Pride Around the World
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ungary decriminalized homosexuality in 1961. The period from 1990 until 2010, when Viktor Orbán came into power the second time, saw some progress on a range of LGBTIQ issues, including the passage of the registered same-sex partnership law in 2009 and other protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. With the ascendancy of the Orbán government, in which Orbán’s conservative party, Fidesz (the Hungarian Civic Party), currently holds a super-majority, the country has endured a significant regression in protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, justified in the name of preserving so-called traditional values and binary gender biological determinism. Orbán’s landslide victory in the April 2022 election assures that the political direction of the country is unlikely to change in the coming years.
History of Pride in Hungary The first Budapest Pride that included a public march was celebrated in July 1997 with about 300,000 people in attendance.157 It was part of a week-long set of events, including film screenings, discussions, concerts, parties, and other attractions. For the subsequent 10 years, the event, eventually called the Budapest Pride Film and Cultural Festival, became the largest LGBTIQ-related annual celebration and protest in the country. The number of attendees remained small in the early years. Pride celebrations faced only minor protests. Viktória Radványi of Budapest Pride told OutRight, “For many years there was no counter protestors, maybe just 1 to 2 people with a sign saying, ‘Gays go home.’ But there was not much security around Pride because no one wanted to hurt us.”158 That changed in 2007. Radványi explained, “We had a social democratic government, and there were protests against a scandal, the far right got 157 “Our History,” Budapest Pride, https://budapestpride-com.translate.goog/our-history?_x_ tr_sl=hu&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc (accessed 10 June 2022). Other Pride-related events, including “pink picnics” and film festivals, had been held earlier. 158 OutRight interview with Viktória Radványi, via video link, 6 April 2022.
HUNGARY
Hungary: “We’ve Always Been Political”
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