The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán (from the far-right party Fidesz), has been accused of taking advantage of the state of emergency in his country caused by the new coronavirus pandemic to expand his power. This week, we have another example of this – one that affects transgender and intersex people.
According to Forbes, this week the local parliament approved a law that only formalizes the “sex assigned at birth” in documents, so that the trans and intersex population cannot obtain legal recognition, as they were able to do before the law was approved.
Article number 33 of the law made this possible. But, according to research by the NGO Transgender Europe, thousands of Hungarians disagree with the article. Only 17% of respondents said they support it, while seven in ten believe that trans people should have legal recognition.
The state of emergency allows Orbán to govern by decree; this is a power given to him by the Hungarian legislature as a result of the pandemic.
