Attitude of Ukrainian society towards LGBTQ people continues to improve
For the third year in a row, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, commissioned by Nash Svit Center, conducts a survey on the attitude of Ukrainian society to LGBTQ issues, and this year’s results again demonstrate that it is slowly but consistently improving.
In general, taking into account the statistical error, the indicators of 2024 compared to the previous 2022 and 2023 have changed insignificantly. The number of respondents who have a positive attitude towards LGBT people has slightly decreased due to an increase in the share of those who have a neutral attitude towards LGBT people. Similarly, the share of those who have a negative attitude towards LGBT people has decreased, and those who cannot decide on their position have increased. As sociologists note, there is no distinctive regional difference in the attitude towards LGBT people, although it is expectedly a little worse in the west of the country.
The number of Ukrainians who believe that LGBT people should have the same rights as the rest of Ukrainian citizens is definitely growing: in 2024, those constituted 70.4% that is 3.1% more than in 2023 and by 6.7% more than in 2022. Even among those who generally have a negative view of LGBT people, more than a half (51%) believe they should have equal rights.
As for the rights of same-sex couples, 28.7% of respondents support the introduction of registered civil partnership for them, provided for by Bill 9103, 25.6% are indifferent to this, and 35.7% are against this. Thus, more than a half of Ukrainians have no objections to this. If two years ago the gap between those who support civil partnership for same-sex couples and those who oppose was 18.3% in favor of the latter, then in 2024 it decreased to 7%.
As in previous years, the vast majority of respondents (68.3%) have a positive attitude to the participation of LGBT people in defending our state against Russian aggression, and the share of those who had a negative attitude to this decreased to 7.1%.
Traditionally for surveys on LGBTQ issues, women and young people demonstrated a more positive attitude. In particular, regarding the introduction of civil partnership for same-sex couples, among women the share of positive responses (32.3%) is almost equal to the number of negative responses (32.4%). Among young people aged 18-29, the level of support for civil partnership (37.3%) already significantly exceeds the negative attitude (24.9%), and similar results were obtained for people aged 30-39: 37.5% against 33.2%, respectively.
The full analytical report of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology “Perception of LGBT people and their rights in Ukraine: May 2024” is available at: https://gay.org.ua/publications/AReport_NashSvit_May2024.pdf
