Should transgender ‘women’ be allowed to compete in women’s sports? Should a male rapist who identifies as a woman be sent to a female prison? What is a woman, anyway?
It is astonishing how quickly this issue has become public and policy orthodoxy in the EU and elsewhere. When it comes to the trans debate, there is no room for different opinions. Any dissent is deemed an ‘offensive statement,’ for which people are shamed and canceled.
The tactic of silencing and shaming is an effective response to disagreement. This is because discourse is not an option for gender hardliners. Instead, advocates of far-reaching gender reforms often claim that they simply want to facilitate tolerance, happiness, and authentic living. This rhetoric allows them to mask their policy proposals as efforts to make society more equitable and just. The reality is far more pernicious. Changes to the meanings associated with gender and sex have serious implications for the rights of women and other groups, as well as to education, healthcare, and the way society treats children.
Despite the profound implications of the proposals—for example, policies that make changing gender easier, even for minors without parental consent, facilitating easy access to treatments and surgeries, changes to and policing of language—calls for debate and compromise have been met with accusations of bigotry and intolerance.
This rigid strategy has meant that many of these demands have failed to achieve popular support. This is not only because those who might support gender ‘diversity’ are turned off by the bullying tactics of activists. There are also many people who disagree with the underlying philosophy of gender ideology and think that it has no place in our political and social life. The hearts and minds of these dissenters are precisely the problem that activists seek to remedy through coercive policymaking. Why convince people of an inner gendered essence when policy can simply proclaim that it is so?
As a result, gender is a contentious issue partially because it is not about allowing people to live their private lives freely. Instead, activists want to uproot society’s traditional values in favour of new ones and impose them on the public, the majority of whom reject gender theory. Because of this, many activists use covert and underhanded methods to advance their agenda and effectively hijack public policy. Public opinion is seen not as something to be addressed but reformed, with legislative force if necessary. The European Union plays a significant role in enacting these policy changes by operating without transparency and accountability.
Hidden reform
Part of the effectiveness of the gender movement is that activists have piggybacked off of existing movements, exploiting the popularity of female equality legislation and gay rights. This not only helps censor public debate—after all, how could any decent person be against equality?—but also allows activists to sneak policy in. This strategy involved bundling policies such as gender self-identification in with more widely accepted issues such as gay marriage. European courts have played a significant role in shaping national legislation, with advocacy groups utilising political opportunities to set the agenda before opposition could mount.
For example, piggybacking claims onto gay rights agenda helped trans activists fast track policies with little debate or public knowledge. In the early 2000s, many gay rights organisations expanded the scope of their activities to include gender. These groups found allies, particularly in the European courts, for changing national legislation in various countries.
For example, ILGA Europe (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) began targeting European institutions in 1979 and used the EU equalities agenda to bring in policies sympathetic to gays and lesbians. They expanded their efforts to include gender identity in the early 2000s. Across the Channel, UK LGBT advocacy group, Stonewall, brought several cases to the European Court of Justice in the 1990s and early 2000s that pushed to include gender reassignment and related issues in existing legislation.
In Malta, connections between European advocacy groups like TGEU (Transgender Europe) and those at the national level exploited growing acceptance of gays and lesbians to bring in policy changes related to gender identity without arousing significant debate. Consequently, gender legislation in Malta was among the most advanced early on. It was this far-reaching approach that was ‘uploaded’ to the European level, overseen by Maltese Minister Helena Dalli, who was made European commissioner for equality in 2019. She was charged with developing a ‘gender strategy,’ the seeds for which were planted when she launched a Maltese LGBTIQ Consultative Council in 2013.
While these efforts have been successful in placing gender identity on the European agenda, our policy makers’ opaque decision-making processes undermine the legitimacy of our institutions and risk backlash from the wider population. Despite this threat, hiding gender positive clauses in equality policy is no mistake. A 2019 report by the LGBTIQ lobby group IGLYO (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer & Intersex Youth and Student Organisation) in association with Thomson Reuters and Dentons law firm entitled, Only Adults? Good Practices in Legal Gender Recognition for Youth, explicitly advises lobbyists to tie campaigns to more popular platforms, to provide a ‘veil of protection’ for unpopular views. In its section on lessons learned from the UK, the report also advised lobbyists “to avoid excessive coverage in the media.”
