Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.
Notably, , 38 countries recognize same-sex marriage. By contrast, not counting non-state actors and extrajudicial killings, only two countries are believed to impose the death penalty on consensual same-sex sexual acts: Iran and Afghanistan. The death penalty is officially law, but generally not practiced, in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia (in the autonomous state of Jubaland). LGBTQ people also face extrajudicial killings in the Russian region of Chechnya. Sudan rescinded its unenforced death penalty for anal sex (hetero- or homosexual) in 2020. Fifteen countries have stoning on the books as a penalty for adultery, which (in light of the illegality of gay marriage in those countries) would by default include gay sex, but this is enforced by the legal authorities in Iran and Nigeria (in the northern third of the country).
In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed its first resolution recognizing LGBTQ rights, following which the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report documenting violations of the rights of LGBTQ people, including hate crimes, criminalization of homosexual activity, and discrimination. Following the issuance of the report, the United Nations urged all countries which had not yet done so to enact laws protecting basic LGBTQ rights. A 2022 study found that LGBTQ rights (as measured by ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Index) were correlated with less HIV/AIDS incidence among gay and bisexual men independently of risky sexual behavior.
The 2023 Equaldex Equality Index ranks the Nordic countries, Chile, Uruguay, Canada, the Benelux countries, Spain, Andorra, and Malta among the best for LGBTQ rights. The index ranks Senegal, Oman, Brunei, Afghanistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Gambia, and Iran among the worst.
LGBT rights are supported by various international religious organizations, including progressive Christian denominations, William H. Brackney, Historical Dictionary of the Baptists, Scarecrow Press, USA, 2009, p. 603 Jason E. Vickers, The Cambridge Companion to American Methodism, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2013, p. 112 and progressive Jewish organizations.Emily McAvan, The Jewish case for marriage equality in Australia , sbs.com.au, 23 de janeiro de 2017
Scope of laws Laws that affect LGBTQ people include, but are not limited to, the following:
laws concerning the recognition of same-sex relationships, including same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships laws concerning same-sex parenting, including same-sex adoption anti-discrimination laws in employment, housing, education, public accommodations anti-bullying legislation to protect LGBTQ children at school hate crime laws imposing enhanced criminal penalties for prejudice-motivated violence against LGBTQ people bathroom bills affecting access to sex-segregated facilities by transgender people laws related to sexual orientation and military service laws concerning access to assisted reproductive technology sodomy laws that penalize consensual same-sex sexual activity that may or may not target homosexuals, males or males and females, or leave some homosexual acts legal adultery laws that same-sex couples are subject to age of consent laws that may impose higher ages for same-sex sexual activity laws regarding donation of blood, corneas, and other tissues by men who have sex with men laws concerning access to gender-affirming surgery and gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy legal recognition and accommodation of the affirmed gender
History of LGBTQ-related laws
Ancient India
In ancient India, Ayoni or non-vaginal sex of all types was punishable in the Arthashastra. Homosexual acts were, however, treated as a smaller offence punishable by a fine, while unlawful heterosexual sex carried much harsher punishment. The Dharmsastras, especially the later ones like the Vashistha Dharmasutra, prescribed against non-vaginal sex. The Yājñavalkya Smṛti prescribed fines for such acts including those with other men. Manusmriti prescribed light punishments for such acts. Vanita stated that the verses about punishment for a sex between a woman and her maiden was due to its strong emphasis on a maiden's sexual purity.
Ancient Israel The ancient Law of Moses (the Torah) forbids people from lying with people of the same sex (i.e., from having intercourse) in Leviticus 18 and gives a story of attempted homosexual rape in Genesis 19, in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, after which the cities were soon destroyed with "brimstone and fire, from the Lord" and the death penalty was prescribed to its inhabitants – and to Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt because she turned back to watch the cities' destruction. In Deuteronomy 22:5, cross-dressing is condemned as "abominable".
Assyria In Assyrian society, sex crimes were punished identically whether they were homosexual or heterosexual. An individual faced no punishment for penetrating someone of equal social class, a cult prostitute, or with someone whose gender roles were not considered solidly masculine. Such sexual relations were even seen as good fortune, with an Akkadian tablet, the Šumma ālu, reading, "If a man copulates with his equal from the rear, he becomes the leader among his peers and brothers". However, homosexual relationships with fellow soldiers, slaves, royal attendants, or those where a social better was submissive or penetrated, were treated as bad omens.Pritchard, p. 181.Gay Rights Or Wrongs: A Christian's Guide to Homosexual Issues and Ministry, by Mike Mazzalonga, 1996, p.11
Middle Assyrian Law Codes dating 1075 BC has a particularly harsh law for homosexuality in the military, which reads: "If a man have intercourse with his brother-in-arms, they shall turn him into a eunuch." A similar law 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". This law code condemns a situation that involves homosexual rape. Any Assyrian male could visit a prostitute or lie with another male, just as long as false rumors or forced sex were not involved with another male.G. R. Driver and J. C. Miles, The Assyrian Laws (Oxford, Clarendon Press ), 71.
