Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people have made enormous progress in establishing their rights and reducing discrimination around the world. However, stigma and exclusion based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) remain pervasive in daily life. Bullying in schools, discrimination in the workplace, denial of health services, and violence in private and public spaces are just some examples of the mistreatment LGBTI people face.
“We are invisible in the statistics. But we exist,” said a young queer person from Thailand about her experience of feeling invisible and having her needs unrecognized during a civil society consultation.
The World Bank Equal Opportunities for Sexual and Gender Minorities (EQOSOGI) This research initiative, which examines laws and regulations that affect the lives of LGBTI people in 16 countries, found that sexual and gender minorities face discrimination across all sectors and countries studied.
SOGI-based exclusion poses a barrier to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the principle of “leaving no one behind” being at the heart of the SDG agenda. Such exclusion also prevents the World Bank from achieving its twin goals of ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity by 2030. However, robust quantitative data on differential development experiences and outcomes for LGBTI people – especially those in low- and middle-income countries – is extremely thin. This lack of data makes it difficult to develop policies to improve the well-being of LGBTI people and prevents evaluation of the impact of SOGI-inclusive policies and programs.
In recent years, the World Bank has generated original data on discrimination and exclusion of LGBTI people, notably in Thailand and the Western Balkans (also see: Discrimination against sexual minorities in education and housing: evidence from two field experiments in Serbia).
Currently, the Bank produces inclusive SOGI data through the EQOSOGI initiative. According to EQOSOGI dataset, five of 16 countries criminalize same-sex relations and only Costa Rica and Mexico require government agencies to collect data on hate crimes against sexual and gender minorities. Only Canada and Mozambique have enacted laws explicitly prohibiting employers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity during the recruitment process. While almost half of the countries analyzed allow people to change their gender on official documents, only Bangladesh, Canada and India offer more than two gender options on their passports.
We know that The EQOSOGI initiative is currently expanding its data collection to 62 countries. It seeks to analyze the links between SOGI-inclusive legal frameworks and development outcomes, following the example of Women, business and the law (WBL) which has consistently demonstrated that greater gender equality before the law correlates with better development outcomes for women. Early research on the relationship between EQOSOGI pilot data and the Women, Business and the Law Index suggests that countries with laws that empower women also tend to have laws that are tolerant of sexual and gender minorities .
Although there are emerging best practices in collecting disaggregated data by OSIG, including through our pioneering work at the Bank, collecting data from LGBTI people remains a challenge. Sexual and gender minorities are often reluctant to self-identify in surveys due to the risk of further discrimination and exclusion.
The 2018 World Bank survey, Economic inclusion of LGBTI groups in Thailand, was a success largely due to the Bank’s collaboration with various government ministries and departments, the United Nations Development Program, local universities, academics and LGBTI civil society organizations (CSOs). In the Western Balkans, the World Bank team continues to collaborate with local CSOs such as Equal Rights Association (ERA) for the Western Balkans and Turkey. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank’s Country Management Unit for the Western Balkans partnered with ERA to understand the impacts of COVID-19 on LGBTI communities In the region. The regional survey found that a tenth of respondents had foregone medical treatment due to fear of discrimination or intolerant reactions (12%), which is particularly worrying during a pandemic. Building on the survey results, the Bank is currently working in Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia to strengthen the technical capacity of their national statistical offices to collect more disaggregated SOGI data.
“We are invisible in the statistics. But we exist.”
Although we have come a long way, we have work to do. THE The World Bank Group’s gender strategy is being updated and revised. The strategy update provides an important opportunity to leverage the experience of the Gender team to strengthen the Bank’s work in inclusive SOGI analysis and data collection.
Contributions from: Clifton Cortez, Trishna Rana, Julia Constanze Braunmiller and Sarah Bunker