In addition to targeting law makers, activists have also infiltrated school systems via sex and relationships education, in order to form the hearts and minds of the next generation. However, sex education of any kind has long been a contentious issue. There have been debates for decades over what the curriculum ought to be and whether and how it should be taught. Because of the attention this topic garners from concerned parents, the activists’ strategy has backfired. It was largely through the introduction of gender theory into the classroom that the agenda was brought to public awareness and has triggered fierce resistance in many countries.
As the consequences of gender policy have become apparent, proposed reforms, including what has come to be known as ‘gender self-id,’ have sparked concern among women’s groups, who feel that their rights and interests are being infringed upon. For example, the organization, Standing for Women, has been met with fierce opposition both online and at public rallies. Its founder, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (also known as Posie Parker), has been banned from various social media platforms. She was even doused with tomato juice at a planned public speaking event in New Zealand, in which counter-demonstrations turned violent. Placards and speeches at rallies advocating “punch a TERF” and even “arm trans kids” reveal just how heated this peculiar ‘debate’ has become.
Coercive reform
The fact that activists have turned to what sociologist Joseph Gusfield called coercive reform suits the EU’s approach to policy making well. Today, ‘European values’ are decided and imposed from the top down by an elite suspicious of the hoi polloi’s ability to be adequately ‘progressive.’ In the EU, activists have found themselves pushing at open doors.
In conflicts over values, three outcomes are possible: consensus, bargaining, or a power struggle. As noted throughout this article, activists have opted for the latter, using naked power to push their agenda. While this approach has achieved policy changes, it has its pitfalls. Attempting to bypass debate and impose desired outcomes through forceful tactics is unlikely to succeed in the long run. Moreover, it does not produce good policy in highly complex societies such as ours, in which there are many conflicting values and groups.
There are fundamental tensions being brought forth in this conflict, not the least of which is the fight to preserve the tradition that gives people’s lives meaning and direction. Conservatives in the West hold freedom, the traditional moral framework, the legitimacy of our institutions, and the very fabric of Western culture and society very dear. These values are threatened today through the erosion of political legitimacy, which is being pushed by radical activists and enabled by our lawmakers and courts. Conservatives must actively engage to counter the gender lobby’s takeover of institutions and reclaim freedom and democracy for a thriving Europe.
How the Gender Lobby Hijacked the EU’s Policy Agenda
Should transgender ‘women’ be allowed to compete in women’s sports? Should a male rapist who identifies as a woman be sent to a female prison? What is a woman, anyway?
It is astonishing how quickly this issue has become public and policy orthodoxy in the EU and elsewhere. When it comes to the trans debate, there is no room for different opinions. Any dissent is deemed an ‘offensive statement,’ for which people are shamed and canceled.
The tactic of silencing and shaming is an effective response to disagreement. This is because discourse is not an option for gender hardliners. Instead, advocates of far-reaching gender reforms often claim that they simply want to facilitate tolerance, happiness, and authentic living. This rhetoric allows them to mask their policy proposals as efforts to make society more equitable and just. The reality is far more pernicious. Changes to the meanings associated with gender and sex have serious implications for the rights of women and other groups, as well as to education, healthcare, and the way society treats children.
Despite the profound implications of the proposals—for example, policies that make changing gender easier, even for minors without parental consent, facilitating easy access to treatments and surgeries, changes to and policing of language—calls for debate and compromise have been met with accusations of bigotry and intolerance.
This rigid strategy has meant that many of these demands have failed to achieve popular support. This is not only because those who might support gender ‘diversity’ are turned off by the bullying tactics of activists. There are also many people who disagree with the underlying philosophy of gender ideology and think that it has no place in our political and social life. The hearts and minds of these dissenters are precisely the problem that activists seek to remedy through coercive policymaking. Why convince people of an inner gendered essence when policy can simply proclaim that it is so?
As a result, gender is a contentious issue partially because it is not about allowing people to live their private lives freely. Instead, activists want to uproot society’s traditional values in favour of new ones and impose them on the public, the majority of whom reject gender theory. Because of this, many activists use covert and underhanded methods to advance their agenda and effectively hijack public policy. Public opinion is seen not as something to be addressed but reformed, with legislative force if necessary. The European Union plays a significant role in enacting these policy changes by operating without transparency and accountability.
