Update 25.11.2023: Gabi has stopped the hunger strike. She has expanded her campaign efforts and continues to fight for her rights and proper treatment and justice for trans people. Sign now to support her.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gabriela Bankova, a 32-year-old trans woman, is continuing a hunger strike in front of the Palace of Justice on Sofia after Bulgaria’s judicial authorities said she could not change her ID documents according to her gender identity. 

This is one of the cases of systematic humiliation of trans people in Bulgaria, which leaves behind sadness, broken lives and the feeling that we do not live in a country that has ratified the European Convention on Human Rights.

At risk to her life due to bronchopneumonia, with which Gabby appeared in Court yesterday, she went on hunger strike to protect not only herself, her child and her identity, but all other people like her whose gender does not match the sex assigned at birth.

We, at Bilitis and GLAS foundations, stand firmly against the systematic violation of trans and intersex people's right to self-determination in Bulgaria.

This ongoing injustice not only creates discomfort, it costs lives and takes away from the future of us all as a society. We cannot accept the lack of legislation that governs gender recognition for trans and intersex people. We do not accept enforcement that restricts access to rights in the name of religious traditions and places insurmountable barriers in front of a small and highly vulnerable social group: people whose sense of gender does not match the sex assigned to them at birth.

Help us fight back and put pressure on the Bulgarian Government by signing our petition!