Ana Cristina Santos, a researcher at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, was referring to the Rainbow Map of the LGBTQI+ rights association, ILGA Europe, whose 2025 report, carried out in 49 European countries, has now been released.

In her speech at the Forum “Stopping Hate, Defending Rights, Respecting All People”, organised by the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality and the Municipal Council of Matosinhos, the researcher stated that, despite everything, Portugal is above the European Union average, but “this is not enough for those who live in fear of violence, discrimination and hatred every day”.

Author: rainbowmap.ilga-europe.org;

“Portugal has a longer way to go”, she said, highlighting that, in the report, “out of nine categories, we [Portugal] only fulfilled four”.

Cristina Santos invited participants to “carefully” consult this report, which allows us to understand precisely in which areas we are still failing. "One of the areas where we have repeatedly failed is in relation to older people, the LGBTQI+ population, the over 60s."

Invited to address the issue of older LGBTQI+ people at the forum, currently taking place at the Matopsinhos City Council, Cristina Santos recalled that these are people who were born and lived “outside the law”, in the Portuguese case until 1982, the year in which homosexuality was decriminalized, 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 worldwide to include in its Constitution the prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation, in 2024, but he 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 deputies.

“How do these policies meet the expectations and experiences of older LGBTQI+ people? And what can we, academia, activists, policymakers, professionals from other fields, do?”