Following the resistance to the 1981 "venereal diseases" bill, the state largely halted the outright criminalization of male homosexuality, even though institutional discrimination remained firmly entrenched. In particular, Article 347 of the Penal Code (ασέλγεια παρά φύση) criminalized male sex workers and set an unequal age of consent for male same-sex sexual activity.

In 1977, the Konstantinos Karamanlis government drafted an infamous bill titled "On the Protection Against Venereal Diseases and Regulation of Related Matters" («Περί τῆς ἐξ ἀφροδισίων νόσων προστασίας καί ρυθμίσεως συναφῶν θεμάτων»). The proposed legislation was framed as a measure to combat sexually transmitted diseases, but simultaneously targeted sex workers, homosexual men, and trans individuals under the premise of public health, giving police authority to detain and forcibly examine marginalized groups, as well as authorizing forced exile or confinement to medical institutions for non-compliance or persistent "offenses" related to supposed public health threats.

In direct response to the 1977 draft, activists formed AKOE (Απελευθερωτικό Κίνημα Ομοφυλόφιλων Ελλάδας/Liberation Movement of Homosexuals of Greece), the first Greek LGBTQ+ organization. Its members organized public demonstrations and published the magazine "Amphi" (Αμφί) to campaign against state persecution under the guise of public health legislation.

On August 20th, 1981, despite the many years of fierce public debate surrounding the issue, the government of Georgios Rallis passed the controversial bill into law. However, merely two months after the law was published, the political landscape shifted dramatically when Andreas Papandreou won the October 1981 general elections. Due to the intense resistance organized around the bill and the change in government shortly after its passage, its most oppressive elements were largely left unenforced by the Papandreou administration. Over time, its discriminatory provisions were eventually repealed by modern health legislation.

Male homosexuality in Greece was decriminalized in 1951 by the new Penal Code, even though the police usually bypassed this development by arresting gay men under broad public indecency laws («προσβολὴ δημοσίας αἰδοῦς») up until the 1980s. Frequent sweeps were conducted in known cruising areas, with those caught being routinely detained and abused. Police blackmail was common, as was extortion by criminal elements who threatened to out victims to their families or employers.

Following the country's independence from the Ottoman Empire, the Penal Code of 1834 stipulated in Article 282 that anyone guilty of sodomy (παρὰ φύσιν ἀσέλγεια) shall be punished with at least one year imprisonment and police surveillance.

Lesbians were not mentioned or acknowledged in the Greek Penal Code of 1834.

The Penal Code of Revolutionary Greece (Ἀπάνθισμα τῶν Ἐγκληματικῶν; Collection of Criminal Offenses) criminalized men who engaged in same-sex practices (ἀρσενοκοῖται). However, for offenses considered to go against morality, the courts during the Greek Revolution did not apply the provisions of the Apanthisma, but rather the provisions of the Byzantine criminal law, the Basilika.

In Ottoman Greece (c. 1453–1830), same-sex practices were governed by a complex dynamic between Ottoman imperial law, Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia), Christian canon law, and local cultural norms. Since the Ottoman Empire operated under the millet system, legal jurisdiction depended on religious identity, resulting in distinct legal codes for each ethnoreligious group. Orthodox Greeks were legally subject to the Ecumenical Patriarch and local bishop courts for civil and moral offenses. If an offense was kept within the Christian community, Church authorities generally dealt with it without involving Ottoman officials, using the Byzantine civil code of Basilika and its shorter version, comprised of six books, the Hexabiblos. However, if a case posed a public scandal, Ottoman authorities could be brought in to enforce physical punishments.

Promulgated under Eastern Roman/Byzantine Emperor Leo VI around the year 892, the Basilika was a 60-book compilation written in Greek. It aimed to streamline and translate Byzantine Emperor Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis ("Body of Civil Law"; itself compiled between the years 529 and 534) from Latin. Like Justinian’s code, criminal provisions against same-sex relations were compiled primarily under the "Lex Julia de Adulteriis" (Book 60 of the Basilika). The code retained the death penalty for male same-sex sexual acts (stuprum masculorum or παιδεραστία) and preserved Justinian’s framing from Novels 77 and 141, defining male same-sex acts as offenses "against nature" (παρὰ φύσιν). Alongside execution, the code provided for the confiscation of property and civil disenfranchisement (ἀτιμία).

Similarly, compiled by the judge Constantine Harmenopoulos in 1345, the Hexabiblos was a legal handbook designed to simplify centuries of Byzantine statutory law into a reference guide. Because of its clarity, the Hexabiblos became the most widely used legal text in the Greek-speaking world, remaining influential throughout the Ottoman period and even serving as the provisional civil code of the modern Greek state up until 1834. Harmenopoulos retained the traditional prohibitions, listing male same-sex relations alongside severe sexual crimes like incest and rape. The handbook reiterated the statutory punishment of the death penalty, alongside alternative corporal punishments (such as severe flogging), depending on the circumstances of the offense.

Neither code explicitly addressed female same-sex acts with dedicated statutes; such conduct was dealt with primarily through ecclesiastical penances in Church canon law rather than civil court prosecution. Historical evidence suggests civil court prosecutions were in general relatively rare compared to church disciplinary actions. The legal thresholds required for conviction in civil courts were high, meaning many cases resulted in spiritual penance (ἐπιτίμια) issued by priests rather than state executions.

On December 22nd, 2015, the Hellenic Parliament voted with 193 votes (56 against and 51 abstentions), on a law which extended the cohabitation agreements (civil unions) to same-sex couples. The law was signed by the President and came into effect on December 24 of the same year.

While hailed as a massive victory, this extension left major legal gaps. The law explicitly excluded same-sex couples from jointly adopting children or fostering, while in case a same-sex couple raised children together, only the biological parent was recognized by law.

