press release
Almost two years after the suspension of gender and name change requests, Parliament has passed a bill that prohibits the legal gender recognition of transgender people. Although the European Parliament, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other international players opposed the bill, the Government did not refrain from introducing a law violating a constitutional fundamental right. LGBTI organizations have now turned to the President of the Republic asking him to send the law for review to the Constitutional Court.
The Hungarian National Blood Transfusion Service has published that as of January 1, 2020, men who have sex with men (MSM) are allowed to donate blood, unless their sexual behavior is otherwise risky. The new regulation puts an end to decades of discrimination against gay and bisexual men.
22 months after the suspension of gender and name change requests, the government would now prohibit legal gender recognition of transgender people.
The Equal Treatment Authority imposed a 3,000 EUR fine on the Mayor’s Office of Budapest for blocking access to LGBTQI websites from its local network. The Authority found that this conduct harmed not only the organizations whose websites had been blocked, but also the whole LGBTQI community.
The lack of legislation on legal gender recognition and related name change for foreigners permanently residing in the country is unconstitutional – ruled the Hungarian Constitutional Court. The petitioner, an Iranian trans man was represented by the legal aid service of Háttér Society.
The banning of an LGBTQI roundtable in April 2016 by the University of Debrecen and its subsidiary amounted to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity - decided the Equal Treatment Authority, and imposed a fine of 100.000 HUF on the University.
Same-sex marriages conducted abroad have to be recognized in Hungary as registered partnerships - says in a binding decision the Regional Court of Budapest. The case was launched by an American-Hungarian lesbian couple, whose Belgian marriage the Hungarian authorities would not register. Háttér Society provided legal representation to the couple.
A recently published report of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights found that the Hungarian authorities’ decision to reject the application of a woman living with her same-sex partner to adopt a 16-month-old Roma girl infringed on the child’s right to protection and care, and amounted to unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The Equal Treatment Authority found that a local-government run swimming pool discriminated against an LGBTQ sports club when it declined to rent out two of its swimming lanes for a sport event. The Authority imposed a fine of 1 million HUF.
The Equal Treatment Authority found discrimination based on gender identity for the first time in a case concerning an employer’s rejection of a transgender job applicant.