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Article 21 of the Charter and relevant EU law (anti-discrimination directives such as Directives 2000/78/EC, 2006/54/EC and 2004/113/EC) prohibit discrimination and establish a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation regardless of one’s religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation, as well as gender, gender identity and gender expression. Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) prohibits discrimination in the enjoyment of the ECHR rights.
In this spirit, the Parliament’s 2019 resolution on the rights of intersex persons highlights the necessity of full protection against discrimination based on sex characteristics. It stresses that intersex persons should be able to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as everyone else, without facing prejudice or unequal treatment.
FRA notes that the Commission, as published on 12 February in its 2025 work programme, intends to withdraw within six months the pending legislative proposal for a Council directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. The Commission considers that there is no foreseeable agreement, therefore the proposal is blocked and further progress is unlikely. However, at the time of writing,
after the Commission’s consultations with the Parliament and civil society, there are ongoing discussions in the Council to find a solution aimed at promoting the adoption of the proposed directive. EU law must ensure comprehensive protection for intersex persons across all aspects of life, reinforcing the need for broader safeguards against discrimination. This approach aligns with policy in the majority of Member States, which have already taken significant steps in this direction through their national legislation.
The survey asks respondents whether, in the previous year, they had felt discriminated against because of being LGBTIQ or any other reason, in employment, housing, healthcare, education, social life or in contact with authorities. Discrimination was defined as the situation in which someone is treated less favourably than another because of ethnic origin, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, sex characteristics, race or skin colour, immigrant background or nationality, religion or belief, age, disability or for any other reason.
The survey asks whether the respondents felt discriminated against due to being LGBTIQ. This means that the bias motivation behind the reported discrimination experiences by the respondents might concern their sexual orientation, their GIE, SC or several of these together. This survey only gathers data, experiences and views of victims, along with their self-perceived bias motivation, without referring to independent or judicial assessment of the reported incidents. In many cases, the victims of discrimination – along with those of violence and harassment – cannot reliably assess and report the exact ground of the bias motivation of the perpetrators. The wording of the survey questionnaire asking about bias motivation ‘due to being LGBTIQ’ was necessary in order to achieve reliable data collection and comparisons. This methodology was discussed in a public consultation with intersex and LGBTIQ organisations and experts, as well as EU, regional and international organisations during the preparation of the survey in 2022.
The chapter presents the survey results about discrimination against LGBTIQ intersex persons, revealing a hostile landscape in which intersex persons emerge as the most-affected survey group. The section below, presents the trends and changes between the 2019 EU LGBTI II and the 2023 EU LGBTIQ III survey, using appropriate scientific methods to allow comparisons. Due to differences in the sample make-up of the 2019 and 2023 surveys, small differences can appear in the percentages for the 2023 survey, presented later in the chapter. For more information see Box 1.
Intersex survey respondents are the only group among all LGBTIQ survey respondent groups who did not report any significant decrease of discrimination experiences in at least one area of life in the year before the survey: from 2019 (62 %) to 2023 (61 %) (based on properly weighted datasets comparing the two surveys).
Most LGBTIQ survey groups reported a notable (and in a few cases, marginal) decrease. For some groups this is as high as 10 percentage points (bisexual women: from 40 % in 2019 to 30 % in 2023) or seven percentage points (trans: from 61 % in 2019 to 54 % in 2023).
Similarly, in employment, both in 2019 and in 2023 intersex respondents reported the highest rate of discrimination in employment (38 %), which includes while looking for a job or at work, while all other LGBTIQ survey respondents’ groups reported a decrease of such high rates of discrimination from those reported in 2019.
Nevertheless, similar to 2019, in the 2023 survey and more than other groups, intersex respondents reported discrimination incidents to competent authorities or elsewhere (18 % in 2023 compared with 17 % in 2019 and 11 % of all LGBTIQ survey respondents in 2023).
