By Viktória Radványi, civil society leader and LGBTQ human rights defender, President of Budapest Pride
Facing declining popularity, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán introduced a ban on pride marches and LGBTQ demonstrations in early 2025. Instead of deterring resistance, the ban was met with unprecedented solidarity: the Hungarian LGBTQ community mobilised broad alliances and organized the largest pride marches ever held in Budapest and Pécs. The ban remains in force, and police investigations are ongoing. Viktória Radványi, President of Budapest Pride shares lessons learned from the largest public demonstration in Hungarian history.
Hungarian LGBTQ people have faced sustained hostility throughout the 16 years of the current regime. During the pandemic, Orbán accelerated his anti-rights agenda by fast-tracking legislation banning legal gender recognition and censoring LGBTQ topics in education and the media. Framed as “child protection” and “family values,” these campaigns aimed at deterring voter attention from a deepening economic crisis that disproportionately affected low-income families. But many experienced that Orbán is not delivering on his slogans: the gap between government rhetoric and lived reality was being exposed. There have been continuous reports of systemic child abuse in state-care, child poverty has doubled since 2020 and 25% of pensioners are living in extreme poverty. Hungarians watched Orbán spending taxpayer billions on anti-minority campaigns, his friends and family accumulating vast wealth and by the end of 2024, a new opposition party was neck-to-neck with Orbán.
In the beginning of 2025, Viktor Orbán made a series of choices, which, at the time, some considered bold. In retrospect, even his own ministers characterised them as dire political mistakes.
Orbán warned pride organizers “not to bother with organizing a pride march this year”, as organisers were preparing the 30th edition of the human rights event for June 2025. In March 2025, an amendment to the Assembly Act (accompanied with a modification to the constitution) enabled the banning of pride marches and other LGBTQ equality demonstrations under the false guise of “child protection”. The law threatened organisers with imprisonment, participants with a hefty fine and authorised the use of facial recognition technologies, while the government simultaneously floated a “foreign agent law” targeting independent media and civil society. Orbán seemed confident: with all these anti-rights efforts he thought he would be able to deliver his campaign promise of “no more prides”, and regain lost popularity with certain voter groups.
One of his biggest mistakes was to underestimate the unmatched resilience of the Hungarian LGBTQ community.
When the ban was announced, the Budapest Pride team reaffirmed they would organise the 30th Budapest Pride March on June 28, 2025, no matter what. They were joined by the team of Pécs Pride, Hungary’s only other pride, making the same commitment in their city. The queer communities of both cities lived up, and even exceeded their commitments.
Beyond international attention, the mobilisation restored a long-lost sense of collective confidence in Hungarians, as hundreds of thousands experienced what it means to successfully resist unjust laws.
Strong communities
The Budapest Pride team recognised that the Prime Minister is going to paint himself into a corner: if the march is expected to have a large turnout, he will have no option to back out, and the police will be forced to protect the participants, even in spite of the ban. Hungarians value peace and order, and despise police violence above all.
Budapest Pride rolled out a new theme to represent and mobilise all Hungarians. The anniversary slogan “We are (home)” focused on LGBTQ persons belonging to, and making up a vital part of Hungarian society. The campaign showcased a core element of the local movement: inherently Hungarian and unapologetically queer. The celebrations culminated in the stage programming, where LGBTQ activists and drag queens were followed by well-known Hungarian musicians and actors, relaying the message of unity across communities.
Building on the rich cultural history of the Hungarian LGBTQ movement and historic freedom movements, Budapest Pride managed to create mass-mobilising messages: if LGBTQ demonstrations can be banned, other protests will be banned, too. The organizers reminded the nation of the historic lessons they knew too well: crackdowns on minority rights are just pilot programs for cracking down on the majority’s rights. Budapest Pride vowed to fight for reinstating freedom of assembly in Hungary and for the fundamental rights of everyone, even for those who never want to attend a pride march.
The question was not whether everyone likes pride marches. The question was: should every person in Hungary be allowed to organize a peaceful protest to express their opinions, or the country submits to censorship and tyranny.
Building alliances
Budapest Pride understood the importance of wide-ranging alliances from different sectors. Budapest’s progressive mayor Gergely Karácsony pledged to exercise their right to freedom of assembly at pride marches. At the end, the municipality co-organised the march with the Budapest Pride team as a municipal event, commemorating Budapest Freedom Day, and circumventing the national ban. Days before the event, EC President Ursula von der Leyen appealed to allow Budapest Pride to go ahead without any fear of sanctions. Over 30 embassies voiced their support for Budapest Pride. EU countries’ government members, parliament members, MEPs and city leaders joined the event. Budapest Pride’s Human Rights Conference was joined by dignitaries Hadja Lahbib (EC Equality Commissioner), Michael O’Flaherty (CoE Human Rights Commissioner), Graeme Reid (UN SOGI Independent Expert) and many more, standing up against the pride-ban. LGBTQ groups organised solidarity protests all over Hungary and in 10+ EU countries. Civil society stood by Budapest Pride: human rights NGOs provided essential advocacy support, legal aid and organisational help. People mobilised across movements, across the country.
Perseverance comes from caring for each other
Hungarians are painfully familiar with the tactics used by leaders like Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanjahu, including rushed legislation, anti-rights legislation, funding cuts and smear campaigns.
These strategies are designed to exhaust civil society, drain resources, fracture movements and undermine the mental and physical wellbeing of human rights defenders.
Building on this civil society knowledge shared by different movements, Budapest Pride made the decision to prioritise team wellbeing from day one. This included collective risk assessment, enhanced physical and digital security and concrete measures to prevent burnout. Budapest Pride created a framework to protect its own members, consisting of regular supervision sessions, legal aid and individualised mental health support.
All in all, the team at Budapest Pride were laser-focused on one main goal: to deliver the largest pride march Hungary has ever seen, with 100,000 participants in mind. The results were overwhelming: Budapest Pride estimates that about 350,000 – 500,000 persons joined the 2025 Budapest Pride March, having organised the largest protest in Hungarian history.
