In Hungary, we want trans visibility. But not the kind that the Hungarian parliament imposed on us in 2020 when it banned legal gender recognition for trans and intersex people. Instead of erasing trans people – as the government originally intended – we have been forced to come out.
The new law replaced the term “sex” with “sex assigned at birth” in the Civil Registry Document, which is the basis for all legal documents in Hungary, making it impossible for trans and intersex people to change their documents in alignment with their name and gender identity. It was the first law passed during the Covid-19 pandemic after the government granted itself ‘extra rights’ to “react to the catastrophic situation” – despite the Hungarian constitution considering gender recognition a fundamental right.
This February, Hungary’s constitutional court issued a ruling that blocks new applications from transgender people for legal gender recognition (applications from before 29 May 2020 are still valid). In the UK, the Equality and Human Rights Commission proposed a similar move to redefine ‘sex’ as ‘biological sex’, in a letter to the government in April.
