Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Ukraine face challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ individuals. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and Ukraine's independence in 1991, the Ukrainian LGBTQ community has gradually become more visible and more organized politically, holding several LGBTQ events in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Kryvyi Rih. In the 2010s and 2020s, positive treatment of LGBTQ people has been on the rise in Ukrainian society.
In a 2010 European study, 28% of Ukrainians polled believed that LGBT individuals should live freely and however they like, the lowest number of all European countries polled apart from Russia. In the 2011 UN Human Rights Council declaration for LGBT rights (A/HRC/RES/17/19), Ukraine expressed its support, voting in favour along with neighbouring countries Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, while Russia and Moldova voted against it. In 2015, the Ukrainian Parliament approved an employment anti-discrimination law covering sexual orientation and gender identity, and in 2016, Ukrainian officials simplified the transition process for transgender people. In 2021, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health implemented their 2016 proposal to allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood.
In late 2022, parliament unanimously approved a media regulation bill that banned hate speech and incitement based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In March 2023, a parliamentary bill was introduced for civil unions. In 2023 the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association ranked Ukraine 39th out of 49 European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights legislation, similarly to EU members Lithuania and Romania. Marriage remains limited to heterosexual couples under the 1996 constitution. In a 2024 poll, 70.4% of Ukrainians polled agreed that LGBTQ people should have the same rights as other Ukrainian citizens, an increase from 67.3% in 2023 and 63.7% in 2022. 28.7% approved of civil partnerships without adoption for same-sex couples, 35.7% were opposed, and 25.6% were indifferent.
On 14 May 2025, the government approved a road map for joining the EU, which featured additional LGBTQ-inclusive legislation.
History During early medieval Kievan Rus to the late medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania no case of execution for one's sexuality is known, contrary to other countries of the time. The maximum punishment during the intermediary high medieval Principality of Kiev and Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia was church fasting, excommunication, prayer, and mandatory repentance.О содомском грехе // Стоглав. — СПб.: Д.Е. Кожанчиков, 1863. — С. 109—110. — 312Кон, 2003, с. 320—322Хили, 2008, с. 96—99, 356-374.
The Zaporozhian Sich considered homosexuality unchristian and demonic; Cossacks caught in contact with people of the same sex were trampled into the ground by horses.
Given that in 16–18 centuries most of the territories inhabited by Ukrainians were under the control of different states, different laws were in force in the respective territories. In western Ukraine, which was then part of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, gays were mostly beheaded and publicly hanged, in the east (Hetmanate), which was then under the protectorate of Russia, they were impaled or sent to hard labor in Siberia, and in the south, which was then under the rule of the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, gays were brutally killed or castrated.
In Ukrainian villages in the 19th century, group masturbation became widely popular among teenagers, including homosexuals. (, )
After the February Revolution and the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) gaining autonomy in 1917 and declaring independence in 1918, all laws of the Russian Empire were repealed, including the article punishing homosexuality. During the time of the UPR, homosexual relations were legal, but the situation of this population group was not publicly discussed by the politicians of that time due to the War of Independence.
After the formation of the USSR, the authorities initially treated LGBTQ people neutrally, secretly monitoring such people. But after Stalin's rise in later 1920s and Genrikh Yagoda's message accusing homosexuals of "espionage", homosexuality was criminalized in 1933 as part of Stalin's repressions; the corresponding article was introduced into the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR in 1934, and was more often applied to political opponents and dissidents.Кон И. С. Лунный свет на заре. Лики и маски однополой любви. — 2-е изд., перераб. и доп. — М/ : Олимп, ACT, 2003. — 576 p. Healy, Dan. «How many victims of the antisodomy law. Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia». The University of Chicago Press, 2001. In January 1936, a commissioner Nikolai Krylenko declared that "homosexuality is a product of moral decay". Later, lawyers and doctors in the USSR also reasoned about homosexuality as a manifestation of "moral decay.".Козловский, 1986, с.154
During the German occupation of Ukraine in 1941–1944, according to official data, the Nazis murdered more than 10,000 homosexuals, some of whom were sent to Nazi concentration camps.Серед них недоумкуваті, божевільні, алкоголіки, бездомні, жебраки, пацифісти, феміністки, повії і лесбійки Between the 1950s and 1980s, about 25,000 men were officially imprisoned in the USSR.Rustam Alexander, Regulating Homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 1956—1991: A Different History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), c. 23 — 51. Также смотри: Рустам Александер, Закрытые: Жизнь гомосексуалов в Советском Союзе (Москва: Индивидуум Букс, 2022), с. 91 — 99.
