Chile

Chile has made significant progress on LGBTIQ equality. Same-sex marriage and adoption have been legal since March 2022. Since 2012, Chile’s hate crime law has included sexual orientation and gender identity as aggravating circumstances, and since 2015, same-sex civil unions have been legally recognized. In 2019, a comprehensive legal gender recognition law based on self-determination was passed, and a third sex option has been available for intersex children on birth certificates since 2006. While there is no legal ban on medically unnecessary surgeries (IGM) on minors, in 2023, the Minister of Health published non-binding intersex-affirming guidance, including recommendations against IGM. 

There have also been positive judicial developments in recent years, including a landmark decision of a family court in 2020 recognizing two women as the parents of a child born through assisted reproduction. In 2025, a criminal court issued the country’s first conviction for lesbophobic femicide, applying Article 390 ter of the penal code, which recognizes killings motivated by sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression as aggravated femicides. 

Societal opinion of sexual and gender minorities is primarily positive. However, there has been recent pushback on transgender people’s rights, echoing trends seen in numerous countries in 2025. Following the Cass Report in the United Kingdom, Chile established a parliamentary investigative commission in 2024 to analyze public policies regarding transgender children and adolescents. The final report of this commission, approved by Congress in May 2025, portrays gender-affirming initiatives as a threat to children’s development and the exercise of parental authority. It further recommends banning hormonal treatments for minors, auditing hospitals and educational programs that apply gender-affirmative approaches, and pursuing disciplinary or even criminal action against professionals involved in what it describes as “prohibited interventions.” While this report is not binding, its congressional approval gave significant political weight to its stigmatizing narratives about trans youth.

In the latest measure to roll back on trans people’s rights, the Chilean congress excluded the Gender Identity Support Program (PAIG) from the 2026 budget bill, an action condemned by various civil society groups and the national ombuds for children. Civil society organizations have also expressed concern over the 2025 presidential election victory of José Antonio Kast, who is a longstanding member of the Political Network for Values, a group that opposes marriage equality and trans people’s rights.