LGBTQ rights in Slovakia

On 12 October 2022, two people were killed (plus the perpetrator), and a third person was wounded in a shooting outside of the front entrance of Tepláren, a gay bar in Bratislava, Slovakia,[1] a well-known spot frequented by the local LGBTQ community.Transgender people in Slovakia experience difficulty in accessing healthcare, and a complete lack of regulation in legal gender change makes the process highly individual and difficult.[7] Same-sex sexual activity was legalized in 1962, when Slovakia was part of Czechoslovakia, after scientific research from Kurt Freund led to changes in public opinion (see history of penile plethysmographs).In 2008 and 2009, the LGBT rights group Iniciatíva Inakosť (Otherness Initiative) launched a public awareness campaign for the recognition of registered life partnerships (Slovak: životné partnerstvo) between same-sex couples.[18] In August 2017, Deputy Speaker of the National Council Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová of SaS promised to re-submit draft legislation on registered partnerships to Parliament.[19] On 11 December 2017, following a meeting with Iniciatíva Inakosť representatives, President Andrej Kiska called for a public debate about the rights of same-sex couples.[a]In December 2013, a conservative civil initiative group named Aliancia za rodinu (Alliance for the Family) announced that it would demand a constitutional definition of marriage as "a union solely between a man and a woman".On 5 June 2018, in Coman and Others v General Inspectorate for Immigration and Ministry of the Interior, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of a Romanian-American same-sex couple who sought to have their marriage recognized in Romania, so that the American partner could reside in the country.[44] The European Court of Justice's landmark ruling was praised by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) and other human rights groups, while the Slovak Catholic Church condemned it.The act, broadened in 2008, made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in a wide variety of areas, including employment, education, housing, social care and the provision of goods and services.[47] Article 2 of the law reads as follows:[48] Adherence to the principle of equal treatment shall lay in the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sex, religion or belief, race, nationality or ethnic origin, disability, age, sexual orientation, marital or family status, colour, language, political affiliation or other conviction, national or social origin, property, lineage or any other status or on grounds of reporting of crime or any other wrongdoing.In May 2013, the Criminal Code was amended to include sexual orientation as a ground for hate crimes, allowing harsher penalties for crimes motivated by homophobia.[59][60] On 6 April 2022, the Ministry of Health [sk] published standards of care for transgender people[61] that also regulated medical transition and the conditions of granting the ability to change the legal gender by appointed experts, where an appointed expert is any doctor in the field of psychiatry or sexology with at least five years of professional experience, and the person requesting documentation necessary for the legal gender change must be either surgically castrated or undergo the real-life experience test in combination with hormone replacement therapy for at least a year, unless it is contraindicated.[66] As of November 18, 2022, because of lack of regulation and standards, healthcare providers in Slovakia are refusing to provide transgender care, which forces trans people living in Slovakia to seek healthcare abroad, and some civil registry offices are refusing to process any applications to change legal gender, citing lack of regulation and telling them to wait for approval of the new standards of care by the Ministry of Health, meaning change of legal gender is close to impossible to achieve.[67] On 13 January 2023, members of ĽSNS introduced another bill that would ban legal gender change, as well as outlaw medical transition with the punishment of a prison sentence of at least 4 years.[69] On 24 February 2023, members of the then-government Christian Union party introduced a bill that would restrict legal gender change to those "whose sex was wrongly assigned at birth," which could only be proven by a karyotype test.[72][73][74] On 3 March 2023, the once suspended standards of care for transgender people were once again signed into force and republished by the then-minister of health Vladimír Lengvarský immediately before resigning.While the National and Bratislava's municipal police forces kept the two sides apart, several anti-gay protesters were able to infiltrate the event and throw stones at speakers and disperse tear gas into the crowd.[80] LGBT rights supports of some slovak celebrities like actress Zdena Studenková, Zuzana Fialová,Petra Polnišová, gay actor Richard Stanke, singer Katarzia, and many more.[81] Public opinion has been fluctuating in Slovakia in the past few decades, initially becoming more favourable to granting rights to same-sex couples, then began stagnating by the end of the 2010s as a result of a coordinated homophobic campaign by conservative politicians.[89] The 2023 Eurobarometer found that 37% of Slovaks people thought same-sex marriage should be allowed throughout Europe, and 47% agreed that "there is nothing wrong in a sexual relationship between two persons of the same sex".