My Daughter Is Not a Second-Class Citizen

A mother’s personal testimony about how political rhetoric can become everyday fear — and why changing laws is not enough if the wounds within society remain.

Author: Szilvia Filó

Through a Mother’s Eyes

I have two daughters. One is heterosexual, the other is gay. As a mother, this changes nothing about the fact that they are both my children, and that I love, protect and support them with the same unconditional care. To me, this is not what makes a person more or less valuable. It is not what makes someone lovable, decent, trustworthy or kind-hearted.

And yet I have had to learn that there are people — and at times political systems as well — for whom this difference matters. More than that, they sometimes behave as if this difference gives them the right to judge, stigmatise, exclude or even humiliate others. In Hungary over the past years, we have repeatedly heard that gay people, transgender people and members of the LGBTQ community somehow represent a threat. Part of the political discourse has spoken about them as if they were not human beings like anyone else; as if they were not children, siblings, friends, colleagues, parents, or someone’s beloved daughters and sons.

The message conveyed was that there are “decent” citizens, and then there are those who may be marked out and stigmatised. There are those to whom safety, dignity and acceptance naturally belong, and there are those who are expected to justify their right to them. According to that logic, my daughter would belong to the latter category.

But my daughter is not a political symbol. She is not an ideology. She is not a campaign topic. She is not an enemy image. She is not an abstract concept to be inserted into posters, speeches or the justification of laws. My daughter is a human being: intelligent, empathetic, loving, reliable, caring and kind-hearted. She is the kind of person who notices when someone is in trouble, who cares about others and who does not want to harm anyone. She wants what every young person wants: safety, love, acceptance, freedom, and the right to be herself.

When Hatred Comes Close

And yet there were people who did not see this in her. She was sixteen when an older man hit her on a bus. They had not spoken to each other, they had not argued, and they did not know each other. Still, he felt entitled to punish her because she did not look like what he believed a girl should look like. A grown man raised his hand against someone who was still almost a child.

She was seventeen when someone spat at her in the street. She was not arguing with anyone, she was not provoking anyone, and she was not hurting anyone. She was simply walking with her girlfriend, just as hundreds of people walk through the streets of Hungary every day. Yet someone decided that this was reason enough to humiliate her.

As a mother, one of the most difficult feelings is realising that you cannot always protect your child. I can hold her hand, listen to her and comfort her. I can tell her that there is nothing wrong with her. But how can I protect her from the hatred that strangers carry against her? How can I explain to a sixteen-year-old child that there are people who judge her without a single word exchanged, without ever truly meeting her? And how can I explain to her that they did not learn all this from nowhere?

Hatred is rarely born on its own. Contempt has a language. Exclusion has its phrases, repeated formulas and public narratives. If people hear for years that there is “something wrong” with certain groups, that they are dangerous, destructive or alien to the nation, then sooner or later some will take this literally. Some will feel authorised not only to look down on others, but to hurt them.

But there is nothing wrong with my daughter. She did not become a different person when she realised that she was attracted to girls. Her soul, her character, her humanity did not change. She remained the same person I had raised: the same child I worried about, felt proud of, taught, embraced, comforted and wished to see grow into a happy and free adult.

Why We Left

In the end, this was partly why we left Hungary. Not out of a thirst for adventure, and not because we did not love our homeland. Quite the opposite: leaving hurt precisely because we loved it. But after a while, a parent has to ask themselves a painful question: should I stay in a place where my child is told, day after day, that she is worth less, or should I try to create a safer life for her?

We chose the latter. The saddest part is not simply that we moved away. Nor is it only that our family was split apart, and that the idea of home became both painful and uncertain. The saddest part is that we had to make that choice at all.

Because no parent should have to wonder whether their gay child is safe in their own country. No young person should have to calculate how they hold their partner’s hand in the street. No child should have to feel ashamed of who they are. If anyone should feel ashamed, it is not gay young people, but those who taught others to fear them, despise them or even raise a hand against them.

My daughter is not a second-class citizen. She is not worth less than anyone else. She is not asking for more rights than others. She does not want special treatment. She only wants what every human being deserves: dignity, safety and the freedom to be herself.

Hope Alone Is Not Safety

Recently, many people have asked us whether we are planning to move back to Hungary. To be honest, we are glad whenever hope appears: hope that Hungary may one day become a more accepting, humane and peaceful country; hope that politics will no longer search for enemies, but will instead try to connect people; hope that gay young people will one day no longer feel that they have to explain who they are in their own homeland.

That would be an important change, perhaps one of the most important. For now, however, our answer is still no. Not because we do not love Hungary, but because trust does not return overnight. Laws can be changed. The tone of political communication can be changed. But people’s thinking changes more slowly.

The man who hit my daughter on the bus will not automatically become more accepting just because different words are spoken in public life. Those who spat at her in the street will not wake up one morning suddenly more understanding. The fears, prejudices and hatred built up over years do not disappear with a single election result, a single legal amendment or a single well-written speech.

This takes time. A lot of time. And a great deal of work. Not only from politicians, but from all of us: from parents, teachers, journalists, public figures, friends, neighbours and citizens. Because social change does not begin only with what is said from a parliamentary podium. It begins with what we allow in our everyday lives, with what we say at the dinner table, what we laugh at, what we remain silent about, when we speak up, and whom we defend when others humiliate them.

The Hope for a Different Hungary

Real change will begin when a young person no longer has to fear being shamed in the street because they dress differently. It will begin when a parent no longer has to worry that their child will be hurt because of whom they love. It will begin when the word “gay” is no longer a stigma, but simply one of many characteristics of a human being.

I sincerely hope that this Hungary will one day come. I want our children to have a homeland to which they can return not only as visitors, but where they can truly feel at home. A place where they do not have to love cautiously, where they do not have to explain themselves, and where they do not have to feel smaller because others refuse to see the human being in them.

Because my daughter is not a second-class citizen. And neither is any other child.

Cover photo credit: Szilvia Filó

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