Gabriela Bankova, 32 years older, claims that she is willing to give up everything because she has no “weapons” left to fight for Bulgarian transgender rights.
Therefore, on November 13, she declared an open-ended hunger strike and sat-in on the court steps until her Balkan state adopted a legal course for cases like hers after tearing up the baby document at the center of the legal debate over her gender identity.
Therefore, on November 16, Bulgarian officers handcuffed Bankova and took her into custody immediately, allegedly for failing to present a validID. She was later freed and apparently resumed her hunger strike.
After launching her protest, Bankova told RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service that” Trans people in Bulgaria are a minority and we do n’t have any weapons to fight for our rights.” ” All the state is providing us with are these situations that seem inadequate and carry on for times.”
However, those who oppose legal sex reassignment are almost certain to agree with her assessment of new cases as being “ineffective.”
The Supreme Court of Cassation, the nation’s leading appealing court, ruled in February that Bulgarian law “does not envisage” constitutional changes to designated gender, which is arguably the largest case in Bulgaria on gender affirmation. It cited a 2021 Constitutional Court ruling that stated the “binary existence of the human species” and that sex is solely natural and is “determined at delivery and lost at death.”
” Legal Irony.”
Bankova is camped outside in front of the Sofia district court, where protesters in February referred to the Supreme Court’s decision as a “legal absurdity,” under the “hunger attack” banner and cover as nighttime temperatures are predicted to drop below zero degrees Celsius this week-end.
Almost every successive instance of Bulgarian plaintiffs seeking sex reassignment has been rejected or merely dismissed by judges using the standards set forth by the Supreme Court.
When lawmakers added sexual orientation to the list of hate crimes punishable by death in the Russian Criminal Code in July, the LGBT community rejoiced. The wider treatment of sexual immigrants in Bulgaria has angered right activists. Critics accuse the government of failing to provide legal protections for people of color and different immigrants, as well as public criticism and sporadic physical assaults, including those by a former right-wing presidential candidate.
Bulgaria just ranked below all EU member states, with the exception of Romania, according to a significant LGBT rights position. In September, the European Court of Human Rights reprimanded Bulgarian authorities for unfairly refusing to recognize a same-sex couple who wed worldwide.
Bankova is currently battling to be admitted to a hospital for asthma treatment using her real name and gender, according to what she claims. She used an endocrinologist’s assessment and the findings of a psychic investigation as proof.
She vowed that her hunger strike would remain after the jury this week rejected her appeal, though, until the entire judicial system is overhauled. Bankova declared,” I may keep going on this hunger strike until I see these measures put into action or until my death.”
She claimed that as a “fundamental” and “guiding” price, the judges continue to promote hatred and violence.
According to Bankova,” For decades, organizations in Bulgaria have been making fun of us, encouraging assault against us,” treating us unfairly, and isolating us from society. The freedom of transgender people to self-identify and have power over themselves are violated by this.
According to Denitsa Lyubenova, a solicitor for the LGBT legal aid organization Deystvie, just one of the dozens of instances in which transgender people have filed lawsuits to change their gender officially has been decided and implemented in the individual’s favour since the Supreme Court decision in February. Two more received district court decisions in their favour, but they have not already been put into effect.
” Comprehensive Disgrace”
Deystvie pledged to “demand from the National Assembly and the corporations in Bulgaria congressional change then, because one human life cannot be destroyed because of institutional discrimination that has turned the life of trans people into hell” in response to Bankova’s rally on its Facebook page.
Deystvie criticized the Supreme Court’s view, claiming that it” closed the door for trans people in Bulgaria to get positive decisions in their cases for female affirmation” and represented an “unequivocal and clear” prohibition on constitutional gender transition.
Lyubenova told RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service at the time,” This is a method for Gabriela to show the desperation of the condition in which the law in Bulgaria puts her.”
When word of Bankova’s detention reached Lyubenova on November 16, she called the circumstance” shameful for democratic officials and the full justice system.” Lyubenova remarked,” Because it’s insane to turn the entire nation against one person.” She described it as a “deliberate behavior” and” show of force” against Bankova in an interview with RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service.
In response to Bankova’s imprisonment, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights monitoring organization, stated that this suppression, which purposefully tries to solitude and remove trans individuals and their anger, is an egregious violation of the fundamental right to peaceful assembly and expression.
Another Transgender rights and advocacy organization, the Bilitis Foundation, claimed that the court had” crushed” Bankova’s “identity and right” in a previous declaration on the situation. According to the speech, hers is “one of the circumstances of organized shame of transgender people in Bulgaria.”
According to a survey conducted by the Bulgarian-based Gays and Lesbians Accepted In Society ( GLAS ) Foundation, the public opinion in Bulgaria is” still dominated by traditional stereotypes” about LGBT people, but that “skeptic opinions are gradually changing” as people become more knowledgeable about the subject and have more personal experience.
In their mutual publish, Bilitis and GLAS stated that discrimination against trans and intersex people’s self-determination in Bulgaria” not only causes discomfort but also costs lives and robs from the potential of all of us as a community.”
Thousands of people attended the 2023 Sofia Pride event in June despite theft and challenges to destroy the celebration, including flags hung under false pretenses by Pride organizers calling for murder. Despite previous complaints from the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and other critics, Sofia hosted the Pride march and related activities for the 16th period. A” March for the Family” was organized as a competing occasion.
