FILE PHOTO: A girl wearing a PRIDE cap and a face mask bearing a black X attends an LGBT event outside the president’s office to urge him to send a bill banning gender identity studies back to parliament, in Bucharest, Romania, June 18, 2020. Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea via REUTERS
December 16, 2020
BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s Constitutional Court overturned on Wednesday a blanket ban on gender identity studies voted through by lawmakers and which rights groups and universities said would infringe on human rights and fuel discrimination.
Parliament passed the amendment to the education law earlier this year, pushing Romania’s sexual politics closer to the conservative stances of neighbouring Hungary and Poland.
]Centrist President Klaus Iohannis challenged the bill, which was approved without public debate, at the top court.
Socially conservative Romania decriminalised homosexuality in 2001, decades later than other parts of the European Union, and is one of the only EU states that bar marriage and civil partnerships for same sex couples..
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; editing by Alistair Bell)