"Rainbow Trendin' Dash": The Global Situation on LGBTQ+ Rights · 2:17am June 3rd
Since I generally prefer a global account to a narrower focus on a topic, let's give it a go! Graphs and links ahoy! In broad strokes, then; where in the world would a pro-LGBTQ+ citizen least want to stand?
Hint: blue good, red bad.
Blog Number 261: The Arc of the Rainbow Edition
It's four years out of date, and admittedly most of this post on it is just an unsophisticated "hey, look at this article I found!", but it should still mostly indicate where the current trends lie, so...
Anyway, this Pew Research Center article covers - in its own words - "34 countries" and "38,426 respondents" (though more rigorous methodological critics than me can have a look at the description of their approach) on the subject of public opinion towards homosexuality, which for the sake of argument I'll take as a stand-in for broader LGBTQ+ rights:
But increasing acceptance in many countries over past two decades
I don't think it's particularly creative of me to copy-paste the article and leave it at that, so what I'll do is post here what seem to be the key findings (conveniently summarized in graph and table forms) and then [insert comment here]. So, first up!
This overlaps pretty well with the Wikipedia graph I posted at the top. Generally inclined to accept are Western Europe and Scandinavia, most of the Americas, Japan, and Australia (New Zealand and a couple of places in Oceania likely qualify, based on the Wikipedia graph; they were simply left out of the Pew survey).
More controversial are places like Central Europe and South Africa*, and judging from the Wikipedia graph certain parts of Asia - even including the wealthier SE Asian countries.
* At this point, it's worth emphasizing the difference between whether it's legal (which is what the blue in the Wikipedia graph indicates) and whether it's generally approved (which is what the Pew survey measured). So South Africa legalized gay marriage but still had a sizeable population of disapproval before the trend of recent years.
Worst of all are places like Russia*, most of Africa, and especially Islamist countries like Nigeria, Indonesia, and the Middle Eastern states.
* On that note, very disappointed to see Ukraine in the same anti-LGBTQ+ boat.
OK, I will quote a little bit. From the Wikipedia page:
Notably, as of May 2024, 37 countries recognize same-sex marriage.[1][2] 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.[3][4][5][6] The death penalty is officially law, but generally not practiced, in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia (in the autonomous state of Jubaland) and the United Arab Emirates.[7][8] LGBT people also face extrajudicial killings in the Russian region of Chechnya.[9]
So now you know the two most dangerous countries to be in if you're LGBTQ+: Iran and Afghanistan. Can't say I'm wildly surprised, but there it is.
To break it down a little bit more, here are the specific tabular comparisons of the nations surveyed:
Meanwhile, note that there is a slight but detectable global increase, according to the next sample:
The data on the U.S.A. is somewhat encouraging, as the previous 2013 article on the same topic placed the ratio as 60:33 in favour of accepting homosexuality, whereas six or seven years later, the ratio is 72:21. Granted, that could just be the luck of the draw, but then again there has been a general trend independently collected in support of this being a genuine shift:
The article notes the coincidence between "the [U.S.'s] federal legalization of gay marriage in June 2015" and the most recent acceleration of the trend in said country. Although, since the trend was already rising before that point, the legalization might have been a result of the increasing acceptance rather than a causal factor as such, so the acceleration might have happened anyway (or, as statistics students will no doubt note, both might have been driven - independently of each other - by a common third factor, say a general increase in political liberalism).
That said, it's boggling to think the divide was closer to 50/50 as recently as the early-to-mid 2000's, and definitely during the 90's. The past truly is a different country.
Demographic Factors
On a related note, a similar U.S.-centric Pew article (this one, dated 2019) subdivides the demographics to indicate where most of the pro-LGBTQ+ support likely originates, though technically the survey talks specifically about support for gay marriage (I think we can reasonably take it as a proxy for broader support):
As you can see, the highest support for gay marriage tends to come from the most politically liberal (90:9), the religiously unaffiliated* (82:16), Democrats or leaning-Democrats** (79:20), the youngest generation (75:24), and those who've gone through the highest educational levels (70:28 for both postgrads and college grads).
* Note that this includes, and indeed is likely dominated by, "spiritual but not religious". For more information on these "nones", see this Pew article dissecting the demographic further on general topics.
** This is likely a side effect of the more dramatic liberal-conservative contrast, as a similar difference can be seen within the Republican demographics, i.e. more liberal Republicans tend to be more supportive.
