Bulgarian President Signs ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill into Law

Today, a decree by Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev for the promulgation of controversial amendments to the Preschool and School Education Act was published in the Bulgarian State Gazette. The bill, which passed on two readings with lightning speed in parliament last Wednesday, August 7, forbids any “propaganda, promotion, or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly, of ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or determination of gender identity other than the biological.”

Thus, effectively, any situation in which any information about homosexuality, bisexuality, or a transgender condition is provided, whether scientific or not, in any aspect of the preschool or school education system, irrespective of the grade, will be in violation of the law.

The amendments do not encompass any specific sanctions, but they will be open to enforcement through disciplinary proceedings against teachers, school principals, school nurses, school psychologists, or any public servant of the Ministry of Education. Furthermore, they will curb access to schools for all organisations – not only civil society organisations willing to work on the topic but also other institutions like the national equality body or health authorities willing to work on the prevention of discrimination or the promotion of sexual health.

The law was tabled by the pro-Kremlin ultra-nationalist party ‘Revival’ (Vazrajdane; member of Europe of Sovereign Nations political group in the 10th European Parliament) and was adopted with an overwhelming majority of 159 out of 194 votes in the first reading. Only 22 MPs voted against the law, and 13 abstained. LGBTI organisations were neither invited to committee discussions nor were their position statements on the bill uploaded to the parliament’s website.

In a parliamentary hearing resembling a witch hunt this Wednesday, a myriad of concerned parents’ organisations applauded the law, with some calling for banning all NGOs from accessing schools and organising a referendum to leave the European Union due to its funding of such non-profits. In the meantime, the committee’s chair, Kostadin Kostadinov, who is also the leader of ‘Revival,’ announced that their next step would be the introduction of a Kremlin-style law on registering organisations as foreign agents. Some of the conservative NGOs present pledged to act as watchdogs for the implementation of the new law.

Now that the law will be in force, the only hope for its neutralisation is either for it to be repealed by parliament (which is unlikely with the huge majority that adopted it and Bulgaria facing its seventh preliminary parliamentary elections in a row over the past four years); for it to be declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court (highly dominated by conservatives who recently found that an international treaty against domestic violence contains ‘gender ideology’ and that the word ‘sex’ used in the equality clause in the constitution refers to a binary biological concept stemming from human chromosomes and Christian tradition); or for it to merely not be applied by the executive, which will be hard considering the pledge of the conservative watchdogs.

“International institutions are to no avail here,” said Radoslav Stoyanov, co-chair of Bulgaria's largest human rights organisation, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee. “While their reaction is much needed, no doubt, no international institution can directly invalidate the law despite the possibility for them to issue binding judgments or impose sanctions. At the end of the day, the decision to repeal the law lies with Bulgarian institutions. The question is how strong the incentive is for them to do that when the law is very popular and when sanctions are paid by the taxpayers who don’t mind that,” says Stoyanov.

“Bulgarian society is heading into a downward spiral of Kremlin propaganda consumption, and the possibility of the re-election of Donald Trump as the next US president is actually a very influential factor as well,” added Stoyanov, noting that the existence of many ‘don’t say gay’ and ‘don’t say they’ laws in the USA has been used as an argument in defence of the Bulgarian law.

After the adoption of the amendments, MPs from another populist party, ‘Greatness’ (Velichie), tabled a proposal for severe administrative penalties for violating the new ban, calling for fines between 5,000 Bulgarian leva (about 2,500 euros) and 10,000 Bulgarian leva (about 5,000 euros). In the case of repeated offences, the sum would be doubled, and a ban on exercising a profession could be imposed for up to two years. This bill has not yet been voted upon.

In the summer of 2023, Bulgaria introduced sexual orientation as a ground for an aggravated offence in the Criminal Code, but not for all crimes. Gender identity, furthermore, was not adopted as a ground. No case of hate crime has been prosecuted yet under these new provisions despite growing intolerance towards queer identities within Bulgarian society.

This week, many expats protested against the law's adoption before Bulgarian embassies and consulates abroad – in Berlin, New York, Rhode Island, Toronto, Paris, and London. On Saturday a protest is also planned in Hague from 18:00.

Check the amendments here.