The fight against Coronavirus is the used excuse, and Viktor Orban gets full powers to fight the invisible enemy, but apparently, in his plans there would be much more.
In recent years, Hungary has repeatedly seen episodes of homophobia and racism because of the extremist drift fomented by President Orban and his party.
Last Monday, however, the Hungarian parliament agreed to extend Orban’s already strong powers by granting him the right to rule by decree indefinitely. What does it mean? Well. It means that the Hungarian president will be able to make decisions on his own without needing or having to consult other legislators.
Orban is not alone in his insane battle against human rights: if on Monday morning his powers had already become untouchable, in the afternoon his deputy Zsolt Semjén – not missing this chance – presented a new bill which, if approved, will replace “gender” with “sex at birth” on all legal documents that will be issued in Hungary.
Since President Orban has been in power, Hungary has not been new to racism, xenophobia, homo-transphobia and anti-Semitism. And now, the effect of this extension of powers is that Hungarian citizens will no longer be able to legally change their gender on documents if this bill passes. This would obviously be a significant blow to Eastern Europe’s already weak LGBT+ rights.
The Bill
The explanatory memorandum of the bill states that the current legislation does not define “gender” as a choice but only according to what is biologically determined when a person is born, adding: “The gender entered in the civil registry is based on facts determined by doctors, declared by the registry. Given that completely changing one’s biological gender is impossible, it is necessary to lay it down in law that it cannot be changed in the civil registry either.”
Practically, since all data of Hungarian official documents (driving licenses, identity cards, passports, etc.) are taken from the civil registry, once the legal modification of some data present in it is impossible, such as the gender, it will be impossible for trans and non-binary people of Hungary to live freely.
