Italy falls further behind on LGBTQIA+ rights The Rainbow Map 2026 says so

Italy has dropped to 36th place in the 2026 Rainbow Map by ILGA-Europe, one of Europe’s leading rankings analyzing the level of rights protection for LGBTQIA+ people across the continent’s 49 countries. The Rainbow Map measures laws, legal protections, and concrete policies implemented by each nation. In other words, it is based on objective data, not personal perceptions, despite what certain parts of the institutional landscape would like people to believe.

How ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map works

The methodology used by ILGA-Europe takes into account dozens of criteria related to equality and non-discrimination, family recognition, protection against hate crimes, the rights of transgender and intersex people, civil society freedoms, and asylum rights. Each country receives a score based exclusively on its laws and on the protections actually guaranteed to citizens. The picture that emerges for Italy is that of a country that has been standing still for years, unable to keep pace with the rest of Europe when it comes to civil rights.

The situation across the rest of Europe

While countries such as Spain, Belgium, Malta, and Iceland continue strengthening their legislation on equal marriage, adoption rights, gender self-determination, and anti-discrimination measures, Italy remains stuck in a political debate that still treats LGBTQIA+ rights as an ideological issue to debate rather than human rights that must be guaranteed. This is the real gap growing between Italy and much of Western Europe.

What the data tells us about the LGBTQ+ community in Italy

According to official Rainbow Map data, Italy still does not recognize equal marriage, does not guarantee automatic recognition of parenthood for same-sex couples, and continues to maintain heavily bureaucratic and medicalized procedures for legal gender recognition for transgender people. The main recommendations addressed to Italy by ILGA-Europe specifically concern the introduction of equal marriage, the depathologization of trans identities, and full recognition of co-parenting rights for all couples.

Not just laws: cultural and political climate matters too

Italy’s problem is not only the lack of new legislation, but above all the cultural and political climate that has developed around these issues in recent years. In Italy, LGBTQIA+ rights are still framed as concessions to negotiate, almost as if they were privileges demanded by a minority rather than fundamental rights that a democratic state should guarantee equally to all citizens. Giorgia Meloni’s government has made these beliefs increasingly tangible. ILGA-Europe’s ranking clearly reveals a reality that people often try to downplay: Italy is slowly becoming one of the most backward countries in Western Europe when it comes to civil liberties, and many people are getting used to it. We are getting used to governments constantly talking about "protecting the family" while ignoring the existence of thousands of real families. We are getting used to seeing LGBTQIA+ people constantly turned into subjects of political propaganda. We are getting used to a public debate in which the very existence of certain people is endlessly questioned, as if dignity, identity, and rights were matters open to opinion.

The much-feared “gender ideology” (which does not exist)

The report connected to the Rainbow Map also highlights several other deeply concerning issues, including the lack of concrete progress in tackling hate crimes related to sexual orientation and gender identity, Italy’s rejection of numerous UN recommendations on LGBTQIA+ rights, and the growing spread of anti-gender rhetoric in public discourse. All of this contributes to creating an increasingly hostile political and social climate, where civil rights become a battleground for identity conflicts instead of tools for democratic protection. For years, LGBTQIA+ rights have been portrayed as secondary issues compared to the country’s “real problems,” but rights are never secondary: because when a state decides which families deserve recognition and which do not, which citizens deserve protection and which do not, which identities should be legitimized and which instead must be constantly justified, it is establishing that some people deserve more protection than others. The Rainbow Map has captured an Italy we would rather not see.