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Equality

Greece Takes Its Drive to Boost LGBTQ Rights up a Notch

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has introduced changes aimed at fighting discrimination and ensuring greater equality over the past year.

Participants take part in the 10th annual Pride parade in Thessaloniki, Greece, on June 25.
Participants take part in the 10th annual Pride parade in Thessaloniki, Greece, on June 25.

Photographer: Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP/Getty Images

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Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is moving forward with plans to ban so-called sex normalizing surgeries on children as part of an effort to fight discrimination and boost LGBTQ rights in Greece, a largely socially conservative country.

The potentially harmful practices are performed on babies and toddlers whose bodies do not fit traditional definitions of male or female, often without them ever knowing. The surgeries tend to be medically unnecessary, and are condemned by the United Nations, the World Health Organization and Human Rights Watch.