Flora BOLTER

Co-chair of the LGBTI+ Observatory of Fondation Jean-Jaurès (France)

Across Europe, ‘anti-gender’ movements are on the rise, increasingly targeting the rights of trans, non-binary and intersex persons, with serious real-life consequences. These movements sometimes frame themselves as defending the interests of women, children or even lesbian, gay and bisexual persons. The progressive movement should not fall for this misrepresentation. 

As of early 2025, 22 of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe have recognised marriage equality for same-sex and different-sex couples, and 12 have based the legal recognition of gender on self-determination, in line with the best practices recommendations made by international human rights organisations. The rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) persons are therefore acknowledged to an unprecedented level in our region and in our time. At the same time, the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency has shown a rise in reported experiences of harassment and violence against LGBTI persons in the years leading to 2024, and Putin-style ‘propaganda bans’ including Viktor Orbán’s attack on Budapest Pride or exclusionary constitutional definitions of gender, marriage and family, are now ubiquitous endeavours of illiberal populist movements all over Europe (and elsewhere, particularly in Trump’s United States). LGBTI rights are therefore at a political crossroads, and this is particularly true in Europe, which has historically championed these rights.

Yet some progressive groups remain silent regarding the dissemination of these harmful narratives on LGBTI persons, which are openly and demonstrably engineered by US ultra-conservative groups and part and parcel of these group’s global anti-choice campaigning. Worse, some seem to pay credit to the specious claim that LGBTI rights somehow contradict or diminish women’s rights or the rights of children. And even within the LGBTI community, a so-called ‘LGB movement’ has emerged to focus on sexual orientation issues only (but in practice almost exclusively advocating against trans rights).

It is no surprise that most harmful narratives around LGBTI rights today focus on gender identity and trans persons: they tap into misrepresentations and uneasiness in the general population regarding a very small group of people that has been gaining visibility and acceptance in recent years. Because younger generations are more at ease with expressing non-normative gender identities, trans and non-binary persons are more visible today than in previously. Although this is simply due to the erosion of social taboos,claims that there is a ‘trans epidemic’ –  and conspiracy theories on ‘grooming’ and ‘propaganda’ to explain it – are on the rise, repeating word for word the aspersions cast on the gay and lesbian movement in the 1980s and 1990s. Add a touch of vitriol about ‘gender ideology extremism’, a dash of sensationalistic junk science, cherrypicked ‘reviews‘ and pseudo-diagnoses that respected scientific authorities have warned against and presto!, you have the recipe for a moral panic.

An onslaught of manufactured controversies, frequently echoed uncritically in sensationalistic media titles, focuses the public debate on hyperbolic fears and a metaphysical debate about gender, when we should be focusing instead on what matters in terms of human rights: the lived experiences and policy needs of trans, non-binary and intersex persons, who undeniably face discrimination and violence and have the same unalienable rights as everybody else.

The fears that are being bandied about are largely imaginary. No country with a self-determination model of legal gender recognition has reported any abuse of these provisions. While individual transgender persons, like any other, can of course offend, the idea that a significant number of people would willingly face this level of stigmatisation just to access titles, roles or single-sex spaces purely for fraudulent reasons, is absurd .Trans and gender diverse identities are not conditions of mental ill-health, as the World Health Organization has explicitly pointed out. And from a feminist perspective, saying that ‘woman’ needs to be defined in law through biology – and biology only – means adhering to the notion that biology is destiny and that there should be an unsurpassable summa divisio of humankind in two sexes, with different-but-equal legal rights and obligations on either side – a far cry from what the feminist movement actually stands for. Wrangling the scope of legal protections against sexist violence is possible without adhering to a vision that can so easily be used to curtail our rights. Procreative choices are vitally important for all, and they are a key element for equality between women and men: this is also precisely why we should not reduce a woman’s existence and identity to reproductive aspects, even with the best of intentions.

And while we are wasting energy on pointless debates about the essence of femininity, or on haggling over the extent to which unwanted sterilisation should be required to obtain legal gender recognition (hint: it should not), the persons who are the focus of this debate are being denied dignity and rights every day, at an alarming and increasing rate. Harassment against trans, non-binary, intersex and gender-diverse children and youth is being enabled and institutionalised through legal initiatives against ‘gender ideology’ that also target comprehensive sex education. 

In Europe, as in the United States, the ultra-conservative right’s playbook is the same: attacking trans rights to erode the rights of all LGBTI persons and to undermine sexual and reproductive rights at the same time. To do this, it tries to sow division among the LGBTI movement, and to pit feminists against trans persons. But the rights of one group of people are not acquired or defended by diminishing those of others: human rights are not a zero-sum game where we should fight against ourselves for scraps of legal protection and tatters of dignity. Anti-choice, ultra-conservative demagogues, putinist bots and masculinist ‘influencers’ have constructed narratives to divide and oppose all marginalised and discriminated groups of society, to weaponise complex, progressive societies against themselves. Feminists, LGBTI activists and progressive movements belong together in the shared commitment to build a society based on equality and human rights. Faced with the looming perspective of widespread takeover of European democracies by illiberal, far-right movements, we need to focus on our common ideal – and not on harmful distractions that aim to divide us.

Photo credits: Shutterstock.com/Loredana Sangiuliano