Opinion | Political riot over photos of The Golden Gays

For most visitors it will be five innocent photos of five elderly men. Dressed in dresses, with wigs and layers of makeup in the grooves of their faces, they live together in the house of The Golden Gays in the Philippines. But for 36-year-old politician Dora Duro, from the radical right-wing party Mi Hazank (‘Our Fatherland’), these photos of mostly cheerful-looking and smiling men are harmful.

Of five photos of the World Press Photo exhibition in Budapest has been causing a political riot in Hungary for weeks. And that riot has now also claimed a victim: the director of the National Museum, Laszlo Simon, has been fired. He was State Secretary for Culture for many years and, as a member of parliament for Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, he agreed to the controversial anti-LGBTI law.

Tensions surrounding the exhibition began last month after MP Duro visited the exhibition and asked the government to investigate the photos. Duro was outraged when she saw the photos and thought “how the LGBTI minority lives is not the biggest problem in the world,” she told AP news agency. “This exhibition is clearly harmful to minors and, I believe, to adults as well.”

Visitation ban

And so the Hungarian government intervened and banned minors from visiting the exhibition, popular among students and young people. Photographer Hannah Reyes Morales thinks it is “harmful” that the “visibility of the LGBTQIA+ community” is limited as well as “their right to exist and be seen.” The World Press Photo organization also disapproves of the visit ban and according to Joumana El Zein Khoury, the organization’s director, it is the first time that an exhibition in Europe has had to deal with censorship.

And the museum? The museum’s director voted in favor of the anti-LGBTI law as a member of parliament in 2021. Coined by proponents as a ‘child protection law’: films, TV programs and books for minors, among other things, may not contain homosexuality, gender reassignment or ‘deviant’ gender identity. Director Simon posted a message on the museum’s website calling on young people under the age of 18 not to visit the exhibition.

But they still came.

The director was fired last week. The reason? Failure to comply with “the legal obligations of the institution,” according to hhe Ministry of Culture.

Immediately after the visit ban, the museum indicated that it had no legal right to ask visitors for ID for an age check. Something that the ministry also recognized, director Simon notes a Facebook message. Still, he had to leave. “I cannot accept the reason for my dismissal,” he wrote in the same message.

Simon walked to ample applause from the more than 400 employees last week for the last time on the red carpet steps of the museum.

More visitors

The whole riot only resulted in more visitors to the exhibition in recent weeks. earlier director Simon sarcastically thanked the radical right-wing politician Duro: “The National Museum is alive and doing well,” he posted next to a photo of the long queues in front of the museum. “Thank you, dear representative Duro.”

Despite the attention, photographer Reyes is “saddened” because the visit ban means that the story of the Philippine Golden Gays “may not reach the people who need it most.”

In this section, correspondents highlight the public debate at their place of employment.

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