Lili Hornyai HUNGRY FOR RECOGNITION

As most of the globe is cautiously emerging from lockdown measures brought on by the Covid-19 crisis, in parts of the world the LGBTQ+ community is engaged in a bitter battle for fundamental rights and recognition. Some far right, populist leaders have used the reduced international scrutiny of their countries to fast-track legislation that target the most marginalised. One such country is where I, Lili Hornyai, am from, Hungary.

Found at the heart of the European continent offering culture, history and natural beauty, Hungary has become a popular holiday destination for tourists from Western countries in the past decade. However, the systemic discrimination against gay, lesbian, trans and gender non-conforming people and the country’s complicated relationship with democracy should give travellers pause. Twenty years ago, things looked markedly different for this small post-Communist nation as it was en route to becoming a modern cultural hub, just like its neighbours Slovenia and the Czech Republic. I had the privilege to grow up in a brief period in Hungarian history during the 1990s when Western pop culture, and with it, more liberal societal attitudes, slowly started to seep into mainstream consciousness. By the mid-2000s it seemed that things might be progressing in the right direction. With queer identities largely exiled to the margins of society, the day-to-day experience of queer people wasn’t getting significantly better though. I was fired from my hospitality job when the management found out I was dating my same-sex partner and, with both our parents uneasy about our relationship, we left the country in 2008 and moved to Brighton. With the sweeping victory of Viktor Orban’s national-conservative party, Fidesz, in 2010, Hungary started to shift away from global and cosmopolitan ambitions and towards nationalism and populism. Living in safety in the gay capital of Britain, we would recoil in horror every time our native country made international headlines for restricting the freedom of the press, for meddling with judicial and electoral laws, or for leading racist smear campaigns against refugees and migrants. Our hearts would grow even heavier when the news was about the queer community – Pride parades attacked by far right protesters, gender studies banned from universities, withdrawal from Eurovision as it was deemed to be “too gay”. A more recent scandal involved the nationwide boycott of Coca-Cola (egged on by politicians) over a billboard that featured a hugging gay couple. While my native country was throwing a hissy fit over fizzy drinks, at the age of 33 I realised that I’m non-binary. This self-discovery compelled me to learn more about trans identities and lives and I’ve found a community that is as strong, diverse, and

LILI HORNYAI

“The strength of the Hungarian trans community in the face of such adversity inspired me to start volunteering with Trans Pride Brighton – perhaps I can’t join their battle over there, but I can raise my voice and fight for trans rights here”

welcoming as it is marginalised, discriminated against and endlessly stereotyped. While the fight for trans rights is an ongoing battle globally, the situation in Hungary is particularly fraught right now. Hungarian trans people have been struggling to get identification documents that would correspond with their gender identity since 2016, when all legal gender recognition requests have been put on hold due to alleged GDPR concerns. IDs are crucial for everyday life in Hungary, and so trans people without updated documents are forced to out themselves every time they pick up a parcel from the post office, take any exams, sign any contracts, hire any equipment and so on. “Someone wanted to call the police on me once because he was convinced I had a fake ID,” Ivett Ördög, a Hungarian trans activist said. “We constantly have to explain ourselves and come out to people we don’t want to come out to.” And amid the Covid-19 crisis, the Hungarian trans community was thrown a new curveball. Hungary’s government currently (and controversially) rules by decree and, as part of a bundle of legislation, has introduced a bill that defines gender as “biological sex based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes as observed at birth”, making it impossible for people to legally change their gender. The law has devastating ramifications for Hungarian trans people. “I don’t want to leave Budapest, but I feel I’ve no other option left.” Ivett paints a gloomy picture for the future of trans rights in Hungary: “Once article 33 becomes law, my request to change my legal gender, that’s been in limbo for over a year, will be rejected, condemning me to live as a woman with a male ID for the foreseeable future.”

Activists like Ivett do their best to give voice to a group that has extremely vulnerable members, often too scared to speak out. Last November she gave a speech in front of a small but determined crowd of roughly 100 people at Hungary’s very first Trans Pride. A second day of workshops, protest and solidarity was scheduled for the end of March this year, now postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic. I‘ve no doubt though, that this small, resilient community will be back on the streets louder, brighter and bolder than before. In the words of Terry Reintke, a German MEP, Viktor Orban “will not break this community. Trans people will not cease to exist just because [he] want[s] them to”. The strength of the Hungarian trans community in the face of such adversity inspired me to start volunteering with Trans Pride Brighton – perhaps I can’t join their battle over there, but I can raise my voice and fight for trans rights here. In the past couple of years, Western media has been discussing the commercialisation and ‘straightwashing’ of LGBTQ+ Pride marches, but in the context of countries such as Hungary, it couldn’t be clearer that Pride still is, and must remain, a protest.

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Lili Hornyai is an author and content creator with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Studies from the University of Brighton. They have been working in the adult industry with adult toys and essentials for more than four years and have accumulated experience in customer service, providing sex advice, communication, sexual health and sex and body-positivity. They had the opportunity to work on features with major mainstream media outlets such as Cosmopolitan UK and US and Good Housekeeping Magazine. Lili is passionate about LGBTQ+ rights and making sure that every blog, guide and article they release is written with inclusivity in mind. They’re also a die-hard Buffy fan, non-binary, sci-fi geek, lover of cats and birds.