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Hungary pushes to end legal recognition of trans people

Hungary’s right-wing government continues to use emergency powers granted during the pandemic to further their anti-LGBT+ agenda.

In a move being described by independent MPs as ‘evil’ and ‘a step back in time’, Hungarian PM Orbán looks likely to drive legislation through his predominantly right-wing parliament that will end the legal recognition of trans people in Hungary. The bill will officially redefine gender as ‘biological sex based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes’.

Were this to move through parliament, it would make the process of legally changing your gender – already difficult in Hungary – an impossibility.

This announcement comes soon after Orbán’s adoption of legislation allowing him to rule by decree in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. It confirms many Hungarians’ fear that the anti-immigration PM wouldn’t waste the opportunity to wave through controversial and completely non-COVID related legislation.

Ivett Ördög, a 39-year-old trans woman living in Budapest, went some way to explain the trauma this new bill would bring on the trans community to The Guardian, stating that ‘In Hungary, you need to show your ID to rent a bike, buy a bus pass or to pick up a package at the post office. It basically means coming out as trans to complete strangers, all the time.’

Orban is far from being fascist

The law could unpick the years of time, money, and emotional labour that many have put into transitioning by targeting people who have already made a legal change and now live with a gender that does not match their ‘sex at birth’, which is the planned new gender category on all official documents. In the face of this blatant rights-stripping, many members of the Hungarian LGBT+ community will be forced to leave the country if they wish to either begin a transition or continue to live as a trans person.

Whilst it will be possible for people to change their names under the new legislation, in Hungary there is an official register of ‘permitted’ names created by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, that is divided by gender, with no unisex names available. This means if sex categories are changed to chromosome assignments, there’s no legal way for a trans person to change their name to something that doesn’t out them.

Legal experts say that the new law is in direct violation of European human rights case law, leaving it open to challenge from both the Hungarian Supreme Court and the European sour of human rights. During a hearing in the country’s parliamentary judicial committee, Bernadett Szél, an independent MP, tried to read out a letter from trans people explaining how harmful the law would be for them, but was told by the committee supposedly neutral chair that the letter was ‘not relevant.’

Szél Bernadett előadását letiltották a Corvinuson – Zoom.hu

For those who’ve been following the progress of the political climate in Eastern Europe for the past few years this decision, whilst harrowing, is hardly surprising. Populism has been growing in this corner of Europe for some time now in response to increased migration of the Islamic community from the East and increased anti-EU sentiment. Orbán’s Fidesz party rose to power in 2018 on a protectionist, nationalist platform propped up by anti-migrant and anti-Semitic rhetoric that was openly hostile towards the LGBT+ community from the outset, supposedly touting a return to ‘conservative’ values.

The Fidesz party has, in the past two years, moved from generic language about traditional values and the benefits of heterosexual marriage to openly discriminatory language, acknowledging such classics as comparing homosexuality to paedophilia. Whilst the procedure for legally changing your gender was fairly straightforward up until 2018, Orbán’s government has been more and more reluctant to give trans people the green light, creating a massive backlog of people waiting to have their gender change approved. All of these claims would be automatically rejected under the new law.

Orbán’s blatant manipulation of the coronavirus pandemic for his own ends has been widely condemned. According to Szél, ‘We have a pandemic going on and all of us should be focusing on two things: healthcare issues and helping people financially to secure their wellbeing. What is happening in Hungary is a scandal.’

It is not clear when the bill will be put to a vote, but observers say its passage through committees suggests the government is pushing ahead with it.

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