the order of nature," and authorities used it to prosecute oral and anal sex along with homosexual activity. The United Kingdom spread anti-homosexuality laws across its colonies, particularly in the 19th century when the empire was at its peak. As of 2018, more than half of the 71 countries that criminalised homosexuality were former British colonies or protectorates.

  Section 377 still exists in some of those places. Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Pakistan retain it, and Sri Lanka has the same rule as Section 365.

  Other laws aimed at gender non-conformity. In 1861, authorities of the North-Western Provinces sought a special law against Hijra people in order to criminalise their identity. The Hijra were then included in the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 and were monitored in the hope of eliminating their culture. Under that act, Hijra people could not possess children.

  The effects reach into the present. Homosexual activity remains a criminal offence in 29 of the 56 sovereign states of the Commonwealth of Nations and is legal in 27. In 3 of those states, it is punishable by death.

  The source also points to a history that predates colonial rule. Texts from India's religious traditions, including Jainism, Buddhism, and the Kama Sutra, refer to a third sex. The Manu Smriti, dated to roughly 200 BC to 200 AD, describes humans as belonging to one of three biological sexes. That framing suggests a belief that transsexuality was an inherent trait.

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