Although most intersex respondents are aware of the equality bodies, they continue not to report incidents of discrimination to any organisation: while 62 % were aware of at least one equality body in their country (61 % in 2019), only a small proportion (18 %) said that they had reported the incidents to any organisation.
More than half (and nearly six in ten (56 %)) of intersex respondents say that they felt discriminated against because of being LGBTIQ in at least one area of life in the 12 months before the survey. This is the highest discrimination rate reported by any LGBTIQ group in the survey and reflects the exclusion and marginalisation intersex persons suffer in their daily lives.
Figure 8 – Prevalence of discrimination against intersex respondents
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Source: EU LGBTIQ Survey III (2023), European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
NB: ‡ Results with this sign are based on a small number of responses and therefore are statistically less reliable.
EU anti-discrimination legislation, transposed in all Member States, has a strong focus on employment. Figure 9 shows that about one third of the intersex respondents (32 %) felt discriminated against as LGBTIQ persons at work or when looking for a job in the year before the survey. The highest statistically reliable discrimination prevalence is recorded in Spain (51 %) and the lowest in Netherlands (21 %).
Figure 9 – Intersex respondents discriminated against in employment
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Source: EU LGBTIQ Survey III (2023), European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
NB: ‡ Results with this sign are based on a small number of responses and therefore are statistically less reliable.
Figure 10 shows that about one third (31 %) of intersex respondents felt discriminated against as LGBTIQ persons in healthcare or social services in the year before the survey.
Figure 10 – Intersex respondents discriminated against by healthcare or social services personnel
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Source: EU LGBTIQ Survey III (2023), European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
NB: ‡ Results with this sign are based on a small number of responses and therefore are statistically less reliable.
Figure 11 shows that more than eight out of ten (82 %) intersex respondents who felt discriminated against did not report it to an equality body or anywhere else. This is the case for almost all intersex respondents who felt discriminated against in Poland (99 %).
Figure 11 – Intersex respondents not reporting discrimination
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Source: EU LGBTIQ Survey III (2023), European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
NB: ‡ Results with this sign are based on a small number of responses and therefore are statistically less reliable.
Figure 12 highlights that the main reasons behind under-reporting discrimination are a lack of confidence that anything would change (51 %), distrust in the authorities (42 %), a belief that the incident is not worth reporting (36 %) or that it will not be taken seriously (35 %).
Figure 12 – Why do intersex respondents not report discrimination?
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Source: EU LGBTIQ Survey III (2023), European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
Figure 13 reveals that a sizeable majority (62 %) of intersex respondents, like all other LGBTIQ survey respondents (60 %), are aware of at least one equality body, i.e. a public and usually independent authority that has a legal mandate to protect their right to equal treatment.
Figure 13 – Awareness of at least one national equality body by intersex respondents
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Source: EU LGBTIQ Survey III (2023), European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
The survey asked for additional grounds perceived by the respondents to have been the basis for discriminatory acts during the most recent incident. Such experiences of multiple discrimination, prohibited under EU law, might also conceal a phenomenon of intersectional discrimination, understood as discrimination based on a combination of sex and any other ground or grounds of discrimination protected under Directives 79/7/EEC, 2000/43/EC, 2000/78/EC or 2004/113/EC. Intersectional discrimination takes place on the basis of several personal grounds or characteristics/identities, which operate and interact with each other at the same time with a unique compounding effect, or in such a way as to be inseparable (as defined by EIGE). Multiple intersecting socioeconomic, SOGIESC and minority identities of the victim can lead to unique victimisation experiences, stereotyping and stigma. The survey responses refer to more and additional (multiple) grounds, although intersectional discrimination might be behind such incidents and the perpetrators’ motivation. Figure 14 shows additional reasons for which intersex respondents felt discriminated against, besides being LGBTIQ. The most frequent are their sex (male/female) (35 %), disability (20 %) and age (19 %).
Figure 14 – Multiple discrimination – intersex respondents discriminated against also for other reasons
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Source: EU LGBTIQ Survey III (2023), European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.