{"chart":{"title":"LGBT+ Legal Equality Index","subtitle":"The index captures to which extent LGBT+ people have the same rights as straight and cisgender people. It combines 15 individual policies, such as the legality of same-sex relationships, marriage, and gender marker changes. It ranges from 0 to 100 (most equal).","citation":"Equaldex (2026); Population based on various sources (2024)","originalChartUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lgbt-legal-equality-index","selection":["Iran","Afghanistan","Russia","Egypt","Pakistan","Paraguay","China","Venezuela","Romania","Peru","India","Japan","United States","Brazil","Chile","Canada","Spain"]},"columns":{"Legal equality index":{"titleShort":"Legal equality index","titleLong":"Legal equality index","descriptionShort":"The index captures to which extent lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender and other people outside traditional sexuality and gender categories have the same rights as straight and cisgender people. It ranges from 0 to 100 (most equal).","descriptionKey":"The legal equality index summarizes the current legal status of 16 LGBT+ policies — from the legality of same-sex sexual activity and marriage to hate-crime protections and the right to change legal gender — each weighted by how heavily it counts toward the overall ranking. For more information, visit the [Equaldex Equality Index methodology](https://www.equaldex.com/equality-index).","descriptionProcessing":"- We have extracted the data from the official [Equaldex JSON API](https://equaldex.stoplight.io/docs/equaldex/d033e28a5cf0c-equaldex-json-api).\n- We combine the historical and current data extracted from the API to create a time series.\n- If Equaldex doesn't record when a status began, we only include it for the most recent year — we don't extend it backward.\n- We group some of the categories the source has defined for each issue, for further clarity in our visualizations.\n- We present this data only for sovereign states, defined by [Butcher and Griffiths (2020)](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/sovereign-state-butcher-griffiths), using the definitions of the latest year available. Greenland is the one exception: we keep it as its own country row but exclude it from regional aggregates.","shortUnit":"","unit":"","timespan":"2026-2026","type":"Numeric","owidVariableId":1229842,"shortName":"ei_legal","lastUpdated":"2026-05-14","nextUpdate":"2027-05-14","citationShort":"Equaldex (2026); Population based on various sources (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data","citationLong":"Equaldex (2026); Population based on various sources (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Legal equality index – Equaldex” [dataset]. Equaldex, “Equaldex”; Various sources, “Population” [original data].","fullMetadata":"https://api.ourworldindata.org/v1/indicators/1229842.metadata.json"}},"dateDownloaded":"2026-10-31"}