Top 13 Countries with Biggest Gay Populations

Published on September 21, 2020 at 10:33 am by Ty Haqqi in Lists, News

The top 13 countries with the biggest gay populations are surprisingly very rarely in the list of countries where gay marriage is legal.

The gay populations has come a long way from being persecuted for simply existing across the world, to being able to safely marry in over 20 countries. However, there is still a very long way to go, especially in many countries where being gay is equivalent to committing a serious crime, even though the former hurts no one, except perhaps some people’s feelings.

Wile the United States is known for claiming it champions human rights, we all know that it only champions the rights of white males. Every other population has faced some form of discrimination over the past century, and many still do, despite improvements being made. In the 1950s, homosexuals were said to be officially mentally ill and were barred from working in the federal government. In 1969, the Stonewall Inn in New York City was raided by police, a sanctuary for homosexuals, triggering outrage across the country and is said to be a landmark moment in the progress of gay rights. The fight for LGBT rights continued, culminating in all 50 states legalizing gay marriage between 2004 to 2015. Even a decade ago though, a famous personality coming out was almost unheard of, and often career suicide. Now, it is a much more common sight, even though a lot more still needs to be done. You can learn more about the US gay population if you take a look at the 11 states with the biggest gay population.

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As I mentioned earlier, in many countries, homosexuality is still illegal, and even punishable by death. Most of the countries who severely criminalize homosexuality are Muslim, as Islam has always severely been against homosexuality. Even in countries where its not a severe crime, or even not a crime at all, the stigma with homosexuality still exits, because of which many people are still reluctant in coming out. Most of these countries are present in the 15 most dangerous countries for gay travelers.

Since homosexuality is a naturally occurring event (no matter what your religion tells you) that is not affected by race, culture or any other discriminatory factor, every country should have a similar percentage of gay people. However, because of the aforementioned social and legal pressure, many people refuse to admit it, even under anonymity, and can even deny it to themselves in order to be accepted more easily. Secondly, gay people may move to other countries which are more receptive to homosexuals, such as the 11 most gay friendly cities in the world. Because of these limitations, there are very few studies, but we found a relevant one from the US National Center for Biotechnology Information, which calculated the number of gay and bisexual men in each country from UNAIDs estimates and social media. We also calculated the per capital homosexual population of each country after obtaining the total populations of each country from World Bank. So let’s take a look at the countries where homosexuals are most prevalent, starting with number 13:

13. Gambia

I bet you weren’t expecting Gambia here, were you? Gambia has strict laws against homosexuality, but the homosexual population has a strong presence in social media and hence, makes our list.

12. Mauritania

Expect many more African countries in this list, where again despite a small population, there is a strong presence of homosexuals on social media.

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11. Ivory Coast

While in the Ivory Coast, homosexual acts are legal in private, that is not true for public gay acts, and can land you in prison for a decent length of time.

Pixabay/Public Domain

10. Senegal

We told you that Africa surprisingly dominates the list of countries with biggest gay populations. In Senegal, homosexuality is illegal across the country and 97% of the population is, at least publicly, against it. Privately, well, it did make the list.

Pixabay/Public Domain

9. Lebanon

Lebanon is one of the very few Muslim countries where all sexual orientations are legal, and is quite progressive in this front perhaps which is why its resident find it easier to admit this fact as well.

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8. Ghana

The government itself has come down on Ghanians who engage in homosexual relations, and any gay people run the risk of going to jail for any such acts.

Pixabay/Public Domain

7. Ukraine

While homosexuality is not officially illegal in Ukraine as it is in most countries we’ve already mentioned, the prevalent attitude is extremely negative towards homosexuals who face extreme discrimination.

Pixabay/Public Domain

6. Nigeria

Nigeria has one of the most restrictive anti homosexual laws in the world, but if anything, this list is proof that repressing something will not be able to ever eradicate it.

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5. Malaysia

Another Muslim country where you spend 20 years in jail for homosexual acts, from data gathered from social media, it still has 3 million homosexuals in a country with less than 32 million people.

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4. South Africa

South Africa has one of the most progressive policies on LGBT in Africa and is the only African country to legalize same sex marriage and even adoption for same sex couples.

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3. Thailand

In a reversal of many countries, Thailand does not have laws recognizing same sex marriages or unions, but they are generally tolerated publicly and don’t face significant oppression.

Pixabay/Public Domain

2. Brazil

Brazil has some of the best homosexual laws in Latin America and has legalized gay marriage since 2013. While there is still some discrimination faced in the country for gay people, it is still much better than most countries in the world.

Pixabay/Public Domain

1. United States of America

The USA tops the list of top 15 countries with biggest gay populations, with more people comfortable admitting their sexual orientation. According to Facebook, it had 15 million men who had sex with other men, which is a significant number even in a population of over 320 million people.