European Court Forces Hungary to Recognise Foreign Transgender People

transgender
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that Hungary must recognise the gender of an Iranian refugee who fled the country over their transgender identity.

The five-year-long case involved an Iranian national who claimed asylum in Hungary in 2015 who was born a woman but wished to be recognised as a man.

They wished to have their name and gender changes on official documents, as their Iranian documents identified them as a female. Hungary refused, claiming that a Hungarian birth certificate was needed to make the changes, Bild reports.

The ECtHR has ruled in favour of the Iranian transman, alleging that Hungary violated their rights and forcing Hungary to pay €6,500 (£5,900/$7,400) in damages as well as court costs.

According to the newspaper, LGBT activists hope the ruling will impact recently passed legislation by the government of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán that recognises only two biological genders and defines gender as “biological sex based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes”.

The legislation, which was passed in May, was met with severe opposition from left-wing activist groups. Human Rights Watch claimed the Orban government was “using the Covid-19 health crisis as cover to push through discriminatory legislation that will be devastating to the lives of transgender people”.

Several other groups, many of which have been funded by left-liberal billionaire George Soros, also slammed the move, claiming the law “pushes Hungary back towards the dark ages”.

The Orbán administration has rejected gender ideology for several years. In 2018, it revoked government funding for gender studies courses, claiming that there were concerns such degrees would not lead to employment opportunities for those graduating from them.

Central European University (CEU), one of the institutions affected by the move, slammed the government decision, claiming “Gender Studies is an internationally recognised academic field, which produces socially relevant knowledge, and which has been taught at CEU for well over two decades.”

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com

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