Last Updated on May 19, 2020
In a groundbreaking vote, garnering international attention, Hungary has used the coronavirus epidemic to end the “legal recognition” of transgender individuals.
The legislation will make it impossible for anybody to change their gender on legal documentation–in a move slammed for its erasure of transgender individuals.
The controversial Article 33 brought in sweeping reforms under the guise of direct action in tackling the global pandemic.
International activist groups have decried the decision. Hungary’s Amnesty International Researcher Krisztina Tamás-Sáróy said:
“This decision pushes Hungary back towards the dark ages and tramples the rights of transgender and intersex people. It will not only expose them to further discrimination but will also deepen an already intolerant and hostile environment faced by the LGBTI community.
“It is critical for Hungary’s Commissioner for Fundamental Rights to act urgently and request that the Constitutional Court review and swiftly annuls the appalling provisions of this law.
“Everyone’s gender identity should be legally recognised and everyone must be allowed to change their legal name and gender markers on all official documents.”
At the national registry and identification documents, instead of an option of “sex” an option for “sex assigned at birth” will be available.
National File reported before the proposition:
The amendment would recognize “sex at birth,” making it impossible to change ones gender throughout the course of their life.
On the proposed draft law, Human Rights Watch wrote:
The proposed amendment to the Registry Act would include a clarification regarding the word “nem,” which in Hungarian can mean both “sex” and “gender,” to specifically refer to the sex at birth (“szuletesi nem”) as “biological sex based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes.” According to the draft bill, the birth sex, once recorded, cannot be amended.
This attack on a vulnerable minority group comes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when, instead of focusing on ways to protect public health from the virus, the government used the crisis as a pretext to grab unlimited and indefinite power by proclaiming a state of emergency, enabling it to rule by decree.
The amendment also seeks to fight the coronavirus pandemic, by tackling disinformation which may hamper the government’s response–which has drawn international criticism.
According to Forbes, Hungary’s rationale behind the decision–sealed in a 134-56 vote–was that “completely changing one’s biological sex is impossible” and why “it is necessary to lay it down in law that it cannot be changed in the civil registry either.”
Hungary also gained notoriety for banning gender sciences at their universities.
Moreover, neoliberals bashed Hungary’s pro-family policies encouraging an organic rise in birth rates through incentivizing large families at a time when other Western countries rely on third world immigration to prop up their otherwise negative population growth.
