Greece Stakeholder Report for the United Nations Universal Periodic Review: LGBTIQ+ Rights
Country: Greece
Partners: Thessaloniki Pride
Issues: LGBTIQ+ Rights
Mechanism: UN Universal Periodic Review
Report Type: Stakeholder Report
During its current UPR cycle, Greece has adopted several significant legislative reforms affecting LGBTIQ+ individuals, including the legalization of same-sex marriage and adoption for same-sex couples in 2024; the prohibition of so-called “conversion therapies” for vulnerable individuals; and the enactment of laws addressing discrimination and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics. These measures reflect meaningful progress toward formal legal equality. Despite these advances, LGBTIQ+ individuals in Greece continue to experience discrimination, harassment, and an alarming escalation in hate-motivated violence. The public and political discourse that emerged during the 2024 marriage equality debate directly fueled physical violence in the streets. Greece’s legal framework for legal gender recognition continues to present substantial barriers for transgender and gender-diverse individuals. Although the repeal of the single-status requirement in 2024 removed a major obstacle, it also completely excludes non-binary individuals from formal legal gender recognition. LGBTIQ+ individuals also continue to face discrimination in healthcare settings according to survey data, a situation exacerbated by recent judicial setbacks. Furthermore, despite accepting multiple recommendations in its last UPR cycle, Greece has not adopted new laws or policies specifically aimed at protecting human rights defenders, civil society organizations, or volunteers.
In this report, we use the acronym LGBTIQ+ to refer to individuals who self-identify as
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and other sexual and gender minorities.
These terms do not necessarily include everyone who may experience violations of their
human rights on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity,
gender expression, and/orsex characteristics (“SOGIESC”), which is why we also include
a “+” with the acronym. Any use of a modified acronym is intentional in that we are
speaking only about certain members of the LGBTIQ+ population.
