LGBT+ rights index
What you should know about this indicator
- These policies that define the index are subdivided between progressive policies and regressive policies. Among the progressive policies are: Same-sex sexual acts Legal, Equal Age of Consent, Employment Discrimination, Hate Crime Protections, Incitement to Hatred, Civil Unions, Marriage Equality, *oint Adoptions, Gender Marker Change, LGB Military, Transgender Military, Ban on Conversion Therapies, and Ban on Gender Assignment Surgeries on Children.
- On the other hand, the regressive policies are: Death Penalty for Same-Sex Sexual Acts, Propaganda Laws, Same-Sex Sexual Acts Illegal, Unequal Age of Consent, and Ban on Marriage Equality.
- This policy is not measured in a binary (adopted/not-adopted) scheme; the author follows Frank and colleagues (2010, 2017) in considering that similar policies can meaningfully vary in scope, benefits, punishment, etc. So, he determines the robustness of each policy by reviewing five indicators.
- These indicators are (between parentheses are the scoring schemes): Proportion of Population Living Under Law, to acknowledge subnational variations (0-1), Scope of Genders Subject to Law, as they can be typically differentiated by gender (0: no law, 0.5: just men or women, 1: both), Maximum Level of Punishment, for regressive policies (0: no law, 0.2: less than 3 years, 0.4: over 3 years and less than 15 years, 0.6: over 15 years and less than life in prison, 0.8: life in prison, 1: death penality), Ease of Access, to benefits the law outlines (0: no law, 0.25: significant barriers, 0.5: moderate barriers, 0.75: little to few barriers, 1: no barriers, and Evidence of Enforcement that considers whether at least one case has happenedthe previous year where this was implemented (0: no evidence, 1: evidence).
- To create the index, the scores for each policy are summed together annually, with progressive policies receiving a positive score and regressive policies receiving a negative score. This results in an index ranging from -5 to +13. No country reaches these extremes, demonstrating that countries can get better and worse in their policy environments.
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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Notes on our processing step for this indicator
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Citations
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“Data Page: LGBT+ rights index”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre and Pablo Arriagada (2023) - “LGBT+ Rights”. Data adapted from Velasco, Various sources. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lgbt-rights-index [online resource]
How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
Velasco (2020); Population based on various sources (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Full citation
Velasco (2020); Population based on various sources (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “LGBT+ rights index” [dataset]. Velasco, “LGBT+ policies (Kristopher Velasco)”; Various sources, “Population” [original data]. Retrieved October 10, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lgbt-rights-index