Statement on the adoption of an anti-LGBTI+ law in Bulgaria by Levfem, a socialist feminist organization based in Bulgaria
Conservative and far-right forces scored a huge victory on Wednesday, 7 August. In Bulgaria, MPs from all political parties voted in favor of banning the “propaganda” of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Few MPs opposed the proposal. The bill resembles other bans on discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity introduced in Russia, Hungary, and the US. We stand firmly against this bill and call on the international community to support us against this law of hatred.
What is happening?
The Bulgarian parliament adopted a bill amending the Pre-School and School Education Act that prohibits actions related to “propaganda, promotion or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly, of ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or determination of sex identity other than biological”. “Non-traditional sexual orientation” is further defined as “a perception of emotional, romantic, sexual or sensual attraction that differs from the generally accepted and established in Bulgarian legal tradition one between persons of opposite sexes”. The bill was tabled by the far-right Vazrazhdane (Revival) Party, and was passed with the votes of all but one parties represented in Parliament. The proposal was supported by two large teachers’ unions as well.
A number of examples of such bans can be found elsewhere. In 1988, Margaret Thatcher’s government in the UK introduced so-called ‘Section 28’, which banned the discussion of sexual orientation in schools. In 2010, Lithuania passed a law against the “promotion of homosexual relations”. In 2013, the Russian Duma passed a law banning the “promotion of non-traditional sexual relations”, and since 2021 Hungary has had a law against any content that “promotes gender reassignment or homosexuality” to children. A similar law was passed in Florida, USA, in 2022. In November 2023, the municipal councilors of GERB and Renaissance in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, adopted a ban on propaganda of “non-traditional sexual orientation” in the Ordinance on Advertising and Information Activities.
Patriarchal violence
If we look into examples of other policies – the campaigns and legislative attacks against abortion in Poland, Croatia, Italy, the US, and Argentina; the rejection of the Convention against Domestic Violence and Violence against Women in Bulgaria, Turkiye, Slovakia, and Hungary; transphobic policies and movements across Europe and the US – among others – we can observe a growing conservative wave whose focus is women and LGBTI+ people. The fight against ‘gender ideology’ is the umbrella that covers the various policies aimed at taking away reproductive and bodily freedoms. As Elżbieta Korolczuk shows, debates about sexuality, family and gender identity are major political dividing lines for contemporary societies. Although they are presented by the right as “culture wars” between the West and the East, between globalists and nationalists, these issues are sites of political struggle in which the social and economic problems of our time manifest. The far right and conservatives understand this well and it is for this reason that they produce moral panics and alarmist narratives in which they present themselves as victims. They disguise their hateful policies under the narrative of the ‘attack’ on traditional values coming from ‘Trotskyists’, ‘cultural Marxists’ and supranational institutions.
A look at the real experiences of women and LGBTI+ people shows a very different story from the conservative one. So-called “traditional values” extol understandings and expectations that assign women the place of handmaidens. The capitalist economy depends on unpaid labor to provide food, care, and nurture to the workforce in the home. Recent decades of neoliberal hegemony have further reinforced this trend. The dismantling of welfare systems and privatization have individualized care for children, the sick, and the elderly and shifted it to the home, increasing the double burden on women and further exposing vulnerable LGBTI+ people who cannot rely on relatives and other community support in difficult times.
At the same time, the moral panic that has flooded social networks in recent days cannot help but evoke disheartening parallels with the deafening silence about the 13 women killed by domestic violence since the beginning of the year in Bulgaria. Violence against women and LGBTI+ people is an essential part of the maintenance of patriarchal capitalism and attempts to break down our resistance by directly assaulting our physical integrity and, sadly, our lives.
Transphobia
Talk of “gender ideology” in Bulgaria, as elsewhere, has served as a missile to normalize political violence against LGBTI+ people. Homophobia and transphobia have found their legitimate expression – while for much of the political and media elite, expressing open hatred was not acceptable, for several years the fight against “gender ideology” has allowed for open and direct attacks on the rights and lives of LGBTI+ people. “Gender” has become a transphobic insult, and our bodily autonomy, our right to live with dignity, and our collective existence are constantly delegitimised and questioned. “Gender ideology” also serves to pit LGBTI+ people against a kind of traditional “normalcy” that conservatives believe is natural and deeply connected to the biological, natural, and national essence of human beings.
There is nothing further from reality. The true gender ideology is one that divides us into heterosexual masculine men and heterosexual feminine women, and that trains and educates us from a young age in the ways we think, feel, and live. One of the great political struggles of our time is to expose and destroy the ideology of patriarchal capitalism that exploits and squeezes our bodies for the sake of other people’s profit. Violence against LGBTI+ people is part of conservative and far-right efforts to mask this political violence as natural.
The fight against gender does not appear to distract society from the “real” issues, or to serve as a smokescreen for other purposes. Conservative and far-right forces well understand that maintaining and reinforcing patriarchy is integral to their political mission. The subjugation and introduction of strict laws that take away the bodily autonomy and freedoms of LGBTI+ people and women is a central axis for these movements today, because issues of redistribution, labor, social policies, reproduction, and the participation of underprivileged groups in social processes are located on it.
Political opposition to the conservative agenda is our primary task. Exposing the violence and exploitation hidden under the mask of ‘normality’ and ‘traditional values’ is a good basis for our common action. Our solidarity is much stronger than their legal repression. Our future is at stake. We resolutely reject conservatism and the far right and we will fight their hatred, and build solidarity.
We call on the international community for support in these difficult times, and to further strengthen our common struggles against patriarchal capitalism.
LevFem is a Bulgarian left-wing feminist organization founded in 2018. It addresses issues related to the socio-economic inequalities produced in a capitalist economy, which are directly linked to the increase in gender inequalities. LevFem works primarily towards the alignment of women workers in feminised key sectors such as health, social services, education, care work, and representatives of marginalised communities with the goals of the feminist movement. The organisation links the feminist movement to the LGBTI+ cause and anti-racism, building on the principles of intersectionality.