Hello, Everyone!
My name is Dorottya Rédai, I work for Labrisz Lesbian Association and I'm the leader of the project A Fairytale for Everyone First of all, on behalf of LGBTQIA organisations, I would like to thank you for standing up for LGBTQIA people. Thank you for protesting against the ban on the Pride. Thank you for standing with us for years when the regime attacks us. Freedom of speech must be exercised, even when the government won’t listen to us, or when the police try to control who can hear our voices.
Banning the Pride is a gross restriction on the fundamental right to free assembly. Therefore, this law amendment goes beyond the Pride. However, at the same time, it is very much about keeping LGBTQIA people out of public sight. All authoritarian regimes operate on the principle of ‘divide and rule’. Every such system picks vulnerable minority groups against whom the majority is agitated. Since the Fidesz-KDNP takeover in 2010, the systematic discrimination and exclusion of LGBTQIA people is not a rubber bullet, not a distraction from the more important issues, but a solid pillar of the system.
The rights of LGBTQIA people always reflect how democratic a country is. Where there is democracy, the system is gradually moving towards the full equality of rights. Where there is authoritarianism, or where a former democracy is moving towards it, LGBTQIA rights either did not exist in the first place or are gradually being taken away. Fidesz-KDNP started this work immediately after coming to power in 2010. The government, whose members keep saying that being gay is a private matter, is systematically meddling in our deepest private matters.
Here is how they have deliberately built a system of disenfranchisement of LGBTQIA people, step by step.
April 2011: the National Assembly adopts a new Fundamental Law, which enshrines a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
December 2011: a new Family Protection Act is passed, with an exclusionary definition of family. Later, the exclusionary definition of family is also written into the Constitution.
2012-13: the National Core Curriculum is reformed, all contents that refer to gender being a social constitution and to the existence of LGBTQIA people are erased, word by word.
February 2013: the new Civil Code is adopted, which no longer allows same-sex partners to adopt each other's children.
2015: Hungary vetoes a draft regulation of the Council of Europe to regulate the property rights of married couples and registered partners of different nationalities.
March 2016: Hungary is the only country to reject the European Commission's LGBTQI Action Plan.
May 2016: the Government submits a bill to Parliament to empty registered partnership of the rights granted to same-sex couples. The proposal is eventually withdrawn.
May 2019: Speaker of the House László Kövér draws a parallel between paedophiles and same-sex couples raising children, adding that “normal homosexuals” prefer to conform, not seek equality.
May 2020: legal gender recognition for trans and intersex people is abolished.
October 2020: after the publication of A Fairytale for Everyone by Labrisz, Viktor Orbán says in a radio speech that gays are dangerous for children. This sets the stage for attacks on LGBTQIA people in the coming years.
November 2020: the Equal Treatment Authority, which is particularly important in protecting the rights of LGBTQIA people, is abolished.
December 2020: a stigmatising amendment to the Fundamental Law (“the mother is a woman, the father is a man”) is passed, and it is made into law that children can only be adopted by married (i.e. straight) couples.
June 2021: the so-called “Child Protection Act” is passed, which bans all products, advertising and media content featuring gay or transgender people and all school programmes that they believe “promote homosexuality and transgenderism”. However, this law does not include provisions to protect children from sexual violence in the family, schools or church institutions, nor does it include resources for the prevention or treatment of victims of child abuse.
August 2021: The “Foil Order” is implemented, which prescribes that bookshops can only sell children's and youth books with LGBTQIA characters wrapped in plastic foil, separated from other books, and they cannot be displayed in a shop window and cannot be sold within 200 metres of schools and churches.
April 2022: a homophobic and transphobic referendum is held on the same day as the general elections. LGBTQIA people, and transgender people in particular, are being vilified as part of Fidesz-KDNP’s election campaign.
April 2024: the Foil Order is further tightened. Now publishers are obliged to declare to book distributors any LGBTQI content in the books they are publishing.
March 2025: Pride is banned, ostensibly on the grounds of child protection.
What’s next?
There is the coming umpteenth amendment to the Fundamental Law, under which transgender and intersex people will legally cease to exist. That is, the government is declaring that about 100,000 transgender and 50,000 intersex citizens no longer exist. Can you imagine how that must make them feel?
And to ensure that trans and intersex people have no legal means of proving discrimination against them, ‘gender identity’ will be removed from the protected categories listed in the Equal Treatment Act.
And to ensure that LGBTQIA people – and other oppressed minorities as well – have no advocacy, they are also working to destroy advocacy NGOs.
Well, that's why we go to Pride. To protest.
Surely you can see now what our problem is with opinion leaders talking about rubber bullets. In Hungary, the life of 500,000 to 1 million people has been made miserable by the government's homophobia and transphobia.
This regime will certainly be consigned to the dustbin of history one day. However, this fact is not helping us today. What will help is real solidarity. We know history. The methods, the means are not the same, but the fascist ideology, the abuse of power, the disregard for the people are. Let’s not let it happen again, let not hatred and exclusion be the basis for the functioning of the state. Stand with us even if you are not an LGBTQIA person. If we stand together, not only at demonstrations but also in our everyday lives, we will form such a strong social fabric that cannot be cut by the acidic scissors of power. Fear not, come with us!
You can watch and listen to the speech here: https://www.facebook.com/LabriszEgyesulet/videos/635175075943152
Magyar 
English (UK) 