Introduction

This report documents the escalating violations of LGBTQIA+ rights in Lebanon throughout 2023, a year marked by intensified state repression, rising societal violence, and deepening structural discrimination. Building on patterns of institutionalized homophobia that emerged in previous years, 2023 witnessed a sharp increase in legislative attempts to criminalize sexual orientation and gender identity, widespread censorship, and coordinated attacks on LGBTQIA+ individuals and spaces. These violations unfolded amid Lebanon’s ongoing political paralysis, economic collapse, and, later in the year, the outbreak of war on the southern border, all of which compounded the precarity of already marginalized communities. Drawing on survivor-centered documentation, legal analysis, and frontline data collected by Helem, this report exposes how state and non-state actors exploit legal vacuums, impunity, and moral panic to normalize violence and exclusion. It situates individual abuses within their broader political, social, and economic contexts, with the aim of advancing accountability, informing advocacy, and affirming the urgent need for structural reform and protection of fundamental rights.

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