XClose

UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)

Home
Menu

Belarus

Overview

Homosexuality is legal in Belarus since 1994, but there are no anti-discriminatory measures in place to protect LGBTQ people in areas of employment, housing etc. Same-sex unions are not recognised, and homosexual people cannot serve in the military. It is legal to change one’s gender, but the procedure is lengthy. There are a few organisations advocating for LGBTQ and gender equality rights in Belarus listed below.

LGBT map of Belarus

Academic research

Some academic research has been published on the topic of gender, but research on LGBTQ is very sparse (but check the link below, as well as repositories for references).

Resources

Books
Periodicals
Repositories
Data and statistics
Reports
News portals
Organisations
  • Makeout - a Belarusian feminist anti-discriminatory project about gender and sexuality that seeks to heighten the awareness, promote mindfulness, and strengthen the LGBTQ-community and other vulnerable groups, which face sexual and gender identity discrimination [Belarusian and Russian].
  • Delopi - a project fighting against homophobia in Belarus [Russian].
  • Dotyk - a noncommercial cultural and educational organization that in its work deals mostly with matters of identity and self-determination, raises the problems of homophobia, transphobia, sexism and other forms of xenophobia in the Belarusian society [Belarusian, English].
  • Gender - a project dedicated to promoting gender equality in Belarus. It also contains articles about LGBTQ [Russian].
  • Journalists for tolerance - a non-profit, civic association of people working in the media sector focused on equality and non-discrimination [Russian].