“We will not be discouraged or frightened”: the fighting of the LGBTQ+ Hungary community for the right to march in pride | Hungary

MIncure with a pink, white and blue transgender flag, Corvus met with thousands of others in a central square in Budapest this week. The twenty year old started passing last August but cannot change their kind or name Legally in Hungary, where an authoritarian right government is repressing LGBTQ+rights.

However, Corvus did not ask for a review of the transgender policy or something particularly radical. They were simply asking for the right to be able to take part in a parade of pride. “The government wants to silence our voice and deny our existence,” they said. “They won’t succeed.”

On March 18, the Parliament of Hungary, in which a Christian conservative coalition controlled by the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has a majority of two thirds, voted for A new restriction on the right to the Assembly, which is seen as a brazen target of Budapest pride. Based on a controversial law of the “protection of minors” of 2021, which prohibits the “promotion” of homosexuality for people under the age of 18, prohibits events that are seen how to do it.

It also allows the police to use facial recognition in an attempt to pursue those who ignore it. The law should come into force in mid -April.

The legislation aroused indignation and protest. In the Hungarian community LGBTQ+, some want to fight, while others are nervous, even making plans to leave the country. Everyone agrees that the ban is a warning sign.

“We will be on the streets somehow on July 28 (the pride of the day he would be held),” said Jojo Majercsik, spokesman for Budapest pride. “We will not be discouraged or frightened.”

According to the NGO for human rights, the Union of Civil Liberties Hungarian (Tasz), there are little possibilities that the authorities judge pride in line with the new law. If it still goes on, “those who organize it and those who participate will be held responsible for a crime”, said Szabolcs Hegyi, a lawyer of the organization. A fine between £ 12 and £ 415 can be expected, which will be able to appeal. Hegyi still urges people to consider participation.

According to estimates, tens of thousands have taken part in the events of Budapest pride in past years. The organizers say that despite the indignation – perhaps for this reason – they expect an even greater turnout this year, its 30th anniversary.

“This new law has shown how vulnerable our rights are,” said Krisztián Márton, 35 years old, gay writer. His awarded autobiographical novel, CrybabyIt was recently removed from the shelves in a book festival due to the legislation that put out of the promotion of homosexuality.

“I could be prohibited by writing. It would be horrible for me, but the real victims would be the LGBTQ+youth, which he could not access books in which they could see their stories and find comfort, “he said.

When he was growing in the 90s in Szeged, a university city in the south of the country, Márton said that the future “seemed confident. We believed that we would reach the West”.

Hungary has legalized civil partnerships for homosexual couples in 2009. During 2010, the participants in Budapest Pride faced “less cords or counter-maris”.

But in 2020, the government banned gender legal change and modified the Constitution to affirm that “the mother is a woman, her father is a man”, effectively prohibiting adoption for LGBTQ+people.

“The public mood was so depressing and hopeless for so long that we retired and resigned to being passive victims,” ​​said Márton. The new law pushed him to a more vocal dissent, he added: “This passage has awakened a civic thrust in me”.

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He hit Lili Janca, 30 years old, and his girlfriend, Laurka Lanczki, 26, very hard. So hard now they are thinking of leaving the country.

“We have already talked about moving abroad,” said Janca, an intermediate artist. “And this was the point of no return.” The couple was together for almost nine years. One day they would like to have children, which is not a possibility in Hungary.

The couple had never been physically attacked, but lived under “constant pressure”, said Janca.

“It is not just about pride or right to assembly. This means that they can do what they want,” added Lanczki, a content creator. “In me, there is sadness, fear and anger.”

At the protest on Tuesday, organized by the independent deputy ákos Hadházy, people not only gathered for the pride of Budapest. Democracy and the rule of law were in the minds and stringent of many.

“I’ve never been to Budapest Pride, but I think it is normal that people want to show their identity,” said Judit, 75 years old. He participated in underground protests in the Soviet era and says he is sorry for young people.

“I think it has never been so bad,” he said. “Our youth was at least full of hope that things would go better.”