Ukraine is rewriting the rulebook for every job in the country, and LGBTQ+ workers are, for now, still in it.

A government draft of a brand-new Labour Code, meant to replace the one adopted back in 1971, cleared a key step this week. On September 25, parliament’s Committee on Social Policy and Protection of Veterans’ Rights recommended that the Verkhovna Rada adopt the draft (bill No. 16010) at first reading, and rejected a rival version (No. 16010-1), Interfax-Ukraine reported. Committee chair Halyna Tretyakova registered the draft resolution on September 28.

The headline for queer Ukrainians: the draft keeps the ban on discrimination at work based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The fight now is over whether it should go further.

What’s in the draft

The Cabinet registered the new code on September 2, 2026, LB.ua reported. It is a huge bill. It covers remote and home-based work, flexible hours, gig workers and clergy, raises annual paid leave from 24 to 28 days, and adds four months of paid parental leave usable until a child turns eight, per Interfax-Ukraine, which says the parental leave rules are built “on the principles of gender non-discrimination.”

Tucked inside all that, according to Kyiv human rights group ZMINA, the draft:

  • Keeps sexual orientation and gender identity on the list of protected grounds at work.
  • Moves that protection into Article 5, titled “Equality of labour rights. Prohibition of discrimination, mobbing, harassment.”
  • Adds pregnancy as a ground, and clarifies that protection covers people living with HIV.
  • Defines direct and indirect discrimination separately, so a “neutral” rule that hits one group hardest can count too.

That matters because a full rewrite is exactly the moment protections can quietly vanish. These ones didn’t.

A protection that’s older than you might think

Ukraine’s parliament added sexual orientation and gender identity to its labour law in 2015, “after many fierce debates,” ZMINA notes, and the protection has stayed on the books ever since.

Sviatoslav Sheremet, policy and legislation coordinator at Ukraine’s National LGBTI Consortium, told ZMINA: “Today, these norms have indeed reduced the level of discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people in the workplace.”

The ask: two traits become four

Here’s the gap activists want closed. As Sheremet put it: “while the state operates with two SOGI traits, the European Union recommends a new protection model – now based on four traits: sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics.”

In plain terms:

  • Gender expression is about how you present: clothes, hair, voice, mannerisms. Think of a femme guy or a butch woman being treated badly for how they look, whatever their identity.
  • Sex characteristics is the ground that protects intersex people, who are otherwise easy to leave out entirely.

The draft as submitted only lists the first two, so the Consortium’s push is aimed at the amendment stage, before a second reading. Interfax says the committee will collect amendments and proposals and revise the bill for that second reading.

Why this is an EU story, too

Ukraine is a candidate for EU membership, and ZMINA reports that the reform “is linked to bringing Ukrainian legislation closer to EU law.”

It’s not the only bill in play. Back in August 2025, a separate draft (No. 13597) proposed adding sexual orientation and gender identity to Ukraine’s general anti-discrimination law, which currently omits them. ZMINA’s legal analyst called it a possible step towards European standards that still needed work, including a longer list of protected grounds.

And it sits alongside the slower, harder fights we’ve covered before: courts recognising same-sex couples as family while parliament stalls, and a partnership bill that’s been stuck for years. Workplace protection is one of the few areas where Ukraine is holding the line rather than catching up.

What happens next

  • First reading: the full Verkhovna Rada votes on whether to adopt bill 16010 as a basis. No date has been published.
  • Amendments: if it passes, MPs and civil society get a window to propose changes. That’s where “gender expression” and “sex characteristics” would have to be added.
  • Second reading: the final text is voted on.

Until a new code is adopted and signed, the current Labour Code, including its 2015 protections, still applies.

For a country at war, rewriting labour law from scratch is a big deal. The good news is that queer workers weren’t written out. The open question is whether trans, nonbinary and intersex Ukrainians get fully written in.

Sources: Interfax-Ukraine; LB.ua; ZMINA; ZMINA analysis of draft law 13597; Erasing 76 Crimes. Photo: Artur Voznenko / Unsplash.