Hungarian MPs scrap Orbán's anti-LGBTQ measures

For context, the Hungarian parliament has voted to amend child protection laws, scrapping measures that stigmatise gay and transgender individuals.

Key points

• The 2021 Child Protection Law, passed by the sizeable Fidesz majority of then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, banned the "portrayal or promotion of homosexuality or transgenderism".
• Minutes after Tuesday's vote, Budapest remarked the EU had agreed to release €4.2bn (£3.5bn) of funds frozen in the last years of the Fidesz administration.
• Since Orbán's April election defeat, the Tisza administration of Péter Magyar has been working to dismantle the previous government's legacy.
• Hungary's 2021 law had affected a broad set of other laws, including education and the right of assembly.
• "I'm very cautious, " Magyar remarked in an interview published in Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday.

In practice, the 2021 Child Protection Law, passed by the sizeable Fidesz majority of then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, banned the "portrayal or promotion of homosexuality or transgenderism".

For context, the European Commission remarked last month that the Magyar administration had addressed a number of "rule of law breaches affecting the EU budget", and called on EU leaders to unlock the funds, externaland readmit Hungary to two key EU programmes – Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe.

Magyar's Tisza party commands the same two-thirds majority that Orbán's party applied to have, and the measures passed on Tuesday were bundled together by the new administration in a package of laws designed to unravel the Fidesz legislation.

"We are very happy that this got adopted, " Tamás Dombos of civil rights group the Háttér Society informed the BBC. "We've been fighting this so-called child protection law for five years. There have been challenges with the bill submitted to parliament, but most of those difficulties have been fixed."

Both the Fidesz and Tisza governments created child protection central to their image.

But while Fidesz under Viktor Orbán appealed to the conservative electorate by identifying gay and transgender individuals as a threat to public morals, Tisza under Prime Minister Péter Magyar is trying to remove or soften legislation, without actually identifying as a liberal-minded administration in favour of full equality.

In June 2025, the Gay Pride march through Budapest drew an estimated quarter of a million individuals, despite a promise by then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to his supporters that he would prevent it happening.

Police stood aside despite an official ban, and proceedings against the city mayor and others for organising the festival were afterwards dropped. This year's event went ahead without restrictions.

When the public discovered out that his administration had backed the pardon of the deputy head of a children's home who had been identified guilty of covering up the paedophile crimes of his boss, the child protection matter turned from being a robust card in Orbán's hand to become his Achilles heel.

While painstakingly avoiding the problems of gay and transgender rights, for fear of alienating right-wing voters, in his own election campaign, Péter Magyar presented his party as a champion of the rights of children in state care.

"We are still knocking on a closed door, " Dombos informed the BBC, "but at least they are listening on the other side."

This marked a major improvement on the Orbán years, he remarked, where his community felt constantly targeted. Other problems he wanted addressed include the full recognition of same-sex marriage, same-sex couples' rights to adopt children, and the restoration of the right of transgender residents to change their names in official documents.

"I'm very cautious, " Magyar remarked in an interview published in Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday. "As prime minister, it's my duty to represent all Hungarians, and we have sensitive issues, such as the situation of sexual minorities."

Fidesz and its sister party, the Christian Democrats, voted against the new amendments to the law on Tuesday.

"There is no place for the promotion of LGBTQ content in schools or the media, " the Christian Democrats remarked in an official note on their website.

Taken together, the developments around hungarian MPs scrap Orbán' s anti point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.