Five Anti-LGBT Proposals Due in Lithuanian Parliament in 2013

No fewer than five bills proposing further limitations on LGBT rights in Lithuania are set to be heard by the National Parliament in the session to December 2013, Lithuanian LGBT rights advocates have warned this week. The Lithuanian Gay League (LGL) published a statement on September 10 outlining each of the proposals, after the Lithuanian Parliament published the official autumn session schedule on September 5.

According to the draft agenda, the group advises, ‘the Parliament will consider 4 homophobic and transphobic legislative initiatives, encompassing the total ban on gender reassignment, prohibition of same-sex adoption, introduction of administrative liability for the “denigration of constitutional moral values” and the amendment to the Criminal Code, which would qualify “criticisms of homosexuality” as not constituting hate speech… It is foreseen that all the above indicated legislative motions will have been considered by the Parliament by December, 2013.’
As regards the draft amendment proposing a total ban on gender reassignment surgeries in Lithuania:
‘The explanatory note on the controversial proposal states that Lithuanian society “views gender reassignment as very controversially; society is not ready to accept gender reassignment practices due to certain psychosocial reasons, and therefore the permission to undergo gender reassignment surgeries will lead to a number of medical and ethical issues”. Moreover, it ignorantly states that it is impossible to reassign gender surgically because it “is determined genetically from the very moment of conception” and that gender reassignment procedure “is associated with the radical impairment of a person, because physically healthy persons who are able to conceive and raise children are castrated in this manner”.’
One of the bills also proposes – in practice – limitations on LGBT activists right to public assembly, in the name of prohibiting “public denigration of constitutional moral values and of constitutional fundamentals of the family life, as well as organization of public events contravening public morality”. The bill was proposed in May, 2013 in reaction to the upcoming Baltic Pride 2013 March for Equality.

For more information see:

• Lithuania Gay League: The Parliament Will Consider Five Homophobic Bills in Autumn Session