EU to launch new survey on LGBTI community

 

The survey will collect the experiences of discrimination and hate crime as well as the views of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and, for the first time, intersex people across the EU. It will also cover the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as an EU candidate country.

 

In 2012, the Agency carried out a LGBT survey to address the lack of robust, statistical data on the life experiences of LGBT people in the EU.

 

The results provided evidence on how the EU’s anti-discrimination legislation is implemented on the ground and was followed-up by EU and national policy initiatives to improve the situation.

 

This repeat survey aims to assist EU institutions and Member States in their efforts to further strengthen the legal and policy frameworks protecting the fundamental rights of LGBTI people. The data can be used to assess the effectiveness of policies and measures to combat discrimination, victimisation, and to promote societal participation.

 

The EU-LGBTI Survey II will be carried out online, as this population group is considered hard to sample using traditional methods.

 

It is planned to go online in 2019. The survey will collect data on the experiences of LGBTI people. They will be invited to complete an online questionnaire about aspects of their daily life, and their experiences of discrimination and hate-motivated victimisation.

 

The Agency notes that in many EU Member States LGBTI people run the risk of discrimination and harassment on a daily basis. Prejudices and misconceptions about homosexuality and transgender people further fuel intolerant attitudes and behaviour towards this community.

 

FRA has carried out research in this area since 2008, including legal as well as empirical (qualitative) research.

 

FRA research has revealed how LGBTI people face discrimination across all areas of life, and how they are vulnerable to verbal and physical attacks, choosing to remain largely invisible out of fear of negative consequences.

 

In 2012, some 93,000 LGBTI people responded to an EU-wide survey which FRA carried out to discover the everyday issues affecting LGBTI people. This survey collected comparable data from across the EU on LGBTI people’s experiences of hate crime and discrimination for the first time, as well as their level of awareness about their rights. The survey results were published in May 2013 and gave an indication of the extent of the suffering many LGBTI people face across the EU today.