Culture

Budapest Pride Defies Hungary’s “Propaganda” Law With Its Largest March in History


 

Thousands took to the streets for Budapest Pride over the weekend in the midst of growing attacks on Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community.

An estimated 30,000 people turned out on Saturday for the largest march in Budapest Pride’s 26-year history, according to the New York Times. Marchers departed from Madách Square and marched across the Danube River to the district of Tabán, which stretches approximately one mile. Participants waved rainbow flags of all sizes, including an enormous banner hoisted by dozens of marchers.

One attendee, 16-year-old Mira Nagy, told the Associated Press that this year’s march was significant because of the “real stakes.” In June, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán passed a Russia-style “propaganda” law restricting depictions of queer and trans people in all forms of media, including books and TV shows, and bars sexual orientation and gender identity from being discussed in sex ed classes. It also conflates LGBTQ+ identities with pedophilia.

“Our situation is pretty bad,” Nagy said. “My plan is that if things get even worse, I will leave Hungary.”

Budapest Pride organizers called on marchers to use the event to speak out against Hungary’s recently enacted anti-LGBTQ+ laws, which includes bans on same-sex adoptions and legal gender marker changes passed in 2020. Activist Balint Rigo told CNN that Saturday’s march indicated it was “time to show we’re not okay with” state-sponsored homophobia.

“Minorities have been systematically attacked, and we’re here to say enough,” Rigo said. “There’s power in numbers and we may not be able to change anything in the short term, but together we’re a symbol of solidarity.”

Despite the continued challenges facing LGBTQ+ people in Hungary, there are reasons to hope. This weekend’s events follow a recent announcement from the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, that it is suing Hungary for infringing upon queer and transgender equality. The commission is also taking action against Poland, where more than 100 municipalities have symbolically declared themselves “LGBT free” since 2019.

In response to the EU lawsuit, Orbán announced last week that he plans to push a national referendum to put the issue up to Hungarian voters. The 2022 plebiscite will pose five questions, including whether children should be exposed to content that contains “different sexual orientations without parental consent” and whether or not “sex changing procedures shall be promoted to children.”

This year’s Budapest Pride represented the first march in two years after the 2020 event was cancelled due to COVID-19, which has claimed over 30,000 lives in Hungary. Even aside from the ongoing pandemic, Pride organizer Viktoria Radvanyi told NPR that Orbán’s actions have made it increasingly difficult to plan the celebration.

“Year by year, we find it harder and harder to find venues,” Radvanyi said. “A lot of venues are afraid to host LGBTQ events because they fear that they are going to be attacked in the propaganda media.”

Against this backdrop, 24-year-old protester Luca Dudits said that LGBTQ+ Pride events in eastern Europe are “less about celebration and more about protest.” Dudits, a communications officer for the Hungarian advocacy organization Háttér Society, said there’s “more to protest against every year.”

“It is now more important than ever to take to the streets together in this fight for the rights and freedom of LGBTQ people,” he told AFP.

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