Over 10,000 People In Hungary Held Budapest’s First Pride March After Voting Out Far-Right Leader Viktor Orbán
The mood was much more optimistic after the political change in the country and hopes for new rights related to same-sex adoption and marriage.
Tens of thousands of people in Hungary marched through the capital, Budapest, for the first LGBTQ Pride march after voting out former far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán, who tried to ban the event.
Hungary, under Orbán, had defined marriage as being exclusively for heterosexual couples, banned gay couples from adopting children and stopped legally recognizing gender changes, even for trans people.
In 2021, Orbán's government passed a law banning content seen as “promoting” homosexuality and changing genders to under-18s, including books, educational materials and ads.
The European Court of Justice ruled later that the law was illegal and violates the EU's founding values.
Then, in April 2025, Orbán’s government changed the country’s constitution to ban public events held by the LGBTQ community, effectively banning the annual Pride march.
But on April 13, people in Hungary voted out Orbán after 16 years in power and elected centre-right Tisza party’s Péter Magyar.
The new government, led by Magyar, has not repealed the law banning LGBTQ public events but authorized Budapest Pride march and provided security along the route instead of trying to stop it.
On Saturday June 27, more than 10,000 people marked the country’s 31st annual Pride march, marching at Budapest's Opera House and wound through the city center before crossing the Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube River despite a heat wave, with temperatures reaching about 38°C.
People said the mood was much more optimistic after the political change in the country and hopes for new rights related to same-sex adoption and marriage, according to Reuters.
"Everyone is just so much more uplifted," 18-year-old student Fanni Fajth who joined the march said. "I think it would be wonderful if we just had equal rights finally after all these years."
Hungary's bans on same-sex marriage and adoption are still in place, and the new government has not said whether it will change them.
Nyx Joy
Cherry Mohamed
Isha Jain
