{"id":148782,"date":"2026-08-19T15:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T15:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/148782\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T15:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T15:59:12","slug":"thailands-first-openly-gay-senator-attends-world-pride-in-amsterdam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/148782\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand\u2019s first openly gay senator attends World Pride in Amsterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in Amsterdam until Aug. 10.<\/p>\n

AMSTERDAM \u2014 Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Friday said more needs to be done to defend transgender people and their rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverywhere in the Western world, it\u2019s definitely the group that\u2019s the most vulnerable in the moment and it\u2019s rather well-picked also by our advisories,\u201d he said during a panel at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam that Ying Xin and Diego Garc\u00eda Blum of Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Harvard Kennedy School\u2019s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy moderated. \u201cThey\u2019ve chosen the smallest group within our broader community (trans people) to attack them, to ensure that we can strip their rights and if they\u2019ve done with that, they\u2019ll go after the next group within our community, so we shouldn\u2019t be na\u00efve about what\u2019s behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very well-funded. It\u2019s very well-organized and we have to organize as well to fight back and to win this fight,\u201d added Jetten. \u201cWe also need to be more open in conversations that we are having within the community and also dive into it much deeper and maybe even have more difficult and annoying conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jetten in February became the Netherlands\u2019 first openly gay prime minister.<\/p>\n

He appeared on the panel alongside former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar,<\/a> who in 2017 became his country\u2019s first openly gay head of government, and former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, who was his country\u2019s ambassador to the U.S. from 2007-2016.<\/p>\n

Several other current former heads of government who are gay or lesbian also participated in the panel. They include former Icelandic Prime Minister J\u00f3hanna Sigur\u00f0ard\u00f3ttir, former Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, and Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora.<\/a> California Congressman Mark Takano, who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund CEO Evan Low were among those who attended.<\/p>\n

Jetten in his remarks said he was \u201cvery surprised\u201d to learn that \u201cnot only in the U.S. but also in some European countries that we\u2019ve let them decide what the gay group looked like.\u201d The Dutch prime minister further pointed out that conservatives began \u201cto attack the debate on toilets or starting this debate about trans people in Olympic games.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is, of course, a ridiculous debate to start, but we\u2019ve got distracted because we were so busy having this debate on Olympians, and then we actually forgot the real fight was about access to healthcare, just being yourself, being able to enlist in the army, or being able to be a young trans boy or girl in school,\u201d said Jetten. \u201cWe got distracted by some fresh meat that was thrown into the area by some very conservative people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to open our eyes and have very in-depth conservations within our community, and come up with a much better strategy to win this fight and to protect all our trans brothers and sisters, dolls, whatever,\u201d he added. \u201cBecause if we don\u2019t win this fight for trans people, we\u2019re going to lose the bigger fight for all LGBTQ people in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Varadkar noted Ireland in 2015 passed a law that allows people to legally change their gender without surgery or other medical interventions.<\/p>\n

He conceded there was \u201ca liberal wind blowing across the world at the time, and it was largely uncontested.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be harder now, quite frankly, to do that legislation,\u201d said Varadkar.<\/p>\n

\"\"Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar speaks at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam on Aug. 7, 2026. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)<\/p>\n

Scottish lawmakers in 2022 passed the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which lowered the age for anyone to legally change their gender without medical intervention from 18 to 16. Then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak\u2019s government later blocked the measure from taking effect.<\/p>\n

The U.K. Supreme Court in 2025 ruled<\/a> the legal definition of a woman under the country\u2019s Equality Act is limited to \u201cbiological women.\u201d Author J.K. Rowling is among those who praised the decision that stemmed from a case that challenged the Scottish government\u2019s decision to include trans women in its definition of women when it sought to increase the number of women on government boards.<\/p>\n

The Trump-Vance administration on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day it was in office, issued a sweeping executive order that, among other things, declared the federal government would only recognize two genders: male and female. The White House earlier this year in its counterterrorism strategy said it \u201cwill also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to stay united,\u201d said Rondelli. \u201cThe strategy was, since the beginning, was a Nazi strategy to create groups, target groups, and to create maximum distractions to avoid discussion about some sort of policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrans people are the target at the moment,\u201d he added. \u201cBut after them it will probably be some others, so we have to stay united.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli speaks at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam in Aug. 7, 2026. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)<\/p>\n

Boris Dittrich, the Dutch Senate\u2019s First Vice President and a member of Jetten\u2019s D66 party who was previously global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch\u2019s LGBTQ Rights Program, at the end of the panel asked about protecting intersex babies from what advocates maintain are unnecessary surgeries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[101],"tags":[199,332,565,70584,3160,70585,200,70586,70587,2334,3140,70588,62473],"class_list":["post-148782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam","tag-featured","tag-india","tag-interpride","tag-japan","tag-maha-vajiralongkorn","tag-netherlands","tag-paetongtarn-shinawatra","tag-pornchai-witayalerdpan","tag-south-korea","tag-thailand","tag-tunyawaj-kamolwongwat","tag-world-pride"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117123007751161824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}