The new government program appears pleasantly progressive for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people. Ann-Sophie Otte, Chairwoman of the Homosexual Initiative (HOSI) Vienna, says: “The program of the new federal government gives reason for optimism for the LGBTIQ community. Particularly important for LGBTIQ people is the planned National Action Plan (NAP) against hate crimes. Because these have significantly increased in recent years and threaten all minorities in Austria.”
A major success is the planned ban on so-called ‘conversion therapies.’ These are unscientific pseudo-therapies intended to change sexual orientation or gender identity, but in reality only mean ineffective psychological torment with partly severe consequences for those affected. Otte elaborates: “We are particularly pleased about the agreement that de facto both conversion therapies based on sexual orientation as well as gender identity will be banned.”
There is also progress in the protection of particularly vulnerable people, says Otte: “There are supposed to be ‘clear regulations’ to protect intersex children and adolescents – that is, those who are biologically neither male nor female – from medically unnecessary interventions. The wording is still somewhat vague, but the inclusion of self-representation organizations like VIMÖ and the planned increased education of healthcare personnel are good signs.”
However, individual downsides remain, says Otte: “Protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation is unfortunately missing once again. It’s absurd: everyone agrees that it is right that no one should be thrown out of a venue because of their skin color – but if that happens because the person is lesbian, gay, or bisexual, that is apparently supposed to remain legal. Here, we as an LGBTIQ organization will stay on it and continue to strongly represent the demands of our community.” Additionally, the HOSI Vienna chairwoman warns that the devil is often in the details: “There was already an attempt under the conservative-green coalition to ban conversion therapies. At that time, however, it failed because the ÖVP ultimately did not want to support protections for transgender people. HOSI Vienna will in any case critically accompany the upcoming government and judge it by its actions.”