Two women got married on Pride Day, marking the first same-sex marriage in Romania
Romania's first same-sex marriage was officiated between two women in Bucharest.
Georgiana and Evie were married on Saturday, July 9 (the day of the Bucharest Pride March), at the Civil Registry Office of Sector 5, in Bucharest, after realizing they could take advantage of a legal loophole that would enable them to have the wedding they hoped for.
This is the first time a same-sex couple has married in Romania, as marriage is still illegal for these couples.
The wedding was made possible by the fact that Evie is transgender and has yet to change the gender on her ID card, thus enabling her to legally marry another woman.
Journalist & artist Oana Maria Zaharia, writing for VICE Romania, attended the wedding and wrote this unprecedented event in the LGBTQIA+ community in Romania.
According to her, in the days leading up to the big day, the couple did their research and read the Romanian laws regarding discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, and identity, so they’d be prepared if they were met with any resistance.
Based on the laws, they should have been welcomed easily enough. However, this was unfortunately not the case.
Straight away the person who took their papers informed the couple and their party that they would not be permitted entry and that they would have to wait for the registrar to come out and talk to them.
The registrar, a middle-aged woman, came out and told the brides that, as Evie was wearing a colorful summer dress, she would not marry them unless „the gentleman” went home and came back „dressed like a man." She said that „this is Romania and there are no men in dresses here.” The couple and their party argued with her, explaining that she had no legal basis for her words.
It took some time, but eventually, the registrar gave up, and after a subsequent argument on the subject of photographs, which Evie and Georgiana’s group were told they would not be allowed to take, all made-up rules were dropped, and the two women were married.
Evie and Georgiana met in October 2021 and decided to get married this year.
"We decided to rush into marriage because Evie decided she was going to change the gender on her ID and after that we would no longer be able to marry,” Georgiana tells Oana. „Initially, she just wanted to change her name on her ID and not her gender, but then the war started in Ukraine and our perspective changed a bit," she adds.
Evie spoke a bit about what it was like to discover that she was actually a woman, and what the process of coming to terms with her identity in a transphobic country has been like.
She told Oana that she had been depressed for a very long time, and could never figure out why: „In the trans community, they say that rather than accepting you're trans because that would cause you countless problems, you start finding all sorts of other reasons for your depression."
She also said that she had always had issues with the way she looked: "I never liked looking in the mirror because I didn’t like what I saw. I didn't like having my picture taken. I didn't dress up. I didn't care about my body, because I didn't feel good in it.”
Probably because she had been exposed to very little trans representation, it took years for Evie to figure out what was wrong. Among the things that helped her realize who she really is was a video on Philosophy Tube in which the person behind the YouTube channel comes out as a trans woman: "At that moment I got terribly emotional and cried. Before long, I understood why."
Oana writes that the transition was difficult because some of Evie's friends and family members did not accept her new identity, but Evie says that the joy of finally finding herself is greater than the pain that comes with it.
The newly married couple is happily celebrating but is also wary about what might happen when Evie changes her ID to match her true identity.
(Photo source: Amlani/Dreamstime.com)
