Amy Zoyomi, a 29-year-old trans woman from the southern Slovakian town of Lucenec, which has 30,000 residents, made the decision to relocate to Bratislava, the nation’s capital, as an adult. One of the main reasons she left her hometown was because of her female identity.
Living in Lucenec and living in Bratislava are diametrically opposed to one another for Amy.
“Individuals in my hometown frequently look at me as I walk down the street,” she told DW. “Occasionally, they stop, and the looks turn into verbal abuse. That doesn’t occur in the nation’s capital. People are much more relaxed and don’t pay as much attention to others here, so I feel safe,” she said.
Amy’s route to discovering her real identity has been rough, despite the fact that she found comfort in her group of close friends and acquaintances in Bratislava. This is also true for many other LGBTQ+ people in Slovakia, one of the last EU nations to not formally recognize same-sex relationships and civil unions and a nation where gender transition has always been very challenging for trans people.
Amy came out as gay for the first time when she was a girl. She claims that her relatives handled the news well because they were already aware of her sexual orientation. But coming out as a transgender woman wasn’t certainly simple.
Female surgery for verification
Amy made the decision to have sex confirmation surgery in Thailand in 2022 after having her doubts for a while. “It has greatly aided me,” she said. “I can finally take myself for who I am, and I feel a little more full and self-assured.”
According to the tranzicia.org website, only four doctors in Slovakia currently specialize in the transition process. Female surgery for verification is not currently performed in Slovakia, and transgender people who decide to have the surgery done have to travel to other countries, the nearest being the Czech Republic.
Amy remarked, “This can really make the entire operation more difficult. I was fortunate enough to find good physicians, one of whom was pretty soothing, and that helped me, but some people have to wait a very long time before they can begin their change, which can be very frustrating.”
Amy was fortunate because she was able to control her body’s decisions without applying undue stress. Transgender citizens in Slovakia, however, are no longer as fortunate.
New secretary revokes regulations
The center-left Hlas, or Voice, party’s health minister Zuzana Dolinkova revoked gender transition recommendations in late November, allowing transgender people to change their identity in legal documents without having identity verification procedure.
Before leaving office, original Health Minister Vladimir Lengvarsky introduced the guidelines, which made the transition process for trans people in Slovakia easier. However, the new state revoked them a fortnight after taking office.
Female surgery for verification not for everyone
The fact that this procedure helped me does not imply that it can help everyone. “It’s perfectly acceptable for some transgender people who don’t want to change their bodies,” Amy remarked, adding that forcing people into surgery in this manner was inhumane.
The president’s choice was solely democratic; she stated in a media speech on November 21 that the recommendation may be revoked “in the interest of the governing coalition.”
The LGBTQ+ group has been calling for policies that would make life easier for trans people as well as for more freedom and greater security for all members of the community ever since the brutal murder of two young LGBT+ members in a gay club in Bratislava in October 2022.
The republican right wing’s stress
The nationalist right-wing Slovak National Party (SNS), which is a member of the ruling three-party coalition along with Smer and Hlas, was undoubtedly the driving force behind the decision to revoke the guidelines. Tomas Taraba, the environment minister, recently voiced concern about the nation in an interview, saying that “yesterday’s status quo in Slovakia is quite progressive-liberal.”
The parties in the coalition had already talked about it before we brought up departments. In an exclusive interview with the liberal media website Postoj, he said, “It’s no surprise to anyone.”
Blow to the LGBTQ+ population
The LGBTQ+ group took a huge hit when the guidelines were revoked, viewing it as yet another violation of their rights and warning that the new regulations would only make their lives more difficult and painful.
It also saw Health Minister Dolinkova’s move as a violation of their rights: Female surgery for verification is not only a life- and body-changing intervention, it can in some cases lead to permanent sterility.
The revision of the rules coincides with the passage of decisions by Western Courts that help LGBTQ+ rights in EU nations. The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that Poland had violated the right to respect for personal and family life by refusing to allow same-sex unions. This is one example of this.
Democratic debates rather than wise judgments
Officials “truly mistreat trans people and make nasty remarks.” When asked about her thoughts on Czech politicians, Amy told DW, “It frequently makes me feel really awful, and it also hurts my family and friends.”
For a long time, the LGBTQ+ area in Slovakia has advocated for greater rights and safety for its members.
Political stability cannot take precedence over human rights, according to Iniciativa Inakost (Initiative Otherness), a Slovak organization that brings together LGBTQ+ people and organizations. The program stated in its press statement that the regulation Lengvarsky passed before he left office was based on “expert compromise” and adheres to the customary transition process.
Following the double death in Bratislava last year, a number of human rights groups banded together to launch the program Ide na o zivot (Our lives are at stake).
The neighborhood is adamant about continuing to fight despite the rules’ withdrawal.
The members of the Our Life Are At Stake program, which received support from over 100 organizations and nearly 33,000 people, stated in a recent statement that one of their demands was for trans people to move in dignity. “We’re not going to let it go.”
