Hungary issues ruling on legal gender changes, likely setting up showdown of the decade over human rights

Big developments in Hungary this week as human rights activists are sounding the alarm due to a new ruling by Parliament. According to Parliament, intersex and transgender people are now barred from altering their gender on identity documents of any kind.

Activists fear that the move sets up LGBTQ+individuals in Hungary for severe and prominent discrimination. In an e-mailed statement to CNN, the Hungarian government denied that the law prevents consenting adults from expressing their identities in any way, although that remains questionable.

It “does not affect men’s and women’s right to freely experience and exercise their identities as they wish.”In no way does the relevant section of the bill that some people criticize prevent any person from exercising their fundamental rights arising from their human dignity or from living according their identity, just as the state cannot normatively instruct anybody what to think.”