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LGBT rights in the Americas

Laws governing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are complex and diverse in the Americas, and acceptance of LGBT persons varies widely.

LGBT rights in the Americas

Legal in 30 out of 35 states; equal age of consent in 26 out of 35 states
Legal in all 21 territories; equal age of consent in 16 out of 21 territories

Legal in 13 out of 35 states
Legal in 8 out of 21 territories

Allowed to serve openly in 14 out of 29 states that have an army
Allowed in all 21 territories

Protected in 22 out of 35 states
Protected in 14 out of 21 territories

Recognized in 11 out of 35 states
Recognized in 18 out of 21 territories

Same-sex marriage constitutionally banned in 7 out of 35 states

Legal in 7 out of 35 states
Legal in 13 out of 21 territories

Same-sex marriages are currently legal in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, United States and Uruguay. Free unions that are equivalent to marriage have begun to be recognized in Bolivia. Among non-independent states, same-sex marriage is also legal in Greenland, the British Overseas Territories of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, all French territories (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, French Guiana, Saint Martin, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon), and in the Caribbean Netherlands, while marriages performed in the Netherlands are recognised in Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. More than 800 million people live in nations or sub-national entities in the Americas where same-sex marriages are available.


In January 2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the American Convention on Human Rights recognizes same-sex marriage as a human right.[1] This has theoretically made the legalisation of such unions "mandatory" in Barbados, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Suriname. The Supreme Courts of Honduras,[2] Panama,[3] Peru[4] and Suriname[5] have rejected the IACHR ruling, while the Supreme Courts of Costa Rica and Ecuador adhered to it. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Uruguay are also under the court's jurisdiction, but already had same-sex marriage before the ruling was handed down.


However, five other nations still have unenforced criminal penalties for "buggery" on their statute books.[6] These are Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, of which Guyana is on mainland South America, while the rest are Caribbean islands. They are all former parts of the British West Indies. In addition, in Anguilla, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Paraguay, Montserrat, Suriname and the Turks and Caicos Islands, the age of consent is higher for same-sex sexual relations than for opposite-sex ones, and in Bermuda, the age of consent for anal sex is higher than that for other types of sexual activities.

LGBT rights in Africa

LGBT rights in Asia

LGBT rights in Europe

LGBT rights in Oceania

Recognition of same-sex unions in the Americas

Same-sex marriage in tribal nations in the United States

Travesti (gender identity)

Decriminalization of homosexuality in Ecuador

Timeline of LGBT history in Ecuador

Corrales, J. (2021). . Cambridge University Press.

The Politics of LGBT Rights Expansion in Latin America and the Caribbean

Díez, Jordi. The politics of gay marriage in Latin America: Argentina, Chile, and Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Dion, Michelle L., and Jordi Díez. "Democratic values, religiosity, and support for same-sex marriage in Latin America." Latin American Politics and Society 59.4 (2017): 75–98.

Encarnación, Omar G. "Latin America's gay rights revolution." Journal of Democracy 22.2 (2011): 104–118.

Encarnación, Omar Guillermo. Out in the periphery: Latin America's gay rights revolution (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Navarro, María Camila, et al. "Tolerance of Homosexuality in South American Countries: A Multilevel Analysis of Related Individual and Sociocultural Factors." International Journal of Sexual Health (2019): 1–12.