Tag: lgbt rights movement

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World News LGBTQIA+ Coronavirus The World

Hungary is using the pandemic to end recognition of its transgender community

[Image Description: Two people are walking in a pride parade, with their back towards the camera. One of them is wearing a pride flag as a cape] Via Unsplash
[Image Description: Two people are walking in a pride parade, with their back towards the camera. One of them is wearing a pride flag as a cape] Via Unsplash

The government of Hungary has long held an anti-LGBTQIA+ ideology, and the COVID-19  pandemic has provided them the perfect opportunity to get away with erasing the trans community.

Last Tuesday (May 19th), the Hungarian parliament approved a law that ends the legal recognition of trans people. It stipulates that gender is defined at birth, based on a child’s chromosomes, therefore banning trans people from changing their name and gender in any official documentation.

The Hungarian government is using its power to take away people’s rights when it should be protecting its people from the pandemic. That is highly irregular and unethical. Nonetheless, it’s legal. And it’s happening.

On the 31st of March (Day of Trans Visibility), the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán obtained the power to rule by decree and suspend elections, in light of the COVID-19 crisis. That same day the PM’s party introduced a controversial set of measures presumably aimed at fighting coronavirus. Among them was a draft law that stipulated that official documents only register “sex at birth”.

 The pandemic has provided the perfect distraction for the government.

Orbán’s new power of ruling by decree, and the announcement of jail time for anyone who intentionally spread disinformation about the government’s response to the crisis eclipsed the policy change regarding trans rights. It buried it, under other political debates and a sanitary crisis.

European politicians and institutions (including the EU), human rights organizations, and international LGBTQIA+ associations all opposed the draft bill, with no success.

The news of this bill has shocked the Hungarian trans community. Ivett Ördög, a Hungarian trans activist, said that the passing of the law is “a tragedy” and has been very honest about its impact on the LGBTQIA+ community: “I struggled not to moan myself while trying to chat online with my peers who were just considering suicide”.

The Fidesz party, which has been in power in Hungary for the last 10 years, has long held an anti-LGTBQIA+ agenda. The Prime Minister himself made “traditional family values” the basis of his 2018 re-election campaign and promised to “build a new era” with major cultural changes.

Last year, the party’s Parliament speaker equated gay adoption with pedophilia. Moreover, in 2018 the Hungarian government faced severe criticism from the European Union after closing all gender studies courses that were offered by Hungarian universities.

In fact, trans people have had trouble changing their legal sex since 2017, and there are several court cases underway in relation to this situation. All of these cases and applications for name changes will now be rejected. Moreover, since the new documentation will show ‘sex at birth’ people fear that it will also affect trans people who have already had their gender and names officially changed.

Despite the country’s rigid LGTBQIA+ policies, during the past decade, the country was talking slow steps towards meeting the community’s demands. It is devastating news that a community that has fought so hard and has succeeded in obtaining the legal recognition of their own rights now has to see their identity questioned and even denied.

Homosexuality (above the age of 20) was decriminalized in 1961. Moreover, the Budapest Pride, first held in 1997, was the first Pride that took place in a country from the former Eastern Bloc.  However, it was only in 2003, that the Act on Equal Treatment and the Promotion of Equal Opportunities banned discrimination based on gender identity. Same-sex couples were allowed to register for civil partnerships in 2009, although they are still unable to marry or adopt. Moreover, the right of trans people to change their legal gender was only accepted three years ago.

It has not been a steady fight, and there have been ups and downs. During the 2014 Pride, the political party Jobbik displayed a banner that read “The Parliament Does Not Want Any Deviants” and verbally abused attendees. This weeks’ law is one of the biggest pushbacks to date.

Legal recognition is fundamental because it demonstrates the state’s acceptance of an individual. If a state won´t even recognize the existence of trans people, it will be unable to guarantee their safety, or treat them as citizens of the country.

Ivett has been honest about the problems that she has faced because her gender did not match that assigned to her in the registry. She has issues trying to pick up packets in the mail or even medicines “because the pharmacist didn’t believe me that my name was on the prescription”. Her roughest case was however when someone “challenged me to the police because they thought I wanted to misuse someone’s documents.”

The Hungarian government is taking advantage of the fear of the population and their concern for their health in order to pass a piece of legislation that, in order circumstances, might have faced much stronger opposition. They are using the distraction that the pandemic provides, and the powers that they have obtained by declaring the state of emergency, to push their own anti-LGTBQ+ agenda. In doing so, they are also creating a dangerous precedent.

The passing of this law makes Hungary the first EU country to take away transgender rights. Will other countries decide to follow?

Hungary might become a dangerous precedent.

LGBTQIA+ people have their lives already threatened by COVID-19. A United Nations report establishes that the LGBTQIA+ community is more likely to be HIV+ or homeless, two factors that greatly increased a person’s vulnerability to the virus. Moreover, members of this community already experience stigma and discrimination when accessing health services and are more likely to be de-prioritized in the case of an overloaded health system.

Moreover, the UN has established that there are “reports of police using COVID-19 directives to attack and target LGBTI organizations”. Moreover, the report states that “in at least one country, the State of Emergency has been used to propose a decree that would prevent transgender people from legally changing their gender in identity documents”, probably referring to Hungary.

