Romania becomes the latest battleground in Central Europe’s gender wars
A law approved by both houses of the Romanian parliament in
June bans the teaching of gender studies in schools and universities, and
forbids teachers and professors even to address the subject of being trans.
Along with the Central European “illiberal democracies” of
Hungary and Poland, Romania is one of a growing number of countries where the
resurgent populist right has found gender studies – or “gender ideology” as
they prefer to term it – a convenient target.
The Romanian bill amending the law on education was put
forward by deputy Emil-Marius Pascan and senator Vasile-Cristian Lungu, both of
the centre-right Popular Movement Party (PMP).
In a strongly worded post on his website, Pascan has called
critics of the bill “neo-Marxists and progressives” and complains that those
who uphold Christian and moral values in Romania have come to be “characterised
as extremists”.
Lunga, meanwhile, wrote on Facebook of the need to ban the
“neo-Marxist ideology of gender identity in schools in Romania”. “Gender theory
is something not only trendy, but it is also something radical and extreme; it
is simply a theory completely devoid of scientific basis and does not meet the
consensus of the academic community. It's as scientific as flat earth theory,”
wrote the senator.
Their bill found support from MPs in the centre-left but
socially conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD), while the ruling National
Liberal Party (PNL) abstained. It now only needs President Klaus Iohannis’
signature – which it may well fail to get – to enter law.
Should the legislation come into force it would ban
educators from "propagating theories and opinion on gender identity
according to which gender is a separate concept from biological sex”. This has
wide implications for areas from the teaching of gender studies in
universities, to educating young people about gender identity, and allowing
children to be themselves without being boxed into traditional gender roles.
The adoption of the bill met with fierce and immediate
opposition from Romanian academics, students and NGOs, who have appealed to
Iohannis to block it.
The National Alliance of Student Organisations in Romania
and the National Council of Students launched a petition urging the president
to send the legislation back to parliament. The authors of the petition said
that the law contravenes the principles of non-discrimination and ensuring
access to education for all young people in Romania. It has “the potential to
create in Romania a vacuum of information” and heightened risk of bullying in
schools for LGBT youth, they added.
Senator Vlad Alexandrescu of the Union Save Romania (USR),
who spoke out against the legislation in parliament, defended the concept of
gender, writing that it “allows for an education attentive to the differences,
to the sensitivities of each child, to the possibility of finding themselves in
an inclusive society, where any specificity is recognised as a trait and not as
a disability.”
The University of Bucharest wrote in a statement on June 17
that the amendment to the national education laws contradicts fundamental
rights guaranteed by the Romanian constitution: freedom of thought and
conscience, freedom of opinion and university autonomy.
Gelu Duminica, who teaches sociology at the university,
wrote on Facebook: “I teach, among other things, a course about Minorities and
Equity. In each course I also introduce gender elements. I'm really not going
to stop for the simple reason that if I did I wouldn't do my duty. Because my
role is to guide my students to understand human behaviour in society. And people
are different.”
The law was backed by parliament a few months ahead of the
general election due to take place this autumn and may strike a chord with
socially conservative Romanians.
However, things are changing and attacks on sexual
minorities may not carry the weight they once did.
A 2018 attempt in Romania to explicitly outlaw gay marriage
through a referendum on a proposed change to the constitution to specify that
marriage can only be between a man and a woman flopped as turnout was just
20.4% – despite the Orthodox Church urging Romanians to come out and vote.
Polish President Andrzej Duda learned a similar lesson
recently. Seeking re-election in a worsening economic environment, Duda
launched into an attack on the LGBT community, saying on June 13 that the
Polish LGBT rights movement peddles an “ideology” that is “more destructive”
than Communism.
Duda’s anti-LGBT rhetoric was seen as an attempt to pander
to his conservative voter base ahead of the election. However, as bne
IntelliNews’ Warsaw correspondent wrote, the attack risked deterring moderates,
whose votes Duda now needs to secure re-election after he failed to secure
victory in the first round of voting on June 28. A similar attempt to denigrate
the estimated 2mn LGBT people in Poland failed to help PiS during the 2019
general election campaign.