Ancient Rome
In ancient Rome, the bodies of citizen youths were strictly off-limits, and the Lex Scantinia imposed penalties on those who committed a sex crime (stuprum) against a freeborn male minor.Plutarch, Moralia 288a; Thomas Habinek, "The Invention of Sexuality in the World-City of Rome," in The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 39; Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality," pp. 545–546. Scholars disagree as to whether the Lex Scantinia imposed the death penalty or a hefty fine. Acceptable same-sex partners were males excluded from legal protections as citizens: slaves, male prostitutes, and the infames, entertainers or others who might be technically free but whose lifestyles set them outside the law.
A male citizen who willingly performed oral sex or received anal sex was disparaged, but there is only limited evidence of legal penalties against these men.Williams, Roman Homosexuality, pp. 214–215; Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality," passim. In courtroom and political rhetoric, charges of effeminacy and passive sexual behaviors were directed particularly at "democratic" politicians (populares) such as Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.Catharine Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 63–64.
Roman law addressed the rape of a male citizen as early as the 2nd century BC when it was ruled that even a man who was "disreputable and questionable" had the same right as other citizens not to have his body subjected to forced sex.As recorded in a fragment of the speech De Re Floria by Cato the Elder (frg. 57 Jordan = Aulus Gellius 9.12.7), noted and discussed by Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality," p. 561. A law probably dating to the dictatorship of Julius Caesar defined rape as forced sex against "boy, woman, or anyone"; the rapist was subject to execution, a rare penalty in Roman law.Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality," pp. 562–563. See also Digest 48.5.35 on legal definitions of rape that included boys. A male classified as infamis, such as a prostitute or actor, could not as a matter of law be raped, nor could a slave, who was legally classified as property; the slave's owner, however, could prosecute the rapist for property damage.Under the Lex Aquilia. See McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome, p. 314.
In the Roman army of the Republic, sex among fellow soldiers violated the decorum against intercourse with citizens and was subject to harsh penalties, including death,McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome, p. 40. as a violation of military discipline.Sara Elise Phang, Roman Military Service: Ideologies of Discipline in the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 93. The Greek historian Polybius (2nd century BC) lists deserters, thieves, perjurers, and "...on young men who have abused their persons" as subject to the fustuarium, clubbing to death. Ancient sources are most concerned with the effects of sexual harassment by officers, but the young soldier who brought an accusation against his superior needed to show that he had not willingly taken the passive role or prostituted himself.Phang, The Marriage of Roman Soldiers, pp. 280–285. Soldiers were free to have relations with their male slaves;Phang, The Marriage of Roman Soldiers, p. 3. the use of a fellow citizen-soldier's body was prohibited, not homosexual behaviors per se.Williams, Roman Homosexuality, p. 112 et passim. By the late Republic and throughout the Imperial period, there is increasing evidence that men whose lifestyle marked them as "homosexual" in the modern sense served openly.
Although Roman law did not recognize marriage between men, and in general Romans regarded marriage as a heterosexual union with the primary purpose of producing children, in the early Imperial period some male couples were celebrating traditional marriage rites. Juvenal remarks with disapproval that his friends often attended such ceremonies.Juvenal, Satire 2; Williams, Roman Homosexuality, p. 28. The emperor Nero had two marriages to men, once as the bride (with a freedman Pythagoras) and once as the groom. His consort Sporus appeared in public as Nero's wife wearing the regalia that was customary for the Roman empress.Suetonius Life of Nero 28–29; Williams, Roman Homosexuality, p. 279ff.
Apart from measures to protect the prerogatives of citizens, the prosecution of homosexuality as a general crime began in the 3rd century of the Christian era when male prostitution was banned by Philip the Arab. By the end of the 4th century, after the Roman Empire had come under Christian rule, passive homosexuality was punishable by burning.Michael Groneberg, "Reasons for Homophobia: Three Types of Explanation," in Combatting Homophobia: Experiences and Analyses Pertinent to Education (LIT Verlag, 2011), p. 193. "Death by sword" was the punishment for a "man coupling like a woman" under the Theodosian Code.Codex Theodosianus 9.7.3 (4 December 342), introduced by the sons of Constantine in 342. Under Justinian, all same-sex acts, passive or active, no matter who the partners are, were declared contrary to nature and punishable by death.Groneberg, "Reasons for Homophobia," p. 193.
British Empire