Swiss LGBTIQ+ Panel – 2022 Summary Report

Swiss LGBTIQ+ Panel – 2022 Summary Report

Foreword

In 2022, many legal changes in favor of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer people (LGBTIQ+) were implemented in Switzerland. Since January 2022, trans and intersex people who are at least 16 years old can change their gender on identity documents by making a declaration at civil registry offices without the involvement of a doctor or a court. Adolescents, however, still need parental consent. Since July 2022, same sex or gender partners can legally marry, as well as have access to artificial insemination, joint adoption, and facilitated naturalization. Yet, in contrast with couples consisting of a man and a woman, artificial insemination for female couples is currently not reimbursed by Swiss health insurances, which results in unequal treatment of LGBTIQ+ people compared to cis-heterosexual people (i.e., heterosexual people who identify with the sex they have been assigned at birth). The annual surveys of the Swiss LGBTIQ+ Panel allow us to assess how the changing legal landscape affects LGBTIQ+ people living in Switzerland.

In the fourth wave of the Swiss LGBTIQ+ Panel, we present descriptive findings on experiences with coming out, discrimination, and support (see sections 1 and 2) as in our previous reports. In this year’s report, we put further emphasis on experiences in the workplace and educational contexts (see section 3) and report data on the health and health behaviors of our participants (see section 4). Sections 5 and 6 of this report focus on the recent legal changes and the impact of the Swiss marriage equality referendum on LGBTIQ+ and cis-heterosexual people. Because there are still many legal changes that LGBTIQ+ people wish to see in the future, we highlighted some statements of respondents in the final part of this report (section 7).

To account for the specific challenges (e.g., legal situation, discrimination) that different subgroups of the LGBTIQ+ community face, we designed – as in the previous waves – different versions of a web questionnaire that were tailored to sexual minorities (e.g., gay, lesbian, bisexual, or pansexual people) and gender minorities (e.g., trans or intersex people). Interested cis-heterosexual people were also invited to participate in the survey. All versions were translated into English, German, French, and Italian. Thanks to the help of many LGBTIQ+ organizations, magazines, and people who shared our study widely through different media, 3’478 people replied to our questionnaire from January 2022 to August 2022.

In the present report, we focus on the key findings for sexual minority, gender minority, and cis-heterosexual people. The large dataset of the Swiss LGBTIQ+ Panel would allow us to further examine differences across various subgroups (e.g., language regions/cantons, age groups, populations within the LGBTIQ+ community, or different universities), report additional results of the survey such as findings on the workplace or educational contexts or run longitudinal analyses. While this is beyond the scope of this report, we are, however, happy to present additional results at workshops or invited talks. We are also looking for external funding to maintain and expand the outreach activities of the Swiss LGBTIQ+ Panel.