Surprisingly, among ethnic groups: according to the survey, Hispanic participants tend to be a bit more supportive than White ones, yet Black participants tend to be less supportive and more polarized than either, which wouldn't have been my prediction going in (I'd have naively guessed White would've been skewed lower by the subsection of White Evangelical Protestants, which in the graph clearly have the lowest support for gay marriage). Looking at the gender demographics, there's also a slight bias in favour of gay marriage from women than from men, though it's not that dramatic and both are still majority in favour. They're pretty weak biases.
Overall for the entire sample, the bias skews in favour of supporting gay marriage by 61:37. So... roughly two out of every three Americans you meet?*
* I'm aware that's not how probability works. Geographical clustering, for one thing, spoils the joke.
Anyway, enough digression. Back to the 2020 article, and we see that the age difference isn't just an American artefact, but can be seen globally too:
What's curious here is that there's no greater correlation between approving/disapproving of homosexuality and how dramatic the age gap is. Both Nigeria and Sweden have barely any intergenerational difference, yet appear at wildly opposite ends of the spectrum. South Korea and South Africa sit in the middle but the former shows the biggest intergenerational controversy (to the point that the three South Korean generations might as well have come from different countries, as each represents the three major positions of disapproval/controversy/approval), whereas the latter is more like Nigeria and Sweden in variety. And Lithuania and Japan are basically the inversions of Nigeria and Sweden in having very big intergenerational differences but occupying different ends of the spectrum again.
It's easy to see this younger pro-LGBTQ+ ethos as a sign of the changing zeitgeist, or "cultural climate", though it obviously depends on how the next few decades go. But we can at least confirm a growing acceptance from each generation so far.
Next up:
I suppose it might tie into the education factor, or maybe political liberalism goes hand in hand with more prosperous economic liberalism (or heck, maybe younger people are richer than older people?), but this one wouldn't have struck me as an obvious correlation going in. It's not as if money tells you to be nicer to people (and based on my vague understanding of motivation psychology, it likely contributes to the kind of extrinsic motivation that has the opposite effect), but then again it could be the case that being poorer increases stress, which decreases someone's ability to see things from the other person's point of view? Or maybe more prosperous countries tend to be more laid-back? I'm just spitballing here.
Still not 100% sure why this (admittedly not that dramatic) disparity exists. Best guess is that it might be a result of a small, distinctly insecure-machoistic subculture buried within the male population, existing without much of a feminine equivalent, if any. Only other hypothesis I can suggest is that the genders coincide with one of the other factors, such as men tending to be more politically conservative, or women tending to not be religiously affiliated*.
* This last one is hypothetical and for speculative purposes only, because I definitely swear I've seen a survey that provides evidence for the exact opposite conclusion.
This one's a little easier to grasp, as ignorance and bigotry often go together. Can't think of much to add here beyond the obvious potential for other factors influencing or overriding the detectable educational advantage.
Political Factors
Double bill next:
At this point, I think it's worth reminding ourselves of what constitutes left-wing and right-wing politics. Apologies for being a pedantic Wiki bore, but bear with me...
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole[1][2][3][4] or certain social hierarchies.[5] Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished[1] through radical means that change the nature of the society they are implemented in.[5] According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, supporters of left-wing politics "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated."[6]
...
In modern politics, the term Left typically applies to ideologies and movements to the left of classical liberalism, supporting some degree of democracy in the economic sphere. Today, ideologies such as social liberalism and social democracy are considered to be centre-left, while the Left is typically reserved for movements more critical of capitalism,[9] including the labour movement, socialism, anarchism, communism, Marxism and syndicalism, each of which rose to prominence in the 19th and 20th centuries.[10] In addition, the term left-wing has also been applied to a broad range of culturally liberal social movements,[11] including the civil rights movement, feminist movement, LGBT rights movement, abortion-rights movements, multiculturalism, anti-war movement and environmental movement[12][13] as well as a wide range of political parties.[14][15][16]
Given the history of "othering" and queerphobia that was surprisingly common surprisingly recently (relatively, yes, as the civil rights movements of the 60's would be six decades ago by now, but I'm speaking historically), obviously small wonder why LGBTQ+ rights associate more with a left-wing cause.
Having noted that, it's curious how formerly Communist Russia and currently Communist China rate poorly on LGBTQ+ rights, then. A reflection of the authoritarian style of leadership, perhaps?
Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property, religion, biology or tradition.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Hierarchy and inequality may be seen as natural results of traditional social differences[11][12] or competition in market economies.[13][14][15]
Right-wing politics are considered the counterpart to left-wing politics, and the left–right political spectrum is one of the most common political spectrums.[16] The right includes social conservatives and fiscal conservatives[17][18][19] as well as right-libertarians. "Right" and "right-wing" have been variously used as compliments and pejoratives describing neoliberal, conservative, and fascist economic and social ideas.[20]
I can't help but feel that last sentence provides a bit of a clue, given the cross-national concerns of right-wing extremist groups. Also more generally, if you're going to treat a subset of the public as inferior, obviously you're inclining towards a hierarchical way of thinking first to get to that point.
