Most Hungarians do not want the government to decide what educational professionals should teach in schools in sexuality education. Also, youth should hear more about gender identities and sexual orientations – highlighted by the representative survey commissioned by Amnesty International Hungary and Háttér Society undertaken by Medián.
The survey has shown that 46% of the respondents personally know people from the LGBTQI community and 73% reject the government’s claims that the presentation of gay and lesbian people would damage children. In May 2020, with the first legislative act of the hate campaign against the LGBTQI community, the governing majority made it impossible for trans and intersex people to legally recognize their name and gender. From the survey it became clear that the majority of the Hungarian society (74.5%) thinks that it should be allowed for trans people to change their gender and name in their legal documents. 59% of respondents supported marriage equality whereas 69% says that same sex couples could be great parents too. Two years ago, in 2019 only 33% of society supported same sex marriage.
„Our survey has highlighted the fact that Hungarian society is more accepting than its own government. Politics based on lies and hatred have no social majority, and that is exactly why it is so important that everybody stands up for people from the LGBTQI community and that they do not let the hatred continue.” – said Luca Dudits of Háttér Society.
The public opinion poll had an emphasis on education as well. In light of these responses, it is evident that s most people opposed the government’s propaganda messages. 66% said that it would be right to include information on sexual minorities in the school curriculums. 82% said that this information should correspond the age and the level of maturity of the youth. The results also make it clear that the overwhelming majority of the Hungarian society (83%) does not believe the absurd claim that somebody will ‘become’ gay just by hearing about the topic in school.
It has also been discovered that 90% of respondents think that appropriate education should be provided corresponding to the student’s age and not solely decided by the government, more so by parents and competent teachers. (86% of respondents agrees with this statement) Most people do not agree with the government’s measure that would not allow schools to decide which organization and expert would provide the programs on preventing school bullying and abuse; 85% of the respondents think that teachers need to be allowed to make their own decision on whose help they would acquire with regards to such programs.
„It is obvious that the majority [of society] does not want the government to be the only regulator of school’s sexuality education curriculum or a youth’s opportunity to hear about sexual orientation and gender identity. They think that these are the kinds of topics that are extremely important for the youth to hear, and they trust the teacher’s opinions and actions. The position of the majority is therefore clear: they do not want offensive, homophobic and transphobic laws passed by the governing majority” – says Dávid Vig, director of Amnesty International Hungary.
