The Labrisz Lesbian Association, founded in 1999, is devoted to combating both sexism and , and to establishing public spaces for lesbians. The association hosts informal discussion groups, a monthly film-club, and an educational book series.

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Other Budapest-based glbtq organizations include the Symposium Association (Szimpozion Egyesulet), which sponsors educational, cultural, and leisure activities for glbtq youths, and Flamingo, a social group for glbtq people 30 years and older.

The Budapest Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Festival

The Budapest Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Festival has been held annually since 1996. It was the first such event among the ex-Communist Central and Eastern European countries.

Members of the Háttér Society originally organized the events; beginning in 2001, however, the festival has been coordinated by a coalition of Budapest's glbtq groups, known as the Rainbow Mission Foundation (Szivárvány Misszió Alapítvány).

The Festival includes exhibitions, discussions, and film screenings, and culminates with the Pride Parade, in which thousands take part, as both participants and observers.

At the 2007 Gay Pride parade, the government's Human Resources Secretary of State, Gábor Szetey, came out publically as a gay man, a landmark moment for the Hungarian glbtq rights movement.

Szetey is the first member of a sitting Hungarian government to announce publicly his homosexuality, and only the second Hungarian politician, after Klára Ungár, one of the founders of the liberal Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party, who came out publicly in 2005.

A small German-speaking country in middle Europe, Austria is now home to a thriving glbtq subculture.

Until quite recently glbtq citizens of Hungary had little visibility, but glbtq rights organizations have been instrumental in effecting constructive changes.

Both parades and marches have served to render the glbtq community visible; whereas marches typically attempt to effect political change, parades and pride events affirm identity and community.

The capital and largest city of the Czech Republic, Prague is the hub of the country's gay and lesbian life and the center of its glbtq political movement.

Lesbian and gay couples have been fighting for the freedom to marry since the dawn of the modern glbtq struggle for equality; despite some success abroad, progress toward same-sex marriage in the United States has been slow.

The capital of Austria, Vienna is also the country's largest city, as well as its political, economic, and cultural center, and the undisputed hub of Austrian gay and lesbian life.

Despite the now favorable legal situation, the Roman Catholic opposition to gay rights shapes national attitudes in Poland, holding back the progress of Warsaw's gay and lesbian community; and most of Warsaw's gays and lesbians are still in the closet.

The European Commission on Human Rights was the first international human rights organization to condemn homophobia; the European Court of Human Rights, which replaced the Commission, has also helped enforce glbtq rights.