BUDAPEST — Hungary’s LGBTQ+ community is taking to the streets of the capital Budapest on Saturday for its annual Pride march, with activists and community members pushing to reclaim rights that were steadily eroded during Viktor Orban’s 16-year tenure in power.
Last year’s march became far more than a celebration — when police moved to ban it under Orban’s direction, the event transformed into a massive anti-government protest drawing tens of thousands of participants.
The political landscape has since shifted. Orban was ousted from power after Peter Magyar’s centre-right Tisza party defeated him in April elections. With the change in government, the ban on the march has been removed and Saturday’s event has received official authorization to proceed. Still, organizers are cautioning that the struggle isn’t finished.
“Last year, our love of freedom and our courage forced authoritarian power to retreat… But we have not reached our goal yet,” organizers said in a statement ahead of the march.
During his time in office, Orban positioned himself as a protector of what he described as Christian values against Western liberalism. His government enacted laws that eliminated the ability to change gender on official documents, prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children, and outlawed educational materials deemed to promote homosexuality or gender transition.
For LGBT activist and writer Adam Andras Kanicsar, the damage caused by those years will take considerable time to heal. Speaking with Reuters during a film shoot at a Budapest vintage shop, he reflected on the lasting personal toll.
“I’m still processing the Orban regime, I guess, and then I will process it for years. And I’m not alone with it,” he said.
He added: “In these last 16 years …working as an LGBTQ journalist and writing and speaking about LGBTQ people meant that I always had to go that one extra mile, every time…And I will never get back these miles in my life.”
Magyar, who identifies as a conservative, has urged patience when Hungarian media pressed him on plans to reverse legislation that restricted LGBT rights. However, he has spoken out against Orban’s former party, Fidesz, telling them in parliament “to leave the bedrooms of the Hungarian people as soon as possible” and condemning the party’s efforts to suppress the right to public assembly by banning the Pride march.
