The Human Rights Center "Our World" summed up the results of the first half of 2026 for the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ community. The document fixes the reality familiar to the warring country: on the one hand, the streets of large cities are filled with large-scale equality marches under police protection, and the courts are gradually making precedent decisions in favor of same-sex couples. On the other hand, at the level of parliament, the necessary laws are steadily stalled, and the new draft Civil Code completely threatens to destroy the hopes of activists for the legalization of relations.
Doberman Media summarizes the main findings from the report.
Table of Contents
Legislative impasse and threat from the new Civil Code
In the first six months of 2026, human rights activists did not notice any noticeable improvements in Ukrainian legislation. Moreover, activists were seriously alarmed by the draft of the new Civil Code, which was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada by a group of deputies led by Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk.
The main problem for the LGBTQ+ community lies in the definition of a "family member" - the authors of the document excluded same-sex partners from this category. If the draft is adopted (and votes are not expected until autumn due to tens of thousands of amendments), this will automatically annul the draft law on civil partnerships. The latter was supposed to change the current Family Code, which the new Civil Code will simply abolish.
Meanwhile, the law on civil partnerships (No 9103) continues to be a dead weight: the relevant committee of the Rada on legal policy simply refuses to consider it.
Breakthroughs in the courts
At the beginning of 2026, the judicial system turned out to be closer to LGBTQ+ people than the parliament.
- At the end of February, the Supreme Court finally rejected the complaint of the homophobic organization "Civil Movement "All Together!". The organization tried to challenge the decisions of the lower courts, which officially recognized the de facto family relationship of a same-sex couple.
- The Kharkiv District Administrative Court ordered the local TCC to remove from the military registration a person who officially changed his gender from male to female. This is an important precedent for Ukrainian practice.
Record Prides and Unspoken Resistance of Churches
Despite the resistance of conservative politicians, Pride Month in the first half of 2026 was large-scale. Actions took place in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Lviv, Lutsk, Dnipro and other cities.
The most massive in recent years was the Kyiv Equality March - on June 21, about five thousand people took part in it. The organizers note the unprecedentedly constructive work with the police and local authorities: law enforcement officers reliably protected participants from aggressive opponents both in the capital and in Lviv, where local authorities refused to ban the pride at the request of deputies, redirecting requests to the police to ensure order.
The President and the Government have also made public statements in support of equal rights. However, it does not come to a real vote in parliament: the process is slowed down by conservative deputies and non-public lobby on the part of ultra-conservative churches.
The leading religious organizations in Ukraine have recently preferred to refrain from public homophobic statements, but continue to fight behind the scenes against any anti-discrimination laws. The main open opponent of the LGBTQ+ movement remains the Pentecostal activist Ruslan Kukharchuk and his movement "All at once!".
Related: In Kyiv, pig heads were G.Bar thrown at a beauty salon because of public support for LGBTQ+ people
What do believers really think?
The authors of the report cite interesting sociological data: it turned out that ordinary Ukrainian believers are much more tolerant than their own leadership.
For example, the ban on discrimination against LGBTQ+ people is supported by:
- 78% прихожан ПЦУ;
- 72% верующих УПЦ;
- 71% греко-католиков;
- 81% христиан, не причисляющих себя к конкретной конфессии.
The only exceptions were Protestants (Baptists, Adventists, Pentecostals) - among them, the level of support for anti-discrimination norms is much lower (44%), and only a few support the legalization of partnerships or the right to adopt for same-sex couples. Among Orthodox and Greek Catholics, support for partnerships and adoption ranges from 37 to 56 percent, which generally reflects the mood of the entire Ukrainian society.
Violence
In the first six months of 2026, the monitoring network of the Our World Center recorded 26 cases of rights violations on the basis of homophobia or transphobia. Most of the incidents occurred in Kyiv (7), Lviv (3) and Ivano-Frankivsk (3). Human rights activists classified some of them as full-fledged hate crimes, and the rest as incidents and manifestations of hate speech.
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