Ana Cristina Santos, a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, referred to the Rainbow Map of the LGBTQI+ rights association, ILGA Europe, whose 2025 report on 49 European countries has been published.
Speaking at the forum “Stop Hate, Defend Rights, Respect All People”, organised by the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality and the Matosinhos City Council, the researcher said that, despite everything, Portugal is above the European Union average, but “this is insufficient for those who live every day in fear of violence, discrimination and hatred every day”.
“Portugal has a long way to go,” she said, stressing that, in the report now available, “in nine categories, [Portugal] only complies with four”.
Cristina Santos invited participants to consult this report “carefully”, as it provides a precise understanding of our failing areas. “One of the areas in which we repeatedly fail is in relation to older people, the LGBTQI+ population over the age of 60”.
Invited to address the forum, held at Matopsinhos Town Hall, on the subject of older LGBTQI+ people, Cristina Santos recalled that these are people who were born and lived “outside the law”, in the case of Portugal until 1982, when homosexuality was decriminalised, who survived the so-called AIDS crisis and who now, in 2025, with rights on paper, are facing “the imminent risk of regression”.
Portugal was “the first country in Europe and the fourth in the world to include in its Constitution a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation in 2024, but she asked: “What does it mean for these people to reach 2025 and see what happened on Sunday night?”, referring to the results of Sunday’s elections, with Chega achieving a good result, electing 58 MPs.
“How do these policies meet the expectations and experiences of older LGBTQI+ people? And what can we, academia, activists, policy makers, professionals in other fields, do?” she asked.
The president of the CIG – Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality, Sandra Ribeiro, also considered that “these are very demanding times. The challenges to equality, non-discrimination, respect for all people and human dignity are perhaps more difficult, more acute today than they were the day before yesterday. We know that building takes time, but destroying is instantaneous, it happens in the blink of an eye.”
“And rebuilding takes even longer and is very difficult. That is why we must protect, resist, take care of what we have already achieved and continue to move forward with determination, intelligence and efficiency,” she said.
Thus, in fulfilling its mission, the CIG “will continue to carry out its work in a determined, firm and always legally sustained manner, within the framework of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, the law, the National Strategy for Equality and Non-Discrimination and in line with the international commitments to which Portugal is a party,” added Sandra Ribeiro.
Researcher Cristina Santos is involved in two projects, one of which is entitled “Remember, experiences of elderly LGBTQI+ people in Portugal”. This project has already enabled more than 100 people to be interviewed, and the material collected is currently being analysed.
The preliminary conclusions of these “biographical” interviews highlight complaints related to loneliness, healthcare and violence and, within loneliness, there is often talk of a break with the family of origin, a break that was made for reasons of discrimination.
