War accelerated changes in Ukrainian society’s attitude to LGBTQ issues and brought it closer to modern Europe

Eurobarometer is a regular sociological survey of European Union citizens’ opinion conducted once every four years by the European Commission. According to the latest survey (2023), full legal equality in all areas of life for LGBTQ people is currently supported by a total of 69%, and recognition of same-sex marriage by 72% of EU residents.

However, the results of the survey vary significantly for different EU countries: for example, support for same-sex marriage varies from 94% in the Netherlands and Sweden to 17% in Bulgaria. The general trends, however, are rather positive for the LGBTQ community: support for the rights of LGBTQ people is gradually increasing even in countries that are headed or until recently were headed by openly homo / transphobic governments, such as Hungary and Poland — the propaganda of Russian World’s ideology, under whatever names it is disguised, is not successful in modern Europe.

It is interesting to compare the views of European Union residents with public opinion in our country, which has already received the status of a candidate to EU and strives to become its full member as soon as possible. According to the latest data of similar regular public opinion polls conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on behalf of the National Democratic Institute, in November 2023 legal equality for LGBTQ people was generally supported by 72% of Ukrainians (fully —41%, rather — 31%), the right to registered civil partnerships for same-sex couples — 59% (fully — 27%, rather — 32%), the right to same-sex marriage — 46% (fully — 23%, rather — 23%).

It can be stated that Ukrainians quite fit into the modern picture of attitudes towards LGBTQ issues in Eastern Europe, and we are more similar to our western neighbors than to our southern ones. Regular polls by the NDI also demonstrate the impressive dynamics of public opinion change in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion: from August 2022 to November 2023, support for legal equality for LGBTQ people increased about one and a half times — from 54% to 72%.