12 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; moreover, Albania was a signatory to the 2007 UN Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.

[7] The People's Socialist Republic of Albania penalized same-sex sexual intercourse with long prison terms, bullying and ostracism.

[12] Igli Totozani, the then People's Advocate, announced in October 2013 that he would be drafting a bill for parliament to debate on changes to the family code that would allow for same-sex marriage to be introduced.

[14] On 4 February 2010, the Albanian Parliament unanimously adopted a comprehensive anti-discrimination law which bans discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

[16] According to Xheni Karaj and Kristi Pinderi, leaders of these organizations, the LGBT community "has lost its trust in the institution due to its slow work, raise of the deliberate bureaucratic impediments and its prolonged process of investigation without providing an explanation or a substantial argument".

[19] In June 2016, the government of Albania passed the National Action Plan for LGBTI that would address bullying and LGBT discrimation in primary and secondary education with lectures and other activities.

[20] The Albanian Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth expressed that in accordance to the plan, it would work with LGBT activists to fight discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation.

[22][23][24][25] In response to the controversy, the Ministry of Education and Sports issued a statement on 23 March 2018, stating that contrary to media reports, it was aware of these lectures and that they were conducted in the framework of the LGBTI National Action Plan which among other things aims to combat stereotypes based on sexual orientation.

[27] It envisions a free, open and equal Albanian society that embraces diversity and is inclusive of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

Xheni Karaj, this NGO's current director, spoke in an Ankara meeting held in March 2013 as being the first out lesbian activist in Albania.

This organization co-funded by activist Kristi Pinderi who is a journalist in profession, launched in 2012 the human rights news portal "My Story" (historiaime.al), which has become the main source in Albania for LGBT issues.

[28] In December 2010, the Deputy Commission for Labour, Social Affairs and Health, Tritan Shehu, declared that "homosexuality should be treated by medical staff as hormonal disorder, as well as psychological".

On 19 August 2009, when ex-premier Berisha heralded a new law on anti-discrimination which would confer legal recognition and protection for the human rights of LGBTI people in Albania, religious organizations reacted en masse against the proposal.

On 20 January 2016, the leaders of faith-based organizations, united to call upon the government and parliament to prohibit same-sex marriages to "protect the family from destruction".

Under strong pressure from religious leaders, and contrary to promises that sexual orientation and gender identity would be included in the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination, members of parliament removed it from Article 18 of the Constitution at the last moment.

Additionally, Albanian respondents were more likely to disagree than those from most neighboring Balkan countries, including North Macedonia (69.4% to 18.4%), Serbia (75.1% to 8.7%), Montenegro (65.8% to 12.1%), Kosovo (64.9% to 18.5%) and Bosnia (74.3% to 9.2%), while Croatia was comparable (50.3% to 20.4%).

Among the Albanians, factors associated with homophobia included being male, being politically conservative, and being religious (although no difference was detected between Catholics and Muslims, while there were not many representatives of other groups except for atheists in the survey).

[40] According to the results of a 2015 Balkan poll by the National Democratic Institute only 6% of the Albanians would support their child completely if they found out they there were LGBT and that figure drops to 3% if it was their friend/acquaintance/colleague.