The queer community in Romania and Bulgaria still encounters a wall of legal void, I noticed during Bucharest and Sofia Pride. There is hope, however, in the voices of activists like Cristina Sarcaru.
I was in Romania and Bulgaria in June, and LGBTQ+ rights are not in a good place there. Legally, sadly, hardly anything is regulated. Recognised same-sex partnerships? Non-existent. This means there is no insight into each other’s medical records, no right to each other’s inheritance, and no official recognition of co-mothers in lesbian relationships on birth certificates. These are just a few examples, because, according to research by the Bulgarian organisation Deytsvie, rainbow families are disadvantaged in as many as 300 ways.
A ban on conversion therapy? Also non-existent. This means that young people can be sent to unregulated therapy sessions where their “deviant” sexual orientation is attempted to be cured, yet they receive little to no medical guidance when struggling with their gender identity and considering a sex change.
In Bulgaria, they even have gone one step further. The Constitutional Court banned a procedure to change your gender identity on your passport. In other words, society seems to be saying that transgender persons do not exist. Meanwhile, transgender people are buying hormone blockers and therapies on the black market and administering them to themselves.
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