Hungary wishes to prohibit the registration of the sex change in the civil status. A bill was submitted to parliament this week by the government of the sovereignist Prime Minister Viktor Orban. It aims to define gender by "biological sex based on birth and the genome". Transgender and transsexual people, whether operated or not, would no longer be authorized to request a change of sex from the civil status, as is currently the case.
This legislative amendment was tabled the day after the adoption, on Monday by Parliament, of a law ensuring Viktor Orban almost unlimited powers under the state of emergency established to fight against the coronavirus. The date and procedures for examining the new text are not known.
Reform criticized
"It is appalling that the government is taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to try to ban legal recognition of the genre," said Tamas Dombos, member of the board of directors of the Hungarian LGBT Alliance. "Such a measure would force trans people to live with documents that do not correspond to their true identity and their appearance," he regrets. "This exposes them to potential discrimination in terms of administration, employment, housing, access to goods and services."
For her part, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, said on Thursday that the bill was "contrary to European legal standards". "Transgender people have the right to legal recognition of their sex on the basis of self-determination," she said in a statement.
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- Viktor Orban
- World
- Transgender
- Hungary
- Civil status
- Kind