For the past 17 years, international human rights group ILGA-Europe has published its Rainbow Map and Index, celebrating the European countries that champion LGBTQ+ rights, and naming and shaming those that don’t.
Each year, the group ranks 49 countries based on their legal and policy practices for LGBTQ+ people. The index gives each country a score from 0-100 percent, looking at factors that include equality and non-discrimination, family, hate crime and hate speech, legal gender recognition, intersex bodily integrity, civil society space and asylum.
The UK placed first in the ranking consecutively from 2011 to 2015, but since then has plummeted down the list and this year dropped from 16th to 22nd place – its lowest rank ever.
For 2025, the UK scored 45.65 percent, 10 percent below the EU average and just a little above the overall European average.
While it scored highly for family and earned a 100 percent rating for civil society space (people’s freedom of expression, right to assembly and funding), the country was given just 16.67 percent in the asylum category and 6.57 percent in the legal gender recognition.
The index comes shortly after the Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. ILGA-Europe told Metro that the ruling was one of the reasons for the UK’s lower position.
A spokesperson for the group said: ‘Legal gender recognition must ensure that trans people are recognised in all areas of life. That is no longer the case in the UK.
‘As a result, we removed all points related to legal gender recognition from this year’s ranking.
‘The law now fails to universally recognise trans people as who they are, with serious consequences for their safety, dignity and equality.’
See which countries were named the most LGBTQ+ friendly in Europe here.
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