Impact
Local movements, global standards, intersex and LGBTQ rights progress: at ILGA World, we work with our members to create and seize advocacy opportunities to change the lives of people on the ground.
Through sustained diplomatic dialogue, strategic litigation, and coalition-building across regions and movements, ILGA World’s members are transforming global policies, scoring Court victories, and reshaping laws so that our communities everywhere can exercise their human rights.
The ILGA regions
ILGA World is an organisation representing more than 2,300 member organisations from more than 170 countries and territories
6 regions
more than 2,300 member organisations
ensuring that people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics can exercise their rights
MOVING LIBERATION FORWARD FOR EVERYONE
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LGBT Centre Mongolia
The first and sole organisation for our communities in Mongolia, it has consistently demanded that its national government establish a vision of rights that is more inclusive of LGBTQI+ individuals — especially those in rural areas — with a focus on their education, health, and employment.
A GLOBAL FIRST
Thanks to its treaty advocacy, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issued a recommendation to Mongolia on trans persons. This was the first time that the committee referred to the ICD-11 (the latest International Classification of Diseases), which had declassified trans identities as a mental disorder.
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No Es Terapia, Spain
The Spanish association against ‘conversion therapy’ provides support and counselling to survivors, fights perpetrators’ impunity, and raises awareness against practices that the United Nations defined as “tantamount to torture”.
CHANGING THE LAW
Currently, Spain only has an administrative ban against ‘conversion therapy’. No Es Terapia has advocated for a change in laws for years. Finally, in 2026, Congress voted to criminalise these practices and punish providers with up to two years in prison. This bill still needs to be approved by the Senate, which might either approve it or send it back to Congress for a final vote.
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EQUAL GROUND, Sri Lanka
Based on colonial-era law, Sri Lanka still criminalises consensual same-sex sexual acts between two consenting adults, including in the privacy of their homes, with a fine and/or imprisonment for up to two years.
PAVING THE WAY FOR CHANGE
EQUAL GROUND’s Executive Director and former ILGA World co-Secretary General, Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, became the first person to challenge the country’s criminalisation of same-sex sexual acts before CEDAW.
In its recommendations, the Committee paved the way to better lives for our communities in the country, affirmed that criminalisation “violates women’s rights under international law”, and urged the State to “provide effective protection against gender-based violence against women, including by adopting comprehensive legislation prohibiting discrimination against [LBTI] women.”
2025: our advocacy in numbers
When they can truly exercise their human rights, everyone can live a life of dignity. But today, and unsurprisingly, the very systems designed to protect those rights are constantly attacked and weakened by the same governments and leaders who view vulnerability as something to disrespect.
Together with countless allies across social justice movements, we continued to stand our ground for LGBTI communities at the United Nations and in multilateral spaces. Because building a more supportive and inclusive world for everyone, everywhere, is the ultimate reason ILGA World exists.
2025: our knowledge production in numbers
At ILGA World, over forty years of research experience relies on a shared belief: what no one documents remains misunderstood in the public eye, dismissed as irrelevant, and not in need of being addressed. This is why our collections and analyses of laws affecting LGBTI people remain so critical for our communities and decision-makers worldwide.
But in 2025, we witnessed something even more alarming than institutional research gaps: data started to disappear.
Administrations began removing crucial information and history from government websites, while civil society faced a funding crisis so severe that it obstructed its ability to document the lived realities of the communities it serves. To these blatant attempts to keep vital information from the public, ILGA World responded with strategic refocusing and new alliances.
2025: our movement strengthening in numbers
Keeping movements alive needs resources, shared values, relational accountability, and collective care. ILGA World follows principles to convene people and movements walking to the rhythm of social justice, from the grassroots to the global stage.
In 2025, our cross-movement work evolved into an intersectional framework that unites groups focused on sexual and reproductive health, HIV, and LGBTI people’s human rights within a single, agile structure built for today’s political urgency.
Spotlight on
Within and beyond our core programmes, we run strategic projects and activist initiatives that respond to important moments and unique opportunities in LGBTI and wider social justice movements.
Each project that we are part of strengthens our SOGIESC programmes through collaboration and shows how we respond to the needs of our movements. Explore the initiatives below to see where strategy meets action.
Spotlight on our projects
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LGBTI Pathways
LGBTI Pathways is a research project developing evidence on the needs and funding landscape of the international and regional LGBTI movements.
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ProtectDefenders.eu
ProtectDefenders.eu is the European Union human rights defenders mechanism, led by a consortium of 12 non-governmental organisations that support people exercising their human rights
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Sport & Rights Alliance
The Sport & Rights Alliance is a global coalition of leading rights organisations using the power of sport to advance rights into the very fabric of society