Religious Factors
If that wasn't incendiary enough, then this last one probably will be:
What counts as religiosity in these surveys should be noted for clarification's sake, as according to the prior 2013 version of the article, religiosity is measured in three grades. First grade: to what extent you agree that faith in God is necessary for morality. Second grade: to what extent you agree that religion is very important in your life. Third grade: how often you pray (in this case, at least once a day). I feel like two of those are disputable (you can be religious without praying daily, is the most obvious objection, followed by whether morality necessarily requires faith in God as opposed to some other view on both topics), but in any case the original result indicated this correlation:
(I don't know if my monitor is to blame, but the colour coding on the graph doesn't line up with the legend as far as I can tell, and it's kind of annoying).
Again, I think this ties into at least one of the other factors mentioned previously (generally the most religious tend to be the most politically conservative or right-wing, for example), but then again one of the easiest ways to "justify" discrimination (or any clear divide between some authoritative innate order and any human deviation from it) is to invoke the Highest Authority. One who you have also coincidentally pledged your moralistic loyalty to.
In turn, that opens the gates for other influences too, such as family cultural inheritance (you don't want to disappoint Mom and Dad, after all). Also, the way people naturally cluster around those most like themselves, giving rise to the notorious phenomena of echo chambers, subculture radicalization, and even cults. Especially in the age of the Internet, like-minded souls can find each other more easily online.
This (yet another digressive) article gives more of an analysis on where and when the unaffiliated are likely to align with support of homosexuals that little bit more than their more religious neighbours. Broadly put, there's a notable "non-traditional-family" acceptance and political left-leaning correlation, but not all that dramatically in some cases. I really feel like there must be a reason for the overlap between these graphs, though:
How we interpret that overlap is another matter. It could come back to the liberal angle again as a common factor (as in societies that feel free to practise however or whatever they want are already more inclined to tolerate differences in other domains). Or it could be that non-affiliates simply don't receive the centralized queerphobia of a few "bad egg" established institutions and so miss out on that particular skewing factor. Otherwise, maybe it's the other way around: LGBTQ+ people, say, feel alienated from mainstream religions for whatever reason and so gravitate toward alternative spiritualities or none at all?
Once more, I'm just spitballing. It's enough to note the data as it stands.
Other Graphs on Global LGBTQ+ Rights
Lastly, let's revisit that Wikipedia page. Sadly, I can't copy-paste the helpful legends so we can understand the colour code of the graphs (though you can make a rough guess for some of them). Nonetheless, and as a sort of reality-check to our international trendspotting here, I do recommend looking at the article's subsection on global graphs for various LGBTQ+ rights-related topics, such as:
...and...
Conclusions
So there you more or less have it. A reminder that the original data was technically a narrow subset, and I'm using it as a rough proxy for broader LGBTQ+ trends. Still... Globally, while a massive divide still exists, the trend overall is slightly positive in favour of increasingly recognized and increasing approval of pro-LGBTQ+ rights. And we can identify some broad, obvious trends.
Factors in favour* include:
* As an added precaution, I figure it's worth taking this moment to reiterate: these are probabilistic factors, not fatalistic railroads. In statistics, as they say, there's a 99% chance of an exception to every rule. 😛
- Belonging to a younger generation
- Being religiously unaffiliated in some form, and being more "religiously liberal"
- Having taken higher education
- Leaning towards liberal left-wing politics
- Living in a wealthier country
Factors against include:
- Belonging to an older generation
- Being very religious or outright evangelical
- Only taking a standard education
- Leaning towards conservative right-wing politics
- Living in a poorer country
A conclusion likely to elicit a "well, duh!" reaction from many, but my pedantry feels better for having it confirmed.
Anyway, I hope you got something out of this ramble of mine, and here's to Pride Not-Limited-To-A-Narrow-Time-Frame-At-All! 
That's all for now. Impossible Numbers, out!
Considering Ireland was the first in Europe to legalise gay marriage, I’m disappointed it wasn’t one of the 34 countries included in that survey. But I suppose to get a broader view, they wanted countries with higher populations than a “mere” 5 million.
Anyway, very interesting stuff. I’m upset but not surprised to see the US lagging behind so many of it Western contemporaries; it really is a country where liberalism and conservatism battle constantly, as well as often more religious devotion then the rest of the world (every time a major kids’ movie includes a gay character, there always seems to be an uproar from devout Christian parents there, for one thing: I cannot even fathom the same thing happen to any notable “you can hear the roar online” degree in Ireland or the UK). Though of course with a population of over 300 million, it’s often more like different countries in one, and I’m sure more like political leanings, looking at it by state would prove that.
