page_title: LGBT rights in Europe
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: LGBT rights in Europe / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A participant of Prague Pride 2013 wearing a traditional Moravian dress (Haná region probably) and a sign "Good day - Olomouc greets Prague"
context_page_description: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights are widely diverse in Europe per country. Sixteen out of the 28 countries that have legalised same-sex marriage worldwide are situated in Europe. A further thirteen European countries have legalised civil unions or other forms of more limited recognition for same-sex couples.
  Several European countries do not recognise any form of same-sex unions. Marriage is defined as a union solely between a man and a woman in the constitutions of Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. Of these, however, Armenia recognises same-sex marriages performed abroad, and Croatia, Hungary and Montenegro recognise same-sex partnerships. Eastern Europe is seen as having fewer legal rights and protections, worse living conditions, and less supportive public opinion for LGBT people than that in Western Europe.
  All European countries that allow marriage also allow joint adoption by same-sex couples, as does Andorra. Of the countries that have civil unions, none but Andorra allow joint adoption, and only half allow step-parent adoption.
context_section_description: Although same-sex relationships were quite common in ancient Greece, Rome and pagan Celtic societies, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, severe laws against homosexual behaviour appeared. An edict by the Emperor Theodosius I in 390 condemned all "passive" homosexual men to death by public burning. This was followed by the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian I in 529, which prescribed public castration and execution for all who committed homosexual acts, both active and passive partners. Homosexual behaviour, called sodomy, was considered a capital crime in most European countries, and thousands of homosexual men were executed across Europe during waves of persecution in these centuries. Lesbians were less often singled out for punishment, but they also suffered persecution and execution from time to time.
  Since the foundation of Poland in 966, Polish law has never defined homosexuality as a crime. Forty years after Poland lost its independence in 1795, the sodomy laws of Russia, Prussia, and Austria came into force in the partitioned Polish territory. Poland regained its independence in 1918 and abandoned the laws of the occupying powers. In 1932, Poland codified the equal age of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals at 15.
  In Turkey, homosexuality has been legal since 1858.
  During the French Revolution, the French National Assembly rewrote the criminal code in 1791, omitting all reference to homosexuality. During the Napoleonic wars, homosexuality was decriminalised in territories coming under French control, such as the Netherlands and many of the pre-unification German states; however, in Germany this ended with the unification of the country under the Prussian Kaiser, as Prussia had long punished homosexuality harshly. On 6 August 1942, the Vichy government made homosexual relations with anyone under twenty-one illegal as part of its conservative agenda. Most Vichy legislation was repealed after the war—but the anti-gay Vichy law remained on the books for four decades until it was finally repealed in August 1982 when the age of consent (15) was again made the same for heterosexual as well as homosexual partners.
  
  Nevertheless, gay men and lesbians continued to live closeted lives, since moral and social disapproval by heterosexual society remained strong across Europe for another two decades, until the modern gay rights movement began in 1969. 
  Various countries under dictatorships in the 20th century were very anti-homosexual, such as in the Soviet Union, in Nazi Germany and in Spain under Francisco Franco's regime. In contrast, after Poland regained independence after World War I, it went on in 1932 to become the second country in 20th-century Europe to decriminalise homosexual activity (after the Soviet Union, which had decriminalized it in 1917 under the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, but re-criminalized it in 1933 under Stalin), followed by Denmark in 1933, Iceland in 1940, Switzerland in 1942 and Sweden in 1944.
  In 1956, the German Democratic Republic abolished paragraph 175 of the German penal code which outlawed homosexuality.
  In 1962, homosexual behaviour was decriminalised in Czechoslovakia, following a scientific research of Kurt Freund that included phallometry of gay men who appeared to have given up sexual relations with other men and established heterosexual marriages. Freund came to the conclusion that homosexual orientation may not be changed. The claim that phallometry on men was the reason for decriminalization of homosexual behavior in Czechoslovakia is contradicted by the fact that it applied to women as well, as the notion of a male-specific fixity of sexual orientation as an argument for gay rights combined with the notion of female sexual plasticity is adverse to lesbian rights.
  In 1972, Sweden became the first country in the world to allow people who were transgender by legislation to surgically change their sex and provide free hormone replacement therapy.
  In 1979, a number of people in Sweden called in sick with a case of being homosexual, 
caption: A participant of 2013 Prague Pride wearing a traditional Moravian dress (Hanakia) and a sign "Good day – Olomouc greets Prague"
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Prestigio", "Image Model": "PAP4044DUO", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Prestigio", "Image DateTime": "2013:08:17 14:53:56", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "310", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1089", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8832", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "221/500000", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "126", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:08:17 14:53:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:08:17 14:53:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "other light source", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "7/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "778", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}