TG House has published a report on the results of monitoring repression and discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community in Belarus in 2025.
According to the document, state policy last year was marked by a further tightening of discriminatory and repressive measures. This includes the adoption and preparation of new regulatory acts, as well as the expansion of law enforcement mechanisms aimed at limiting the visibility of LGBTQ+ people, interfering in private life, and suppressing any forms of self-expression.
“During the reporting period, a significant change in persecution tactics was recorded. Alongside formal administrative and legislative measures, the authorities increasingly resorted to informal and covert methods of pressure. Law enforcement agencies carried out raids on closed cultural events, accompanied by selective detentions of LGBTQ+ people, checks of documents and mobile devices, and interrogations, often without the drafting of official reports,” the report says.
The organization also recorded an increase in covert persecution, “including entrapment through dating applications, ‘preventive’ interrogations, pressure on relatives, doxxing, and attempts to coerce cooperation.”
It is stated that the situation of transgender persons has worsened.
“State healthcare institutions undertook various measures aimed at complicating and delaying procedures related to the legal and medical recognition of gender identity. Throughout the year, cases were recorded of artificial restrictions on access to specialized professionals, difficulties or impossibility of registration for medical supervision, as well as significant delays in completing mandatory stages of procedures, which collectively substantially limited the realization of the rights of transgender people,” the document says.
It is noted that many victims refrain from making public statements.
The document also analyzes legislative changes from last year. In particular, the House of Representatives approved at first reading a draft law introducing a new article into the Code of Administrative Offenses. It предусматривает administrative liability — heavy fines, and in cases involving minors, arrest — for “propaganda of homosexual relations, gender transition, childlessness, and pedophilia.”
In September 2025, the Ministry of Health amended the rules governing the gender reassignment procedure. A sexologist was removed from the commission and replaced by a psychiatrist-narcologist. Thus, the Ministry of Health effectively закрепляет an approach under which transgender identity is treated as a “mental deviation.”
The authors of the report also examine narratives in Belarusian state media.
The document further provides examples of persecution, including pressure on relatives of LGBTQ+ representatives who are abroad, detentions of activists and community members, and criminal prosecutions.
The full monitoring report is available via the provided link.