Background and data used
Editing was completed September 2023
The LGBT+ Barometer is the first programme to gather information and data on living conditions for LGBT+ persons in Denmark. The Danish Institute for Human Rights is the instigator of the LGBT+ Barometer, which provides an overview of LGBT+ persons’ well-being and rights on 10 societal topics. Each topic contains three indicators of the well-being of LGBT+ persons.
The Danish Institute for Human Rights is Denmark’s national human rights institution with a mandate from the Danish Parliament to promote, evaluate and monitor the rights and living conditions of LGBT+ persons in Denmark and to prevent discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics.
The objective of the LGBT+ Barometer is to gather available knowledge in one place to provide an overview of the well-being and living conditions of LGBT+ persons in Denmark. Target groups thus include interest organisations, students and teachers in higher education institutions, decision-makers and professionals.
Across the 10 topics, the Barometer reveals which groups report low levels of well-being, which are the most marginalised, and where we should try to change things. The aim of the Barometer is to support political measures for the LGBT+ community by structuring and communicating the important knowledge available.
In the process of creating the LGBT+ Barometer, the Danish Institute for Human Rights hosted a round table conference with 20 participants from 15 different LGBT+ organisations, who provided important input on topics and indicators. During the subsequent consultation, the Institute received input from LGBT+ Denmark, LGBT Asylum, the LGBT Committee, Intersex Denmark, the Asexual Association Denmark, the Ministry of Digital Government and Gender Equality, Project SEXUS and VIVE – the Danish Centre for Social Science Research.
The Institute would like to thank the LGBT+ persons who have told us their story and thus given life and voice to the many figures contained in the Barometer.
The LGBT+ Barometer is designed by Tinne Steffensen and Johannes Kroustrup, who were assisted by Nina Theodora Vester-Andersen from the Danish Institute for Human Rights. Please direct questions and comments to Project Manager Tinne Steffensen at tins@humanrights.dk.
To cite this page, please use the following reference::
Danish Institute for Human Rights (2023). LGBT+ Barometer. Accessed at: www.lgbtbarometer.dk.
All photos on the site were taken by photographer Mads Frost. Interviewee quotes were collected by Mads Frost.
Objective and background
The LGBT+ Barometer is based on available knowledge and data from a series of surveys and studies. Main data sources include a survey of living conditions of LGBT+ persons in Denmark conducted by VIVE – the Danish Centre for Social Science Research (Greve et al. 2022), a large cohort study of well-being, health and sexuality in Denmark, Project SEXUS, conducted by Aalborg University and Statens Serums Institut (Frisch et al. 2019) and the 2021 Health and Morbidity Study (SUSY) conducted by the National Institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark. The Barometer also includes figures from Statistics Denmark, ALS Research, the Research Division at the Ministry of Justice, the National Police of Denmark etc.
Below you will find short descriptions of the three main surveys that form a basis for several of the Barometer indicators.
SHILD (2020): Questionnaire survey of a random selection of Danish citizens aged 16-64 years. The survey had a response rate of 47.2 % and was conducted in the period September-November 2020. Data were weighted for gender, age, place of residence (region), education, income, socioeconomic group and origin.
SHILD-TRALE (2022): Questionnaire survey of all persons (1,833) aged 18-64 years who changed their civil registration number and thus their legal sex in the period 2000-2021. The survey had a response rate of 46.3 % (849) and was conducted in the period December 2021 to February 2022.
The survey included questions about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Danish title: Kortlægning af homo- og biseksuelles samt transpersoners levevilkår og samfundsdeltagelse. Greve m.fl. (2022)
Sex in Denmark. Key figures from Project SEXUS 2017-2018 (Frisch et al. 2019) is based on:
SEXUS (2019): Questionnaire survey of a random selection of around 215,000 Danish citizens aged 15-89 years. Of these, 187,000 belonged to the target group. The survey had a response rate of 34.6 % (64,700) and was conducted in the period September-November 2017. Data were weighted for gender, year of birth, place of residence (region), civil status, previous civil status, country of birth and twin status.
The survey included questions about sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual experience and attraction.
Danish title: Sex i Danmark. Nøgletal fra Projekt SEXUS 2017-2018 (Frisch m.fl. 2019)
SUSY (2021): Questionnaire survey of a random selection of 25.000 Danes aged 16 years or above. The survey had a response rate of 45,4 % (11,350) and was collected in February to May 2021. Data were weighted for gender, age, level of education, income, socioeconomic status, civil status, country of birth, number of contacts to general practitioner in 2020, number of hospital contacts in 2018 as well as ownership or tenancy status.
The survey included questions about sexual orientation in terms of sexual attraction.
Danish title: Sundheds- og sygelighedsundersøgelsen 2021 (SUSY-2021).
Even large population surveys sometimes include too few respondents from the LGBT+ community. For each indicator in the figure, it will be evident which differences are statistically significant according to the data source. These are descriptive relationships; the figures do not say anything about causal relationships.
Reservations and limitations
Because the data originate from a number of different sources, the ways in which the LGBT+ community and frame of reference (remaining population, heterosexuals or cisgender persons) are described will vary from one indicator to the next. Please see the list of sources and notes below each figure.
Moreover, the available sources have limitations. For instance, in Project SEXUS (Frisch et al. 2019), figures for nonbinary persons depend on the gender they are assigned at birth. For the sake of transparency, we have adopted this categorisation in the Barometer. Furthermore, Project SEXUS does not provide figures for the entire LGBT+ community, and the VIVE survey of living conditions (Greve et al. 2022) provides separate figures for homosexuals and bisexuals and for transgender and nonbinary persons. Consequently, we have not been able to provide unified figure for each indicator concerning the overall well-being of the LGBT+ group..
The VIVE survey is based on two questionnaire surveys, cf. the fact box above. Therefore, for indicators based on Greve et al. (2022) the categories “transgender women” and “transgender men” merely include persons who have changed their legal sex, whereas the category “transgender and nonbinary persons” also includes persons who identify as nonbinary.
In addition, the survey questions concerning sexual orientation or gender identity differ. That is, there is not one standard for questions concerning sexual orientation or gender identity. This may affect the results of the surveys.
We have striven to ensure intersectionality in the indicators and to recognise to the influence of age, ethnicity, gender and disabilities. Unfortunately, the data have certain limitations. For instance, few of the sources provide an intersectional perspective. This may be because the number of observations even in the larger population surveys are too few to provide figures that apply across categories. For instance, we are unable to “zoom” in on loneliness among LGBT+ persons with a disability aged 18-25 years or among immigrants or descendants aged 18-25 years. A few surveys do focus on LGBT+ persons belonging to an ethnic minority, though.
The Danish Institute for Human Rights’ own calculations based on data sharing agreements
The Danish Institute for Human Rights has entered into data sharing agreements with VIVE – The Danish Centre for Social Science Research and the National Institute of Public Health. This has enabled us to make our own calculations – based on the two sets of data SHILD (2020) and SUSY (2021) – concerning the size of the LGBT+ community, age, place of residence and origin as well as the indicators physical disabilities, drug use, loneliness, level of education, singles and childless individuals and insecure housing conditions. In these cases, the source is described as the “Danish Institute for Human Rights’ own calculations”. Because we have not had access to the SHILD-TRALE data set, we are unable to provide figures for the just mentioned indicators for transgender and nonbinary persons, respectively. Nevertheless, the total includes respondents from the SHILD (2020) survey who say that they do not identify as the gender they were assigned at birth.
All figures based on the Danish Institute for Human Rights’ own calculations have been weighted as described in the list of surveys above (see the fact boxes above).