Europe’s black sheep Viktor Orbán, the Calvinist prime minister of Hungary who has attracted nearly nonstop criticism for his defence of Europe’s Christian heritage and his ambitious attempts to reduce abortion rates and introduce pro-family policies, is under fire again. This time, Hungary is declining to allow the gender activists to redefine reality based on subjective experience. According to Euro News:
The Hungarian parliament has voted to strip transgender people of their current rights to legally change their gender. The new law defines gender on the basis of chromosomes at birth, ending the legal recognition of transgender people. Prime minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party backed the proposed legislation, which is yet to be signed into law by President János Áder. The decision would push back the progress that has been made when it comes to transgender equality, leaving transgender people open to further discrimination. But the move is hardly surprising, given the anti-LGBT political tone that is sweeping across Eastern Europe.
The new legislation redefines the Hungarian word “nem,” which can mean either “sex” or “gender.” Whilst there is often some confusion about the definition of these terms, sex is generally defined as biological characteristics, whereas gender is based upon self-perception, expression and other socially-constructed features. Transgender is defined as an umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression is different from what is typically associated with their sex at birth. The proposed law would see an end to the differentiation between sex and gender in Hungarian law, meaning that anyone who does not identify with their sex at birth would be denied the legal right to change their gender on legal documents. Effectively, this denies transgender people of legal recognition.
What this legislation actually does is anchor policy to biological reality—many Eastern European politicians and commentators have noted the chaos brought about in the West by the abolition of scientific standards. Without them, anyone can claim to be what they want to be without reference to reality—and soon afterwards, everyone else is forced by law to play along. Sex and gender have only been defined separately very recently (and by very few), and for the specific purpose of “breaking the binary” and reorganizing society. Teenage girls are forced to play sports against biological boys (and the boys are cleaning house at track meets in America), share bathrooms with biological boys, and change in front of biological boys. If they protest, they are told that they are transphobic. Those boys say they are girls, and therefore they are girls. Your rights stop where their feelings begin.
Everyone is now pretending, of course, that the rules weren’t rewritten just a few moments ago and are ignoring the fact that these emerging gender ideologies were radical, fringe ideas less than a decade ago. The progressives have decided that gender fluidity is our new civil rights fight (Joe Biden said as much), and thus anyone who has not redefined society and reality fast enough—or anyone pushing back against doing so—is “turning back the clock.” It is taken for granted that turning back the clock is a bad thing. More from Euro News:
Moving backwards when it comes to LGBT rights is nothing new in this part of Europe. While Hungary’s right wing government is turning back the clock on transgender rights, its neighbours, too, are amplifying “traditional values” political rhetoric. Poland has arguably become the epicentre for extreme right wing politics in Eastern Europe, with the LGBT community coming under relentless attack. The country’s “LGBT-free zones” made headlines across the world, undoubtedly fuelled by populist politicians and certain religious leaders, making LGBT people a new target to mobilise their conservative bases…The vote to end the legal recognition of transgender people in Hungary not only speaks to the anti-LGBT climate brewing in the country, but mirrors a wider anti-equality movement that has become fashionable in European politics. Should it be passed into law, this new legislation will have damaging consequences for transgender people living in the country, posing a strain on their mental health, and limiting them as they go about their daily lives.
It is always fascinating to me that trans activists and their allies never ask themselves why they face pushback. They take it for granted that their beliefs—which are constantly evolving and often unclear, especially in regard to gender fluidity and the number of genders—are The Truth, and expect people to abandon the way we have viewed human beings for thousands of years with junk science and revisionist history cooked up by queer studies departments and then immediately weaponized against societies barely aware of their existence. They will not admit that the prosecution of those who disagree with them contributes to backlash, or that their refusal to live and let live breeds hostility. They will not admit that fining people for making jokes, or firing people for disagreeing with them, or proposing puberty blockers and sex changes for kids and teens makes people terrified of their ideology. It is only a very short step, we have discovered, from transgender tenets being enshrined in law to parents being threatened with jail if they discourage their children from transitioning to a different gender.
Viktor Orbán is wise to push back against their legislative and judicial activism—before they have infiltrated and conquered the system.