Seeing Ukraine rather low did sting too, not gonna lie.
The age trend of homosexual acceptance also paints an important picture: for instance, Japan’s lower age demographics are quite high but counterbalanced by the 50+, but it’s a country where something like half the population is that old. Which means more of the “less accepting” people will pass away as more nee and accepting people before adults. It’ll be slow, yes, but still, it might close the gap to the US quicker than you think. Certainly, it’s the best place in Asia for it, not that that’s saying much.
The rest was good too, though very little to add to the observations of left/right and religion as they correlate to this: they are a very “well, duh!” thing, as you quip. But appreciated nonetheless!
I wouldn't say I'm too surprised, but this information shows a lot more about the polarisation of society. Seeing the progression of how life works in this regard allows a lot more understanding of our current standing as a sole humanity. I would dare say, as this progression of separation continues, a war of ideals is far more likely to start taking more lives (not to be pessimistic, as this has been the case in many courses of history). Inevitably, our next world war will be based on our ideals and values, and those who sit on the fence (like unto myself) will be the first to go. I don't mean to be a doombot or doomscroller or whatever the heck you wanna call it, but these are my personal observations, and I do think they are bound to happen someday; maybe sooner than we expect.
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Strictly speaking, Ireland was the first to do it by popular referendum. The history of same-sex marriages is a bit more complicated than that: for instance, Denmark was the first to legalize same-sex partnerships in 1989, and the Netherlands included same-sex marriage into existing laws in 2001. From the look of it, the ball didn't get rolling more generally until the early 2010's, so Ireland would have been in the thick of the trend.
As for the selection of countries, I don't think it had anything to do with population size, as Israel for example isn't especially populous and certainly doesn't make the top 34. I'm not sure what their criteria were, to be honest. It isn't mentioned in the methodological subsection.
Which is pretty ironic, given the cliche of Disney editing those same elements out for the Chinese market.
It's a weird one because, by European standards (and Canadian and Australian ones), the US is a notable outlier in the anti direction. Yet by other international standards, it's an outlier in the pro direction. It could be a bipolar thing, but given other graphs on the Pew site also show middle positions, it might just be more "centrist" than the Europe et al "leftist" and, say, Africa's "rightist" outlooks.
We might be victims of the Halo Effect there; by geographical standards, the Ukraine is within range of its neighbours, and we can't forget its history within the U.S.S.R. Just because Big Bad Russia's attacking them, doesn't mean they're 100% total saints themselves.
Good point. I'd had my eye on South Korea for a similar trend, but Japan is pretty unusual in SE Asia too (also, I neglected the Philippines in the OP, but they deserve credit too for the same reasons).
It's an open question why both conservatism and high religiosity (or I suppose religious conservatism) stand out so much, since on the face of it there's no obvious and automatic reason why they would be (technically, "preserving traditions" doesn't specifically say what the content of those traditions actually is). My best random, speculative guesses would be either A) earlier cultural mores without the benefit of later science and humanities would've been more id-like or "iddish", such as being squeamish or knee-jerk suspicious about the dangers of sexual behaviours and all their complications (medical and social), with unfamiliar or rare ones especially getting caught in the crossfire, or B) the cultural bottleneck before later expansion and diversity just had the misfortune of starting with a queerphobic group or charismatic individual, and once it spread the trait mostly fossilized (one could speculate, for instance, about the history of puritan settlers in America during the earliest colonial periods). But I'm just speculating here.
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Keeping in mind these are percentage points, not equal numbers in each group per se. There are far more Christians in America than there are unaffiliated, for example. It's technically possible our impressions are being swayed by vocal minorities, and the real distribution is closer to a "centrist" position a la the classic bell-shaped normal distribution.
Not sure I understand what you mean here. Could you clarify?
If anything, at least in the case of LGBTQ+ rights, the trend's mostly one way: increasing acceptance globally, glacial as it is. The funny thing is that the most extreme anti-LGBTQ+ countries generally (e.g. Russia, several Islamist countries in the Middle East and North Africa) are at war already or have been at war recently, but mostly with their own neighbours, who ideologically shouldn't be that much different from them (the Israel-Palestine war being one of the few obvious counterexamples). Not that this proves much about the future, but at least for the moment wars and violent inner conflict tend to be for countries with extremely poor track records for human rights in any case.
I vaguely remember reading once that, should a nuclear war ever actually break out, the exchange of missiles would be so quick and so devastating that the war would last about one hour. Then, bam. It's all over.
...
Well, goodnight everybody!👋