2024 was an important year for LGBT+ rights in Denmark. So important, in fact, that we were able to cross eight things off our list of political goals. So there is much to be celebrate even though the currents of the times may seem to be going the other way.

There was a party in the association’s backyard in Knabrostræde in inner Copenhagen, on the spring day back in 1989 when the law on registered partnerships was finally passed in the Folketing. And from a distance of 36 years it may seem like a time of steady progress, but that was not necessarily how it lookedback then. Here is for example what the Social Democratic member of parliament Pia Gjellerup said in her speech at the party:

“It has been said about the partnership that it is cultural pollution and a cultural battle has been proclaimed. It is a showdown between two sets of cultural values: namely, one that the individual is allowed to live and have some rights just like other people in respect for the diversity of life. And then the other, that one must comply with rules regardless of whether we care about it or not. Whether it is something that lies in our hearts or in our heads or in our whole soul. The individual has won a small victory in that showdown today. We have been given the opportunity to give the diversity of life another chance to live.”

Political progress is not always in linear development – sometimes it may look more like a spiral than a line. And in these times when it can sometimes feel as if we are going backwards, we can find an anchor point in knowing that we are not facing completely new evils. Every decade has its struggle and its front lines in the LGBT+ cause. In 1989, it was the registered partnership that was accused of undermining the established order of society, and today it is broader debates about gender identity and family forms. But we are here and we will continue.

The progress made in the past year would not have happened without good and close allies and partners both inside and outside the Folketing. In some cases, committed individuals have submitted citizen proposals or in other ways used themselves and their situation to carry forward issues.

It is shown again and again that we can succeed, both as a political organization and as people, when we fight together for the rights that make it possible for LGBT+ people to live their lives on equal terms with the rest of the population. So keep going out there! Whether it is supporting LGBT+ Denmark’s work with your membership and donations, or taking matters into your own hands, it works!

Although progress is being made, it is of course not without struggle and not without LGBT+ people once again having to be the target of a lot of unpleasant rhetoric in the media. Sometimes we in LGBT+ Denmark try to remind ourselves that we have actually heard most of it before in our now almost 77-year history and every time we have achieved a new goal, there is a certain amount of resistance. Still, progress has been made.

In LGBT+ Denmark, we believe in progress, even if it looks complicated, but it requires that we are a strong LGBT+ movement that can create change together and protect each other.

So get your friends and families, LGBT+ people or allies into the movement. You can sign up right here – then you too can help to “give life’s diversity a chance to live”, with Pia Gjellerup’s words from  1989.

Accomplished in 2024

1. Recognition of co-paternity
2. Legal recognition of parenthood after surrogacy abroad
3. Making co-motherhood more flexible, so that co-motherhood is automatically recognized at the birth of the child – regardless of how the fertilization happened
4. Equality for men and women regarding violence in intimate relationships, so that everyone is offered the same support at shelters
5. Equality in blood donation for men who have sex with men
6. Legalization of partner egg donation (ie. ‘double donation’)
7. Access to health data when changing CPR(social security) number after legal gender change
8. Ministerial instruction of all recipients of data from the CPR register that they are obliged to ensure a smooth transition to a new CPR number after legal gender change

… we are still working on

Removing the age limit for legal gender reassignment
Rights for multi-parent families
Ban on conversion therapy
Government action plan for the well-being of LGBT+ pupils and students

Of course, there is much more we need to achieve, but for these four points, work has already begun and progressed in 2024. We hope we can get even closer in 2025.