The four safest countries to be openly-LGBTQ are in Europe

The top four safest countries to live in as an openly LGBTQ person are in Europe. Canada follows at number five. They all have legalized LGBTQ marriage, gender reassignment, and LGBTQ opportunities to adopt. 

In addition to this they also have minimal discrimination, with employment and housing opportunities being almost identical to a cisgender straight person. There are also lower hate crime reports in these locations. 

These countries also have little to no censorship surrounding the LGBTQ+ community, with the community being encouraged through safe spaces, gay bars, and strict laws for homophobic behavior.

All of these positive advancements for the queer community have made these some of the safest places in the world to live as an openly queer person.

The primary difference with the top 10 are societal views, measured by international surveys and government data. This varied slightly between each country and is one of the key differences in European countries that have legalized same sex marriage.

Coming out on top was Iceland with a very impressive 9.97/10, scoring almost perfectly in laws, protection, and societal views on the LGBTQ+ community.

The acceptance of LGBTQ people in Iceland is the most progressive and advanced in the entire world, setting a high standard for all other countries to strive for. 

Meanwhile, the eleven most dangerous countries (out of 160 countries worldwide) to be LGBTQ identified are:

Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Morocco, Afghanistan, and lastly — the worst —

is Mauritania.

Source:  local SEO agency Reboot who commissioned this data. 

Methodology:

1. Reboot sought to find which country is the safest as part of the LGBTQ community.
2. Data was collected by researching over 160 country’s government laws using available resources such as government websites and worldwide surveys. 
3. The data collected was in nine categories: societal acceptance; homosexual activity; same sex marriage; censorship; gender reassignment; discrimination; employability; housing; and the ability to adopt a child.
4. This raw data was then put in a spreadsheet and given a representative score out of 10 (10 being perfect, 0 being the worst). 
5. All nine categories for each country were added together and divided by 90 to give a score out of 10. 
6. 168 countries were then ordered from best (closest to 10/10) to worst (closest to 0/10) to decide the safest country to live in as an LGBTQ person.