South Korea, for example, has reported a marked increase in online threats and discrimination against LGBT people who are being unfairly accused of spreading Covid-19, despite the pandemic there being much more under control.

If a country opposes the existence of a community, how can we expect it to protect it from a virus? The Hungarian government’s decision does not only attack trans people’s rights but also their lives.

We are living through critical times. However, we mustn´t let the medical emergency distract us from defending the rights that have been so hard to obtain. Human rights and the lives of people like Ivette are at risk.

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USA LGBTQIA+ Gender Policy Inequality

Never forget that the first-ever Pride was a riot against police brutality

[Image description: Marsha P. Johnson wears a flower crown and smiles into the camera.] via The Marsha P. Johnson Institute
[Image description: Marsha P. Johnson wears a flower crown and smiles into the camera.] via The Marsha P. Johnson Institute

Pride Month is a time of celebration for the queer community.

While the joy of Pride might still be struggling to gain a foothold in some places, in most major cities across the United States this month will be marked with parades and parties. Brands are rolling out rainbow-stamped merchandise and sponsoring parade floats. But Pride isn’t just a time of revelry; it’s also a time of remembrance.

We celebrate Pride in the month of June because it marks the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

In 1969, queer life was decidedly not something that could be celebrated by mainstream culture. Police regularly raided gay nightclubs, arresting people who were wearing clothing that didn’t conform to their assigned gender or were suspected of “soliciting” same-sex relations. Up until 1966, the New York State Liquor Authority would shut down or otherwise punish bars that sold alcohol to members of the LGBTQ+ community, arguing that a group of queer people was somehow inherently more disorderly than a group of straight people.

In 1969, homosexual acts–kissing, holding hands, dancing together–were still illegal in New York. So on the night of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar that is still open in Greenwich Village. 

In 1969, queer life was decidedly not something celebrated by mainstream culture.


Stonewall was one of the few bars that welcomed drag queens, who were often shunned from other LGBT spaces.

The police started arresting bar patrons and employees who were violating the law about gender-appropriate clothing. When an officer clubbed a Black lesbian named Stormé DeLarverie over the head for complaining that her handcuffs were too tight, the crowd that had gathered outside the club had enough.

Marsha P. Johnson, a Black drag queen, and Sylvia Rivera, a Latinx queen, were two of the first to actively resist the police that night, throwing bricks, bottles, and shot glasses at officers. Their actions sparked six days of riots in the neighborhood surrounding the Stonewall Inn and galvanized the nascent gay rights movement in the United States.

Johnson and Rivera later started Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR,) an organization dedicated to serving young, homeless drag queens and trans women of color. Sadly, today queer people of color and especially trans and gender nonconforming people of color continue to be the most vulnerable members of the queer community, despite the fact that we have Johnson and Rivera to thank for so much of our achievements since 1969.

Transgender people of color face the highest rates of violent crime.


Today, 60% of the victims of anti-LGBTQ violence and anti-HIV crimes are people of color, despite the fact that people of color make up only 38% of the U.S. population. Likewise, while only about 3.5% of the U.S. population is composed of undocumented immigrants, they made up 17% of the victims in this study. It’s hard to get definite numbers on hate crimes, so there is certainly a margin for error in these numbers, but the trends here are clear and disturbing. 

Despite the rising acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community in many parts of the country, rates of homicide against our community are also rising. And as you may have guessed by now, those rates are especially high for trans and queer people of color. Transgender people of color face the highest rates of violent crime of all queer people. The majority of victims of anti-LGBTQ violence said that police were “hostile” or “indifferent” when they reported the crimes.

As a result, many choose not to report, so the numbers are likely worse than we know.

While we have achieved marriage equality, other legal battles still remain. So far, only two states–California and Illinois– have banned the use of the “gay panic defense” in court. Essentially, the gay panic defense is used when someone has committed violence against a queer person because that queer person’s alleged sexual advances made the perpetrator so scared they lashed out.

While we have achieved marriage equality, other legal battles still remain.


Some people argue that the defense is uncommon and unlikely to succeed, so banning it is unnecessary, but one study found that it has been used in about half of U.S. states, with a mixed record of success–a man in Texas was acquitted of murder based on his lawyer’s successful use of the gay panic defense. More importantly, though, advocates for the ban argue that it is important not to allow queer identity to ever be sufficient cause for violence.

That seems especially important amid the increasing rates of homicide against queer and trans people.

In 28 states, it is still legal to fire someone based on their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

Since there are no federal anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, there are limited ways for people in those states to fight back.

Likewise, 28 states have no protections for the queer community against housing discrimination. Three of those states (North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas) have even passed state laws that block local governments from enacting housing protections for LGBTQ+ people. About 50% of queer Americans live in states that lack these kinds of protections.

And despite our gains in recent years, the rollout of “religious exemption” bills in states controlled by Republican lawmakers threaten our access to all kinds of services and rights, from adopting kids to receiving medical care.

I love celebrating Pride. As an introvert, it can feel like I save up all my energy for socializing to expend it this month at parades, demonstrations, drag shows, and dance parties. But now is a time to not only remember, but also revive Pride’s revolutionary roots.

Our rights and our very lives are still under attack, and the most vulnerable members of our community need not only solidarity but action.