Still, illiberal democrats from the region and beyond remain
committed to the fight against so-called “gender ideology”.
Most of the right-wing and populist governments in the
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region favour the nuclear family structure
with traditional gender roles.
The Hungarian government’s efforts to encourage population
growth with tax breaks for large families chimed in with this – though notably
this did not extend to trying to keep women out of the workplace in the tight
labour market context.
In CEE, the attacks on “gender ideology” also fit with the
pattern of taking on the European Union and the West more generally for forcing
liberal values on its eastern members. Both Hungary and Poland have repeatedly
clashed with European institutions over issues such as judicial reform and the
rule of law. Furthermore, it is part of the populist right’s strategy of
attacking experts and educated elites.
Hungary has already banned the teaching of gender studies,
with Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen calling it an “ideology, not a science”
that has “no business in universities”. Poland has withdrawn state funds for
such programmes, while the Bulgarian education ministry blocked a UNESCO
project proposal on gender equality in education.
A related political struggle opened up over the adoption of
the Istanbul Convention in the region. The aim of the treaty is to protect
victims of domestic violence and other forms of violence against women. One of
the things that made the Istanbul Convention controversial in the region is
that it was the first international treaty to define gender as “social roles
behaviours, activities and characteristics that a particular society considers
appropriate for women and men”.
According to the students’ petition to Iohannis, the new
legislation conflicts with Romania’s commitments under the Istanbul Convention
as well as other international treaties.
It also confirms there are some in the country that would
like it to follow a similar course to Hungary or Poland. “Such a law has no
place in a European, democratic Romania and throws Romania on a conservative
trajectory similar to Poland or Hungary!” said the petition.
“Romania is lining up positions promoted by Hungary to
Viktor Orban and Poland, becoming a regime in which the policing of thought was
introduced,” wrote the USR’s Alexandrescu in a similar vein.
The pushback against greater rights for LGBTI people is
occurring in a region where in most countries acceptance is only just creeping
up, and in many quarters there is simply a lack of understanding about what
gender identity is. bne IntelliNews argued in the op-ed “The 50-year fight for
gay rights” that it will take at least two generations for most of the
countries in emerging Europe and Eurasia to take on board the liberal values of
the West.
There have been positive moves in recent years, not least
the growing Pride marches, laws allowing same-sex partnerships in several
countries (most recently Montenegro) and the appointment of openly gay
politicians to top positions, among them Serbia’s current Prime Minister Ana
Brnabic.
The latest ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map and Index that compares
LGBTI people’s human rights across the continent also shows clear progress in
parts of Central and Southeast Europe. Still, rights fall far short of full
equality in Romania, though the situation is not as bad as in Belarus, Latvia,
Poland or Russia.
This is not limited to the region. There have been numerous
attempts by far-right groups to prevent gender studies teaching in West
European countries such as Germany, Italy and Sweden – including a bomb threat
targeting the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at the University of
Gothenburg.
Jair Bolsinaro, Brazilian president and an unashamed
homophobe, used his inaugural address in January 2019 to vow to fight against
the “ideology of gender teaching in schools”. A visit by UC-Berkeley professor
of gender studies Judith Butler to the Brazilian city of Sao Paolo in November
2017 sparked furious demonstrations where protesters burned an effigy of the
academic.
The ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that saw the
imposition of lockdowns curtailing many of people’s usual rights provided
grounds for governments to take on additional powers that some used
unscrupulously.
A notable example was the Hungarian government, which took
advantage of the open-ended extra powers given to it during the crisis – that
some said created the EU’s first dictatorship – to end legal recognition for
transgender people.
“The proposed ban of legal gender recognition in Hungary,
proposed laws to ban abortion and sex education in Poland, scapegoating of
LGBTI people as the source of the coronavirus by Turkey’s political leaders –
these are all alarming signals of how governments with strong authoritarian
tendencies are emboldened by the crisis to further limit the rights of
vulnerable groups and minorities,” commented Darienne Flemington, co-chair of
the ILGA-Europe executive board.
Romanian politicians did not need emergency powers to vote
in the amendments to the country’s education law. But the country is now at risk
of going the same way as its illiberal northern neighbours and of having
hard-won progress pushed back.
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