Share of Europeans who know a LGBTQ person

There is a clear divide in survey respondents who come from the older EU member states who joined before 2004 and those joining after in indicating whether they have friends who are part of the LGBTQ community. In countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden, over 80 percent of respondents indicate they have a friend or acquaintance who is gay, lesbian or bisexual, while the United Kingdom is the country with the greatest share of respondents saying they know a transgender person.

At the other end of the scale are Bulgaria and Romania, which both joined the EU in 2007, who have 10 and 8 percent of respondents indicating they know a homosexual person respectively. The share of respondents saying they know a transgender or intersex person in the newer EU member states was even lower, with Lithuania being the country with the smallest share knowing a trans person, at only two percent.

Share of respondents indicating that they have acquaintances who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or intersex in the European Union in 2019

Characteristic	Gay, lesbian or bisexual	Transgender	Intersex
Netherlands	82%	20%	3%
Sweden	81%	24%	11%
UK	74%	29%	11%
Luxembourg	73%	14%	9%
Denmark	71%	11%	5%
France	68%	11%	6%
Spain	68%	21%	13%
Ireland	66%	16%	7%
Finland	62%	14%	5%
Belgium	60%	14%	7%
Malta	54%	22%	13%
Germany	52%	7%	4%
Cyprus	38%	12%	9%
Slovenia	37%	10%	8%
Portugal	36%	9%	6%
Austria	35%	11%	8%
Italy	35%	7%	6%
Czechia	28%	5%	5%
Estonia	26%	5%	3%
Greece	23%	4%	5%
Slovakia	20%	5%	5%
Croatia	20%	6%	4%
Latvia	19%	4%	2%
Hungary	17%	6%	4%
Poland	14%	6%	4%
Lithuania	13%	2%	2%
Bulgaria	10%	4%	4%
Romania	8%	4%	3%