{"id":2178,"date":"2026-02-17T03:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/2178\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T03:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:09:07","slug":"fight-over-trans-rights-comes-to-brussels-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/2178\/","title":{"rendered":"Fight over trans rights comes to Brussels \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The EPF has been tracking the rise of what they call the \u201canti-gender\u201d movement across Europe, and found that hundreds of groups targeting so-called gender ideology \u2014 including think tanks, church-run advocacy groups, political parties and media \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epfweb.org\/node\/1152\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">had raised<\/a> $1.18 billion between 2019 and 2023, up from $81 million between 2009 and 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The groups cover a range of policies from abortion to sex education, with transgender rights making up a large part of the lobbying.<\/p>\n<p>LGBTQ+ groups argue the mainstream politicization of such debates is part of a rolling back of fundamental rights, while gender-critical groups believe that recognizing transgender people\u2019s identities undermines women.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2214607378-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7952091\"  \/>In the U.S., the debate is driven mostly by the religious right, said Wendy Via, co-founder of the Global Project. | Lou Lampaert\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s one of those subjects that is easy politically to attack because we\u2019re talking about a small community of people that are widely misunderstood,\u201d said Cian\u00e1n Russell, senior policy officer at ILGA-Europe, the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt absolutely is our perception that there are more anti-trans actors getting access to spaces in Brussels and that the types of spaces that they are able to access are more institutionalized,\u201d said Russell, adding that at least five events have taken place in the European Parliament in the past year.<\/p>\n<p>One of those included the \u201cSeventh Transatlantic Summit,\u201d a<a href=\"https:\/\/ecrgroup.eu\/event\/free_speech_vs_regulated_speech_strengthening_the_pillars_of_democracy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> two-day event<\/a> at the Parliament earlier this month that saw speakers \u201cmock transgender people,\u201d according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a U.S.-based NGO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EPF has been tracking the rise of what they call the \u201canti-gender\u201d movement across Europe, and found&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,1932,940,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-2178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-brussels","9":"tag-lgbtq","10":"tag-rights","11":"tag-society-and-culture"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}