LGBTQ+ activists share their stories with DW to warn against the potential consequences should nationalist and far-right parties make their expected gains in the European elections.
Monika Magashazi is a fighter. The 52-year old trans woman lives in Hungary — a country that has been ruled by Viktor Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party since 2010.
For transgender communities, the situation “has been becoming worse and worse and, unfortunately, we are desperate today in Hungary,” she told DW. She said the government was trying to portray trans people as pedophiles and criminals, using seemingly every opportunity to discriminate against them.
Struggling with her own coming out, Magashazi even attempted to take her own life. “I reached a point when I had to decide on how to live on,” she said. Thinking about her children saved her life.
“I said I will keep myself alive and try to live as a transgender woman and the father of my children — or the second attempt will be successful, and I’m going to be dead. And in that case, my children would miss their father,” she said.
I think it’s important to note that this is all very personal to the individual. There is no “should” and a transgender woman may still consider themselves a father.
Just because we may not understand it, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Which is the important lesson for much of what is wrong in the world right now.
No, because for others to understand it, it must follow some sort of logic.
If people all have different rules for what offends them, then those willing to learn, can never hope to ever achieve understanding. If you can never allow others to achieve understanding, then you’re always going to be a victim and acceptance will never be achieved.
If you can’t deadname a transgender woman their male name, then it goes to follow that they wouldn’t consider themselves a “father” and doing so would cause the same offense.
Exactly! I thought that was what the enlightenment was all about, we were getting rid of silly unsubstantiated beliefs and replacing them with science and reason. People keep letting their feelings get in the way and believing in foolish notions like love, and art. There’s no such thing!
This is also why I think we should get rid of names. It’s too confusing for everyone to have their own names, it’s too easy to forget them and people go fucking insane if you ask them their name again. I think we should just be referring to people by their most important traits: whether they have a penis, their skin colour, their job, etc.
I mean, just stop being offended over that kind of shit constantly and I won’t have to worry about it. Stop calling people intolerant when they use the wrong name. Stop attacking the people who are trying to learn, and maybe they will.
Normal, people don’t get offended if you forget their name. You need a set of rules that follows the stereotype. Then people can learn the stereotypical rules, and be fine.
I don’t understand the feeling of being a different gender than what I was assigned at birth, and I don’t need to - I can accept that others may have those feelings just fine.
Why do you think others need to force themselves to fit your understanding? Why do you need to understand them to respect them?
Answer is - you don’t.
I don’t need to understand individuals to respect them, but I do feel the need to understand people as a whole.
It is exactly the fact people can’t understand it that it’s wrong. If you can’t understand something, at the very least it leads to people using it in a way that is wrong if not immediately then in the bigger picture. A mother cannot be a father, and a father cannot be a mother. Reality doesn’t work like that. What will that do to the child’s sense of truth. People certainly don’t want others to make them accept a mental delusion as normal. It isn’t. There is no hate involved, it’s simply reality. To say that violence is inevitable is just another way of attempting to force one’s mental issues upon others. To justify it. This will all be seen as some weird phase in humanity’s decline.
So true. This is how I feel about the planet too. I don’t understand how people can believe it’s a globe. It’s pretty obviously flat to me. If it looks like a dog and barks like a dog then it’s a dog! Spare me your “oh it’s complicated” nonsense. The truth is always simple!