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For a fourth year in a row, Poland holds the worst record on LGBTQ+ rights in the EU behind Romania and Bulgaria, a report from rights organization ILGA-Europe released Thursday shows.
The report ranks European countries based on a review of laws and policies affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. Each country is assigned a grade, ranging from 0 (gross violations of human rights) to 100 percent (full equality).
Similar to 2022, Malta tops the list with a score of 89 percent, followed by Belgium and Denmark, tied at 76 percent — all far above Poland (15 percent), Romania (18 percent) and Bulgaria (20 percent).
“Despite intense anti-LGBTI attacks in several countries, equality is still advancing across Europe,” through the passing of “legislation recognising gender identity,” ILGA-Europe said in a press release.
Although Poland remains worst-in-class among EU countries — which has been the case since 2020 — it gained two points compared to last year.
The increase is driven by Polish courts “ensuring that no surgical interventions are needed for legal gender recognition and the equality body extending its work to include intersex people,” said Katrin Hugendubel, ILGA-Europe’s advocacy director.
Apart from EU countries, according to the report, the worst countries to be LGBTI on the European continent are Azerbaijan, Turkey, Russia and Armenia.
