To mark 15 years of Vienna’s LGBT anti-discrimination office (‘Antidiskriminierungsstelle für gleichgeschlechtliche und transgender Lebensweisen – WASt’) – the first such office of its kind in Austria – the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights Director, Morten Kjaerum, delivered a keynote speech on 3^rd October 2013. In it he spoke about many of the findings from the Eurobarometer Antidiscrimination Survey of 2012, including findings on attitudes towards LGBT in Austria. Regarding LGB, the survey diagnosed that: ‘[S]ix out of 10 Austrians would be comfortable with having a gay, lesbian or bisexual person appointed to the highest elected political position’. Attitudes towards trans- persons are more negative: ‘[T]ransgender or transsexual people were among the least accepted groups in the survey (by only half of the respondents).’ Another notable result to highlight are the low-levels of reporting on violence and discrimination against LGBT persons: ‘only around one fifth of Austrians brought the most serious incidents of LGBT-motivated violence which had happened to them in the last five years to the police’s attention’. Intersex persons are not covered in the survey.

In an article on the Vienna Review website, Anna Claessen notes that while various improvements have been made in the social acceptance of the LGBTI community with certain statutory enactments aimed to help protect their rights and well-being, there remains the problem of discrimination, potentially due to the influence of Catholicism in the country. She cites Marty Huber’s theories that many politicians have Catholic Church traditions and values ‘culturally instilled in them’ and, Huber goes on to argue, ‘it would never have taken so long to abolish the laws against homosexuality had this influence not existed.’

Austrian trans singer Conchita Wurst (Thomas Neuwirth) won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014, which is seen as a testament of increasing LGBT support and acceptance. In the wake of her win at the contest, Austria’s Education Minister, Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek, instructed schools to ‘re-issue grade transcripts to transgender persons who have requested that they be identified by another sex’ in the hope to lessen the likelihood of discrimination when the transcripts are included in job applications.

The austriantimes.at unveiled statistics which showed that Austrian peoples’ views on the adoption of children by homosexual couples was more positive than most other European countries. However, Austria was below the EU average when it came to the question of living next door to homosexual persons: ‘Austria has 7.4 points on a scale from one to ten in that regard, compared to the EU average of 7.9 points.’

In the Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2013 compiled by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor it states that there was ‘some societal prejudice against LGBT persons; however, there were no reports of violence or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBT organizations generally operated freely (pg17-18).’ The same report also stated that according ‘to an EU Fundamental Rights Agency study, the situation of LGBT rights was “mediocre”’, but described Vienna as being at ‘the vanguard’ of LGBT rights.

The ‘Vienna – for gay travelers’ page of the ‘Austria: arrive and revive’ website promotes the city as a very welcoming and accepting destination for gay and lesbian people saying that ‘Vienna does not have a single predominantly gay and lesbian neighbourhood, the city has a quite lively and diverse gay and lesbian scene’ and not to ‘expect a large number of “gay only” places in Vienna, but rather an abundance of “gay friendly” and mixed places throughout town.’

We have not found any relevant case law at this time but welcome suggestions.