Lydia Gall

Hungary’s new government has taken an important step toward dismantling a key discriminatory legacy of the Orbán era—the legal targeting of LGBT people. The job is not finished, however. The government submitted legislation to Parliament on September 14 to remove several provisions of the 2021 so-called “child protection” law that restrict the “portrayal” or “promotion” of sexual and gender diversity in content accessible to children. The proposed changes remove the restrictions from laws relating to child protection, media, advertising, and education. The reforms follow an April judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union finding that Hungary’s legal restrictions stigmatized and marginalized LGBT people […]

In another blow to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Hungary, on July 13, the Hungarian government proposed a bill that excludes transgender women from a women-only pension scheme. The bill is expected to go to parliament in September. The proposed bill comes on the heels of a court ruling on behalf of a transgender woman, obliging the local authority to recognize the plaintiff as a woman, making her eligible for the women-only pension benefit. The benefit is available to women who have worked 40 years but not yet reached retirement age.   The verdict caused a meltdown in Hungary’s […]