Acceptance of LGBTQIA+ community stagnating: Planning office

Over the past few years, Netherlands residents have not regarded people from the LGBTQIA+ community more positively, said the Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP) on Tuesday following a survey into the views on the community.

Over a period of fifteen years, Netherlands residents started to think more positively about homosexuality and bisexuality, but acceptance stagnated in recent years. Since 2017, the number of Netherlands residents who are positive about homosexuality and bisexuality has even decreased slightly from 78 to 76 percent.

According to the SCP, visible intimacy between people of the same sex, in particular, is less accepted, as are transgender people and sexual diversity. However, Netherlands residents' views of LGBTQIA+ people are more positive than in most other European countries. Only Iceland residents are even more accepting of the community.

COC Nederland called the stagnating acceptance a "worrying development" and called on schools and politicians to take action. "We must not let it happen that we backslide, and there is a recoil in the emancipation of LGBTQ people in the Netherlands," said Astrid Oosenburg, chairman of the interest group for the community.

According to Oosenburg, the stagnation can be explained by the tensions in Dutch society, partly resulting from the coronavirus crisis. "The rainbow community is the canary in the coal mine. When a society is under pressure, the LGBTQ people and other minorities are the first to face trouble. We must not let that happen," said the COC chairman.