ILGA-Europe report finds that 2022 was the most violent year for LGBTQ people across the region in the past decade

Europeans who identify as LGBTQ face an increasingly toxic and violent environment, despite several legislative victories achieved over the past years, the annual report of ILGA-Europe has warned.

The study shows the steepest rise in anti-LGBTQ violence since the organisation began publishing its annual report 12 years ago.

The trends in 2022 present not only a marked increase in the number of attacks but especially in the severity and lethality with which they were conducted, such as the shootings in Bratislava and in Oslo, where the attackers were said to have purposely targeted queer people

Suicides among the LGBTQ population have climbed up, migration movements to flee repression have intensified and the space for civil society has gradually shrunk across the continent, the report says.

Meanwhile, education has turned into a "battleground" as the progress on sexual education is "challenged at a fundamental level" in countries like Hungary, Serbia, Russia, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Throughout the study, which covers developments across the 54 countries in which ILGA-Europe's affiliates are present, a key area of concern is the situation of trans people, who are reported to face an "enormous backlash" and persistent legal obstacles.

Spain and Finland are among the European countries that recently passed progressive laws to strengthen trans rights, an effort that came about only after a protracted and heated back-and-forth.

Read the report here