Hidden reform
Part of the effectiveness of the gender movement is that activists have piggybacked off of existing movements, exploiting the popularity of female equality legislation and gay rights. This not only helps censor public debate—after all, how could any decent person be against equality?—but also allows activists to sneak policy in. This strategy involved bundling policies such as gender self-identification in with more widely accepted issues such as gay marriage. European courts have played a significant role in shaping national legislation, with advocacy groups utilising political opportunities to set the agenda before opposition could mount.
For example, piggybacking claims onto gay rights agenda helped trans activists fast track policies with little debate or public knowledge. In the early 2000s, many gay rights organisations expanded the scope of their activities to include gender. These groups found allies, particularly in the European courts, for changing national legislation in various countries.
For example, ILGA Europe (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) began targeting European institutions in 1979 and used the EU equalities agenda to bring in policies sympathetic to gays and lesbians. They expanded their efforts to include gender identity in the early 2000s. Across the Channel, UK LGBT advocacy group, Stonewall, brought several cases to the European Court of Justice in the 1990s and early 2000s that pushed to include gender reassignment and related issues in existing legislation.
In Malta, connections between European advocacy groups like TGEU (Transgender Europe) and those at the national level exploited growing acceptance of gays and lesbians to bring in policy changes related to gender identity without arousing significant debate. Consequently, gender legislation in Malta was among the most advanced early on. It was this far-reaching approach that was ‘uploaded’ to the European level, overseen by Maltese Minister Helena Dalli, who was made European commissioner for equality in 2019. She was charged with developing a ‘gender strategy,’ the seeds for which were planted when she launched a Maltese LGBTIQ Consultative Council in 2013.
While these efforts have been successful in placing gender identity on the European agenda, our policy makers’ opaque decision-making processes undermine the legitimacy of our institutions and risk backlash from the wider population. Despite this threat, hiding gender positive clauses in equality policy is no mistake. A 2019 report by the LGBTIQ lobby group IGLYO (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer & Intersex Youth and Student Organisation) in association with Thomson Reuters and Dentons law firm entitled, Only Adults? Good Practices in Legal Gender Recognition for Youth, explicitly advises lobbyists to tie campaigns to more popular platforms, to provide a ‘veil of protection’ for unpopular views. In its section on lessons learned from the UK, the report also advised lobbyists “to avoid excessive coverage in the media.”
In addition to targeting law makers, activists have also infiltrated school systems via sex and relationships education, in order to form the hearts and minds of the next generation. However, sex education of any kind has long been a contentious issue. There have been debates for decades over what the curriculum ought to be and whether and how it should be taught. Because of the attention this topic garners from concerned parents, the activists’ strategy has backfired. It was largely through the introduction of gender theory into the classroom that the agenda was brought to public awareness and has triggered fierce resistance in many countries.
As the consequences of gender policy have become apparent, proposed reforms, including what has come to be known as ‘gender self-id,’ have sparked concern among women’s groups, who feel that their rights and interests are being infringed upon. For example, the organization, Standing for Women, has been met with fierce opposition both online and at public rallies. Its founder, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (also known as Posie Parker), has been banned from various social media platforms. She was even doused with tomato juice at a planned public speaking event in New Zealand, in which counter-demonstrations turned violent. Placards and speeches at rallies advocating “punch a TERF” and even “arm trans kids” reveal just how heated this peculiar ‘debate’ has become.
Coercive reform
The fact that activists have turned to what sociologist Joseph Gusfield called coercive reform suits the EU’s approach to policy making well. Today, ‘European values’ are decided and imposed from the top down by an elite suspicious of the hoi polloi’s ability to be adequately ‘progressive.’ In the EU, activists have found themselves pushing at open doors.
In conflicts over values, three outcomes are possible: consensus, bargaining, or a power struggle. As noted throughout this article, activists have opted for the latter, using naked power to push their agenda. While this approach has achieved policy changes, it has its pitfalls. Attempting to bypass debate and impose desired outcomes through forceful tactics is unlikely to succeed in the long run. Moreover, it does not produce good policy in highly complex societies such as ours, in which there are many conflicting values and groups.
There are fundamental tensions being brought forth in this conflict, not the least of which is the fight to preserve the tradition that gives people’s lives meaning and direction. Conservatives in the West hold freedom, the traditional moral framework, the legitimacy of our institutions, and the very fabric of Western culture and society very dear. These values are threatened today through the erosion of political legitimacy, which is being pushed by radical activists and enabled by our lawmakers and courts. Conservatives must actively engage to counter the gender lobby’s takeover of institutions and reclaim freedom and democracy for a thriving Europe.
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