Amy Zoyomi is a 29-year-old trans woman from the southern Slovakian city of Lucenec, which has 30,000 residents. Amy made the decision to relocate to the capital, Bratislava, as an adult. One of the main reasons she left her home was because of her female identity.
Living in Lucenec and living in Bratislava are diametrically opposed for Amy. “People frequently gaze at me when I walk down the street in my hometown,” she told DW. “They occasionally stop, and the looks turn into verbal abuse. That is not common 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 journey to discovering her true identity has been rough, despite the fact that she found happiness in her close friends and acquaintances in Bratislava. This is also true for many other LGBTQ+ people in Slovakia, one of the last EU nations to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage and civil unions and a nation where trans people have often struggled greatly with gender change.
Amy came out as gay for the first time when she was a girl. She claims that her family handled the news very well because they were already aware of her sexual orientation. But coming out as a transgender woman was difficult.
Operation to confirm one’s female
Amy made the decision to have sex confirmation surgery in Thailand in 2022 after having some initial reservations. “It has been very helpful to me,” she told DW. “I may finally take who I am, and I feel a little more complete and self-assured.”
According to the tranzicia.org website, only four doctors in Slovakia currently specialize in the transition process. The operation to confirm one’s female 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 to find great doctors, and one of them was very comforting, which was helpful. However, it can be very frustrating for some people to have to wait a long time to begin their transition.”
Amy was fortunate to be able to decide for herself what she wanted to do with her body. Transgender citizens in Slovakia, nevertheless, are currently less fortunate.
New secretary revokes regulations
The center-left Hlas party’s Zuzana Dolinkova, the health secretary, revoked the gender transition guidelines that allowed transgender people to change their identity in legal files without having gender confirmation surgery in late November.
The regulations, which facilitated the transition for trans people in Slovakia, had been put in place eight months earlier by past Health Minister Vladimir Lengvarsky only before he left office, but the new administration revoked them a fortnight after taking office.
Operation to confirm one’s female 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. “It is inhumane to force someone into operation in this manner.”
The president’s decision was solely democratic; she stated in a media speech on November 21 that the regulation 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.
From the republican right wing, pressure
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 for the nation in an interview, saying, “Yesterday’s status quo in Slovakia is extremely progressive-liberal.”
“The parties in the coalition had already talked about it before we started talking about ministers,” he said in an exclusive interview with the liberal media website Postoj. “We have to remove these things. It’s no surprise to anyone.”
The LGBTQ+ area suffers a blow
The LGBTQ+ area 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: the operation to confirm one’s female is not only a life- and body-changing intervention, it can in some cases lead to permanent sterility.
When Western Courts are making decisions that support LGBTQ+ rights in EU nations, the rules are being changed. One instance of this is a recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights that claimed Poland had violated the right to respect for personal and familial life by refusing to allow same-sex organizations.
Instead of making informed decisions, social debate
Politicians truly mistreat trans people and make derogatory remarks. When asked about her opinions on Czech politicians, Amy told DW, “It frequently makes me feel really awful, and it also hurts my family and friends.”
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 release that Lengvarsky’s regulation, which was passed before he left office, was based on “expert consensus” and adhered to the customary transition process.
Following the triple murder in Bratislava last year, a number of human rights groups banded together to launch the program Ide nám o život (Our lives are in jeopardy).
“Our lives are at Stake program, which was supported by over 100 agencies and nearly 33,000 people,” the people said in a new speech. Despite the rules’ revocation, the community is determined to fight on. “We’re not going to let it go.”
