We Keep LGBTQ+ Women & Girls Up-To-Date
The Hungarian Parliament has passed a bill that bans discussions on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The legislation is the latest in a string of troubling policies championed by Viktor Orban, who has previously railed against LGBTQ+ people.
Viktor Orban
Hungary’s new pedophilia law bans discussion of LGBTQ issues.
It bans content “promoting” or “portraying” sexual and gender diversity.
The law enables “stricter action against pedophile offenders and the protection of children” by banning the “portrayal and the promotion of gender identity different from sex at birth, the change of sex, and homosexuality,” aimed at minors.
This law could have winding effects on many people from teachers, health providers, artists, and others as Hungary's new law introduces provisions into the Child Protection Act, the Act on Business Advertising Activity, the Media Act, the Family Protection Act, and the Public Education Act.
Thus, one provision defines “family relations” as “based on parent-child relations where the mother is a woman, the father is a man.”
And another provision aimed at “ensuring the right of children to an identity in line with their sex at birth.”
Neela Ghoshal
“Hungary’s ruling party is cynically deploying a ‘protection of children’ narrative to trample on rights and try to render LGBT people invisible,” said Neela Ghoshal, associate LGBTQ rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Children do not need to be protected from exposure to diversity. On the contrary, LGBT children and families need protection from discrimination and violence.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has introduced a new law that violates international legal obligations, including the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
As the European Convention on Human Rights states, “the right to privacy is required to be guaranteed against all such interferences and attacks whether they emanate from State authorities or from natural or legal persons.”
The European Court of Human Rights confirmed that elements such as gender identification and sexual orientation are important aspects of the right to privacy.
The vast majority of countries in the European Union have already ratified international treaties that obligate them to provide nondiscrimination protections, as well as undertaking measures against hate crimes.
Mark Rutte
After Hungary’s new law was approved, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said “Hungary has no place in the EU anymore.”
He added: “But, unfortunately, in the system that we have, I can’t do it on my own, but [with] 26 other member states saying: ‘you have to leave. This has to happen step by step and, in the meantime, you hope that they will adapt.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (pictured above) denounced the bill earlier this week.
She said it “clearly discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
She added: “It goes against all the values, the fundamental values of the European Union, and this is human dignity, it is equality, and is the human fundamental rights.”
The Hungarian Prime Minister has scapegoated LGBTQ+ people and immigrants to divert attention away from Hungary’s obligations. Though he is up for reelection in 2022, Orban’s Fidesz party promotes a Christian-Conservative agenda to satisfy his political base.
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