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Dataout Foundation launches on the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia

On the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) observed on May 17, 2025, the Dataout Foundation announces its mission: uncovering discrimination and crimes based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) through research and open data.

The purpose of the IDAHOBIT is to raise awareness about the issues LGBTQIA+ people experience and promote equal rights for everyone. By launching on this day, we highlight the importance of conducting research and producing open source methods, tools, and data to make SOGIESC-based discrimination visible. The foundation’s name reflects its goal: bringing impactful knowledge and data out into the open, so that journalists, researchers, human rights advocates, and policymakers are better equipped to improve the social and legal environment for LGBTQIA+ people.

Dataout is based in The Hague, the international hub for human rights organisations. From here, we contribute to the global effort of exposing discrimination and violence and strengthening LGBTQIA+ rights. While the IDAHOBIT is observed in more than 150 countries, there are still regions where information about the lives of LGBTQIA+ people is censored and human rights violations are often underreported. We focus on these countries first to collect evidence and help close critical knowledge gaps.

Grey Rainbow

Before today’s public launch, Dataout, in collaboration with researchers, has been developing a project called Grey Rainbow. Its goal is the continuous documentation of harmful consequences of anti-LGBTQIA+ laws in Russia, including such indirect harms as hate crimes. In our latest research, we collected evidence of hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people in Russia from court rulings. We made an overview of such crimes for 14 years (from 2010 through 2023) and published a database. In the absence of official statistics, our research shows the scale of SOGIESC-based hate crimes and provides evidence necessary for the future condemnation of discriminatory laws in Russia. Read more about our work on the project website.

Join us

Get updates about our work on Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Follow our GitHub for open-source tools and methods we develop and use. Support us with a donation or become a member on Patreon. With your help, we can collect more data and produce more impactful knowledge.

Hate crimes over 14 years: the Grey Rainbow project documents the consequences of anti-LGBTQIA+ laws in Russia

Discriminatory anti-LGBTQIA+ laws have been in force in Russia for more than a decade. We publish research and data revealing the harmful consequences of these laws. The goal is to gather evidence necessary for future legal reform and condemnation of the Russian discriminatory state policies.

In recent years, the pressure on LGBTQIA+ people in Russia has increased with the introduction of new discriminatory policies, such as the updated “gay propaganda” law and the Supreme Court decision to list the so-called “International LGBT Movement” as an extremist organisation. The Grey Rainbow project is an ongoing effort to document harms caused by these anti-LGBTQIA+ policies, including direct consequences, such as fines for “gay propaganda”, and indirect consequences like hate crimes.

In our latest research, we analysed court rulings to identify hate crimes committed against LGBTQIA+ individuals for the past 14 years, between 2010 and 2023. In the absence of official statistics, this data offers insight into the scale and dynamics of SOGIESC-based violence. We identified more than 1,200 hate crimes, with an increase after the 2013 “gay propaganda” law came into effect. We are continuing to gather data on cases that occurred in 2024.

Learn more about the goals of Grey Rainbow and our research on the project website.

Hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ individuals in Russia identified in court decisions from 2010–2023

We identified more than 1,200 hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people in Russia by analysing court decisions. We extracted the texts of court rulings from several sources and queried keyword in them to identify cases related to hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In the databse, we registered the types of crimes, the number of victims and fatalities, and whether crimes were committed by organised groups.

On the grounds of hate: data from court rulings reveals the rise in crimes against LGBTQIA+ people in Russia, including premeditated group attacks

Officially, statistics on hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people in Russia have never been collected. By analysing openly published rulings of Russian courts for the past 14 years, we have identified over 1,200 such crimes. Because these are only the cases that reached the court, the real number of crimes can be much higher. The number of crimes, including premeditated group attacks, has significantly increased since the adoption of the discriminatory “gay propaganda” law in 2013.