One of the most famous people convicted of homosexuality in Ukraine was Sergey Paradzhanov, a director of Armenian background. Like other people who did not fit into the norms of the Soviet system, convicted homosexuals in the USSR suffered not only from imprisonment, but also from punitive psychiatry.
Particularly cruel medical experiments were conducted on them (unofficially, of course), often Soviet doctors abused the patient trying to determine the degree of tolerance of a particular person to pain: they cut their tendons, damaged healthy teeth, injected drugs that caused not just degradation of the personality but paralysis of the whole body. In this way, the Soviet system in the 1960s and 1980s turned healthy people who allegedly threatened state security into invalids.Блох С., Реддауэй П. Диагноз: инакомыслие: Как советские психиатры лечат от политического инакомыслия. — London: Overseas Publications Interchange Ltd, 1981. — 420 с.Abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union: hearing before the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth Congress, first session, September 20, 1983.
Legality of same-sex sexual activity Male homosexual sex was legalized in Ukraine in 1991; female homosexual sex was never a crime there.Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture. Editor David A. Gerstner. pg. 669. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2006. As of 2018, the law relates to same-sex sexual activity when it involves prostitution with people under the legal age of consent or public conduct that is deemed to be in violation of public decency standards. The age of consent is set at 16, regardless of gender and/or sexual orientation.
Recognition of same-sex relationships
Article 51 of the Constitution, adopted in 1996, specifically defines marriage as a voluntary union between a man and a woman.Same-Sex Couples before National, Supranational and International Jurisdictions 2014th Edition, Springer Publishing, , Published 2 December 2013 (page 214)Legal Report: Ukraine, COWI (2010) No legal recognition exists for same-sex marriage, nor is there any sort of more limited recognition for same-sex couples.
On 23 November 2015, the Government approved an action plan to implement the National Strategy on human rights in the period up to 2020, which include the promise to draft a bill creating registered civil partnerships for opposite-sex and same-sex couples by 2017, among others. However, in early 2018, the Ministry of Justice stated that "the development and submission to the Government of a draft law on the legalization of a registered civil partnership in Ukraine cannot be implemented" due to "numerous appeals from the regional councils, the Council of Churches and other religious organizations".Same-sex marriage in Ukraine: accept or deny?, UNIAN (14 February 2018)
In June 2018, the Justice Ministry confirmed that currently "there is no legal grounds" for same-sex marriage and civil partnerships in Ukraine.
In July 2022, a petition in Ukraine asking for the legalisation of same-sex marriage reached over 28,000 signatures, and all petitions in Ukraine that reach over 25,000 signatures automatically start the consideration of the President of Ukraine. On 2 August 2022, in response to the petition, Zelenskyy affirmed that democracies were measured by how they ensure equal rights for all citizens, and that the family "consists of persons who live together, are connected by common life, have mutual rights and obligations"; he asked the Prime Minister of Ukraine to review civil partnerships for same-sex couples. However, he said that same-sex marriage could not be introduced during wartime as this would require amending the Constitution of Ukraine, and the Constitution cannot be changed during martial law. The war has spurred efforts to legalize same-sex marriage to ensure gay soldiers' partners are given the same rights and privileges afforded to those in legally recognised marriages, with activists pointing to the service of LGBTQ military personnel as having shifted attitudes towards LGBTQ people.
On 16 November 2024, during a meeting between Ukrainian president Zelenskyy and representatives of the , one of the student representatives asked him if he would sign the law on registered partnerships. The President curtly replied: "Yes!" (). The student responded with: "Thank you!", and the audience applauded and cheered the President.
On 14 May 2025, the government approved a road map for joining the EU, in particular, p. 3.11 envisages the development and adoption of a law determining the legal status of registered partnerships with a deadline for implementation in the III quarter of 2025.
The Desnianskyi District Court recognized "existence of actual marital relations" between two Ukrainian men on 10 June 2025, the first such decision for Ukraine. On 22 January 2026, a draft of a revised Civil Code was submitted to the Parliament of Ukraine by Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk and a large group of lawmakers, intended to "harmonize Ukrainian family law with European Union standards". It introduces amendments that define a family as the cohabitation of a man and a woman and includes a provision to automatically annul marriages if one spouse undergoes legal sex reassignment. The Parliament Speaker has described the proposal as "modern and European". If adopted, the new Civil Code would explicitly exclude same-sex partnerships.
In March 2026, the Supreme Court in Kyiv rejected a challenge to a lower-court ruling that recognized same-sex couples as de facto family.HRW.org: Landmark Court Ruling in Ukraine a Step Toward Equality, 13 March 2026AmnestyUSA.org: Ukraine: Supreme Court Decision Recognizing Same-Sex Couple as Family Marks Important Step for LGBTI Rights, March 2026
Adoption and parenting