LGBTQ+ Access to Political Power
By: Mieke Löhrer
Jun 27, 2024
June marks Pride Month, which serves as a good occasion to assess the LGBTQ+ community’s access to political power. This week’s graph depicts political power distribution according to sexual orientation in each country, relative to their share of the population, by end of 2023.
North America and Eastern Europe generally have modest-to-moderate levels of equal power distribution, while in large parts of Africa and Asia, LGBTQ+ have very little to no political power compared to heterosexuals. In much of Western and Northern Europe, each group enjoys political power proportional to their population.
Latin America is more divided displaying moderate to very low levels of equal power distribution. A study found that a majority of citizens in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico indicate support for increased representation of LGBTQ+ people in political spaces. Yet, 82% of the murders of trans and gender-diverse people occurred in Central and South America.
In the US, the amount of LGBTQ+ elected to public office does not represent the number of LGBTQ+ Americans, although the amount of LGBTQ+ elected officials has doubled since 2017. In India’s 2024 election, no major political party has endorsed an openly LGBTQ+ candidate. There is a general absence of queer representation in the decision-making process.
The LGBTQ+ community continues to face exclusion and marginalization from mainstream political discourse and decision-making processes in many countries. Yet, diversity, proportional representation and equality are vital for a thriving democracy.
