BUDAPEST, HUNGARY—Transgender activists in Hungary have worked for equality and recognition for many years, and their efforts have led to several policy changes. However, one struggle they have in relating to the movement in other countries is the fact that Hungarian has no gendered pronouns, effectively taking away about half of the fuel from the movement.
Whereas in most other countries where the LGBTQIA+ community spend much of their time advocating for the use of non-binary pronouns, such as "ze" or "zhe," or gender neutral pronouns such as "they" in whatever circumstances would so permit, such efforts are wholly unnecessary in Hungarian, which uses the word "ő" for all references to individuals in the third person.
This little linguistic fact has left the wind out of many of the movement's efforts, especially following the Equal Treatment Act of 2018, which made it possible to legally change one's gender with a medical diagnosis. Many activists are unsure what to do with their time aside from chipping away at the remaining legal issues regarding transgender people.
Joszef Varna, 28, explains that "Yes, I can say that it is difficult to be [an] activist in home country. Sometimes [it] is hard to find social norms to tear down. Whenever I hear a person refer to one of my transgender friends, they are not needing to dance on eggshells like in America or U.K. It make[s] it hard to gain [the] upper hand."
Some factions of the transgender community in Hungary and other countries with naturally gender-neutral pronouns, such as Finland, have floated the idea that they should perhaps create new pronouns that they feel best reflect their non-traditional genders, as that would recognize their individuality.
"We are not cookie cutter people," explained Adel Oláh, 31. "It offends me much when I am treated like any one of these others [sic] people who use non-gendered pronouns. I do not fit that, so I deserve that people call me something that show[s] I am pangender."
Others in the community believe that creating new pronouns for the language would be counterproductive to the movement, but this debate is not likely to go away as some activists look toward other countries for cues on how to gain media attention for their cause.
"That's ok," said Varna. "We can still help on gay marriage and everything for now."