ATHENS – It wasn’t expected under a conservative government but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ New Democracy administration is pushing reforms designed to give more rights to the LGBTQI+ community.

That stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex plus many other identifications outside what had been traditionally-accepted norms for sexual identification, but the attitudes are changing.

He is going ahead with plans to ban so-called sex-normalizing surgeries on children as part of an effort to fight discrimination and boost LGBTQ rights in the country, said the financial news agency Bloomberg in a report.

Those 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, the report noted.

That’s been a highlight of his campaign to bring more rights for the community after the 4 1/2-year reign of the former ruling Radical Left SYRIZA stopped short of allowing gay marriages.

So has Mitsotakis and whether he goes ahead will depend on whether he wins election again in 2023, his government saying it’s complex and tangled up in family law and adoption questions for now.

Alex Patelis, his Chief Economic Adviser, told the news site that, “It is important for Greece to both increase LGBTQI+ visibility and change things legally, as part of a broader effort of ensuring equal opportunities for all and creating an inclusive society and economy.”

He added: “One important legacy of the strategy is that LGBTQI+ issues in Greece have now permanently entered mainstream policy making and are considered commonplace in political discourse.”

Mitsotaking in 2021 named a committee to create a national strategy for improving LGBTQ rights and other reforms have included lifting a ban on homosexual men making blood donations.

“The injustices and hatred that, unfortunately even today, exist for fellow citizens must finally be eliminated,” Mitsotakis said in May. “I pledge that I will not leave anyone alone in this struggle for freedom and equality.”

That has put Greece in a category of European countries making the most advances in rights for the community, a ranking showed said the report, but there’s wariness that it may be on paper only.

“The strategy as a first step is very positive,” said Giannis Papagiannopoulos, a rights activist and publisher of Antivirus Magazine, Greece’s only LGBTQ publication. “We’re waiting to see as a community that what has been proposed will become reality,” he told the site.

Same-sex civil partnerships were legally recognized in Greece in 2015 and gender identity in 2017 under SYRIZA, which stopped there and Mitsotakis has taken up the cause to do more.

His government approved measures moving trans women inmates to women’s prisons from men’s and putting transgender citizens in targeted programs that subsidize labor costs for businesses.

Other proposals include creating an agency to handle LGBTQ issues, along with a helpline, a center for psychological counseling and facilities for young homeless people from the community. Some 800,000 civil servants will be trained on how to deal with related issues in their places of work, the report said of the efforts.