On March 22nd, 1982, Greece established civil marriage for the first time (prior to that point, religious weddings were the only legal form of marriage). When drafting the 1982 law, legislators wrote that a civil marriage was a contract between "two persons" (δύο πρόσωπα), rather than explicitly specifying a "man and a woman". In the 2000s, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups realized that under a strictly literal reading of the statute, nothing in the written civil law prohibited two men or two women from getting married. Taking advantage of this loophole, Anastasios Aliferis, the Mayor of the island of Tilos, with the support of the LGBTQ+ organization OLKE, agreed to perform the civil marriages of two same-sex couples on June 3rd, 2008. However, the government and senior prosecutors immediately intervened, declaring the marriages invalid, with the Court of First Instance of Rhodes annulling them in May 2009.

In April 2006, the President of the then official opposition party, PASOK, proposed to the Hellenic Parliament the legal recognition of both unmarried same-sex and heterosexual couples. However, this project was not accepted by the LGBTQ+ organizations of the time, because it prohibited the joint adoption of children. Eventually, the "cohabitation agreement" (σύμφωνο συμβίωσης), Greece's first legal non-marital partnership option, corresponding to what is internationally most commonly known as a "civil union", was instituted on November 26, 2008 by the then ruling party, New Democracy, but only available to heterosexual couples.

Even though the courts struck down the aforementioned Tilos marriages, the attempt itself was a strategic victory for the LGBTQ+ movement in Greece. It stripped away the government's ability to ignore the legal recognition of same-sex couples, thrusting the issue into mainstream political debate, while the married couples took their case to the European Court of Human Rights which held in 2013 that Greece’s 2008 cohabitation agreement law violated the European Convention on Human Rights by discriminating against same-sex couples. This international ruling forced Greece's hand, directly paving the way for the 2015 extension of the civil unions law.

Before civil marriages were introduced in 1982, the practice of mandatory religious wedding rites was in effect, which had been established by a decree of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Emperor Leo VI in the year 893 ('Marriages without sacred blessing shall not be valid'/'Μὴ ἐρρῶσθαι τὰ συνοικέσια ἄνευ τῆς ἱερᾶς εὐλογίας'). Since the Orthodox Church considers marriage to be exclusively a union between a man and a woman aimed at procreation, there was no legal mechanism to recognize same-sex unions, effectively banning them.

The Greek government through the NCRTV (National Council Radio and Television) has repeatedly censored LGBT issues largely on television. The last known incident was around 2015.

Until 2017, trans people in Greece had to obtain a medical diagnosis and surgery for legal gender recognition.

Law 4443/2016 offered protection against discrimination only in the work and employment sectors.

Many instances of discriminations against LGBT individuals are illegal. The only case where discrimination is not illegal is if it is done by public domain (of which the church is one.)

The Community/Union legislation (directive 2000/78) prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workspace. Later on it was transferred to the Greek legal order, with law 3304/2005, almost verbatim. The greek translation of the directive and the greek law referred to sexual orientation as “genetic orientation”.

Law 4538/2018 grants the right for couples to foster children. Individuals can adopt normally.

Until 2022, intersex infants were not protected from unnecessary genital surgery in Greece.

In 2005 any discriminatory potential references to LGB people were removed from the list of disqualifying conditions. However, transgender people are still barred from military service however because "gender identity disorders" are listed as disqualifying.

In 2002, language was added that prohibited people with "βαριές ψυχοσεξουαλικές διαταραχές" - translating to severe psychosexual disturbances/disorders - from serving in the military. Evidence of the enforcement of this provision is very limited.

In January 10, 2022 the Greek Minister of Health, Thanos Plevris, and the Deputy Minister of Health, Mina Gaga signed the determination of the content of the "Blood Donor History". In the new form, sexual orientation is disconnected from the criteria that must be met by prospective blood donors.

In order to donate blood, blood donors had to fill out a form called "Blood Donor History”, issued by the National Blood Donation Center, which stated that donating blood is prohibited for “anyone who had been in a homosexual relationship since 1977”

In May 10, 2022 the Greek Minister of Health, Thanos Plevris submitted an amendment to the bill for the “personal doctor”, based on article 1 of which institutes the prohibition of practical conversions to vulnerable individuals by professionals. With the term "professionals" the amendment defines those who receive remuneration to proceed with such "treatments", leaving a legal gap in practices e.g. of the Church, such as exorcism or other covert practices, which do not involve remuneration. Also, the term "vulnerable" means minors or those who are under legal assistance.
At the same time, the provision prohibits professionals from inviting, promoting or advertising conversion practices performed by themselves or other third parties, professionals or not.
Violation of the law in addition to the prescribed disciplinary and administrative sanctions, will be punished with imprisonment and a fine, while the repeated commission of the above act constitutes an aggravating circumstance.

Conversion Therapies for LGBT people are held openly in Greece with the tolerance of the state as well as the responsible associations of mental health specialists. Research on this issue indicates that such therapies involve spiritual or religious leaders, alternative healers (homeopaths, energy therapists, etc.) as well as health and mental health professionals.
Today, while some psychologists continue to use therapies such as disgust, the most commonly used techniques include a variety of behavioral, cognitive, psychoanalytic, and other practices that seek to change or reduce a person's same-sex attraction or gender identity. Lesser known but still active practices are beatings, sexual violence - even rape -, isolation, deprivation of food, electroshock, administration of drugs and other drugs, psychological violence, as well as exorcisms or other sessions.
The church is also promoting these therapies through the church-funded omofylofilia.gr site.

Article 347 of the Greek Criminal Code; which provides for a higher age of consent of 17, for seducing a male person if the male partner is over 18 and for lesbians and both male/female heterosexuals (regardless of close-in-age or not) and for only close-