Overview
Homosexuality is legal in Estonia since 1992. Even though the Cohabitation agreement allowing same-sex couples to register their status has been passed in parliament in 2014, the procedures enabling the agreement to function in practice have not been established. Same-sex marriages performed abroad can be registered in Estonia. Same-sex couples can only adopt their stepchildren in Estonia. Discrimination based on gender and sexual identity is outlawed in employment and military. It is legal in Estonia to change one's legal gender and name without sex reassignment surgery.
- An overview of rights and legal acts by ILGA Europe [in English].
- Country ranking by ILGA Europe [in English].
Academic institutions
- Estonian Institute for Population Studies,
- Tallinn University Gender Studies Research Group,
- Tallinn University Estonian Women's Studies and Research Centre
Resources
- Books
- Buyantueva, R. & Shevtsova M. (2020). LGBTQ Activism in Central and Eastern Europe : Resistance, Representation and Identity. Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan.
- Vērdiņš, Kārlis, & Ozolinš, Jānis. (2016). Queer Stories of Europe. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Ayoub, P. (2016). When States Come Out : Europe's sexual minorities and the politics of visibility. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.
- Sremac, Ganzevoort, Sremac, Srđan, & Ganzevoort, Reinder Ruard. (2015). Religious and sexual nationalisms in Central and Eastern Europe : Gods, gays, and governments. Boston : Brill.
- Dissertations
- Pelz, M., Hansen, Randall, Austin, Robert, & Way, Lucan. (2016). Europeanization, National Party Systems, and LGBT Rights: The Cases of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.
- Periodicals
- Ariadne’s Clew - the first journal in Estonia to address academic feminism, and women’s and men’s studies [in English and Estonian].
- Repositories
- Digital Library gives access to publications of Tallinn University including academic work on LGBTQ and gender [in Estonian and English]. Database of Estonian articles
- Index Scriptorum Estoniae contains information about articles from Estonian newspapers at 1900-2013 and Estonian journals, serial publications and anthologies at 1990-2016. It does not give access to articles, but it is helpful to identify and locate existing publications [in Estonian and English]. The National Library of Estonia’s digital archive
- DIGAR stores online publications, print files and digitised copies of the publication, including the ones on gender and sexuality [in Estonian, Russian, and English].
- Tartu University Dissertation Repository [in Estonian, English, German].
- DSpace at the University of Tartu is a repository for all electronic materials including e-theses and e-publications, digitized theses and books, manuscripts and images etc. [in Estonian, English, German]. Repository for e-publications in
- Humanities and Arts at Tartu University [in Estonian, English, German]. Repository for e-publications in
- Social Sciences at Tartu University [in Estonian, English, German]. Repository for e-publications at the
- University of Tartu Library [in Estonian, English, German]. A list of reports and articles on gender in Estonia from EIGE [multilingual]. A list of reports about LGBT in Estonia provided by
- ETIS - Estonian Research Information System, the search engine gives access to academic publications including on LGBT and gender [in Estonian and English].
- Data and statistics
- Estonia hate crime data by OSCE ODIHR [in English].
- State-Sponsored Homophobia report: latest edition, includes maps and dataset, ILGA Europe - a world survey of sexual orientation laws + older editions [in English].
- European LGBT Survey, 2014. FRA Europe [in English].
- Reports
- ECRI - Country monitoring in Estonia. Reports [in English], 1997 -
- Attitudes towards LGBT topics in Estonia. Human Rights Centre, 2019 [in Estonian, Russian, English].
- Estonia 2022. Amnesty International [English].
- LGBT teemaline avaliku arvamuse uuring. Turu-uuringute AS, 2012 [in Estonian].
- LGBT Juuni 2014. Turu-uuringute AS [in Estonian].
- Avaliku arvamuse uuring LGBT teemadel 2019. Turu-uuringute AS [in Estonian].
- Meeting the challenge of accession Surveys on sexual orientation discrimination in countries joining the European Union. ILGA Europe Policy Paper, April 2004 [English].
- Sexual Orientation and Discrimination in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia 2002. Lithuanian Gay League, 2002 [in English].
- News portals
- Feministeerium is an independent feminist media outlet in Estonia which is interested in an intersectional perspective and has a soft spot for queer issues. They like different feminist voices to be heard and offer a platform for feminist writers in Estonia and abroad, representing a variety of perspectives. The material is available in Estonian, English, and Russian. Their Facebook page [in Estonian, Russian, English].
- Organisations
- Estonian LGBT Association website publishes LGBT-related news and information about events. The association organises seminars, and events for the LGBT community in Estonia, and assists LGBT people with reporting hate crimes. Their Facebook profile [in Estonian, English].
- The Church of the Gentiles (GK) is a non-profit association that unites homosexual Christians in Estonia. The website provides space for discussing issues of faith and sexuality [in Estonian, Russian].
- Other resources
- Transfoorum - an Estonian conference room for transgender people [in Estonian, English].
- Full-text online resources related to gender in Estonia from The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) [in English].