The status of LGBTQ+ rights in Europe is complex, with populist agendas and foreign influence driving anti-LGBTQ+ narratives and repressive laws. Clear examples have emerged, however, of governments acting to uphold and restore rights and EU institutions acting as an effective bulwark against cases of discrimination and oppression. In 2025, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) handed down a landmark ruling obligating EU Member States to recognise same-sex marriage.

Filip Rak, a partner at Wardynski Partners in Warsaw and an officer of the IBA’s LGBTQI+ Committee, says that the main sources of challenge for the LGBTQ+ community in Europe are autocratic governments with a disregard for minority rights, disinformation campaigns on social media by hostile states, growing funding of organisations promoting ‘traditional family values’ and political influence from the US, which has removed non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people and significantly curtailed the rights of transgender, non-binary and intersex individuals. ‘Trump gives big inspiration to European politicians,’ he says.

Across Europe, a growing trend has emerged towards measures that restrict trans and gender-diverse people’s ability to participate fully in public life. In Slovakia, amendments to the constitution adopted in September recognise only two sexes and limit legal gender recognition to exceptional cases, leading the European Commission to open an infringement procedure. In the UK, in April, the Supreme Court interpreted ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 to only refer to biological sex assigned at birth, which has resulted in bans of trans women and girls from public spaces and organisations including the National Federation of Women’s Institutes and Girlguiding groups. Georgia Dawson, a partner at Freshfields in London and former senior champion at LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, says the UK Supreme Court decision has created ‘quite a lot of confusion for employers around the practicalities of single-sex spaces as organisations also seek to ensure workplaces are inclusive for all and don’t discriminate against the trans community.’

Despite notable setbacks, progress to strengthen and protect rights at a national and EU-level continues to be made. In Poland, the final remaining ‘LGBTI-free zone’ resolution was repealed in 2025, ending a period of long running state-sponsored discrimination and stigmatisation of the community. In March, Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the country’s public authorities must recognise same-sex marriages performed in other EU countries. The decision followed a landmark ruling by the ECJ in November obligating EU Member States to do so, even if national law does not allow for such unions. Dawson says the ECJ ruling – based on the right to freedom of movement and family life – is significant because it sets the standard on same-sex marriage across the EU. ‘People can refer to that judgment and then expedite their ability to get their rights recognised and protected,’ she says.

The ECJ ruling, which was based on a case brought by a Polish couple, referenced sociological research that showed that over 60 per cent of Polish citizens were in favour of same-sex civil unions. Rak says that the judgment ‘demonstrates very firmly that it is the politicians rather than the public who are more conservative and aggressively opposing this kind of recognition’. Poland is one of only five countries out of 27 EU Member States that has not yet legalised gay marriage.

Alongside civil society, the European Commission was vital to efforts in recent years to overturn the highly oppressive LGBTI-free zones in Poland – where LGBTQ+ events, culture and education were banned – because of its decision to reject funding applications for Polish towns that adopted the zones, which led to many dropping anti-LGBTQ+ resolutions in response. Annamaria Linczowska, an advocacy and litigation officer at KPH, a Polish LGBTQ+ rights organisation that pressured the European Commission to take action against the LGBTI-free zones, says there are ‘a lot of areas’ concerning LGBTQ+ rights where the EU could be more involved and that the Commission putting emphasis on common values such as non-discrimination, fundamental human rights and equality is highly important.

But on an EU-level there is still progress to be made. Following the European Parliament elections in 2024, the European Commission announced plans to scrap the Horizontal Equal Treatment Directive, which has been under review since 2008 and aims to fill gaps in EU anti-discrimination law with regards to religion, disability, age or sexual orientation. The decision was reversed in July following strong pushback from NGOs, Member States and MEPs but the directive still faces many obstacles and requires unanimous agreement by the Council to be adopted. Campaigners, including ILGA-Europe, have also criticised the European Commission’s 2026-2030 strategy on LGBTQ+ equality as far less ambitious than the previous strategy, largely because it does not include clear action to protect intersex rights or a commitment to ban conversion practices. ‘The thing to do for activist organisations, lawyers and politicians who are supportive of LGBTQ rights is to continue to pressure the Commission,’ says Rak.

Header image: Martin Bergsma/Adobe Stock