“Only Two Sexes”: Will Europe’s Populists Follow Trump—and Biology?

Courage is contagious. So, it turns out, is sanity. President Donald Trump’s executive order affirming the male-female sex binary is already having an international impact. Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, in response to journalist questions about the statement, cautiously affirmed that he, too, only “knows of two genders.” On January 24, Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) concurred in stronger language, posting on X: 

Trump is right, there are only two genders: male and female. Let’s bring common sense back to our society. No more woke madness or indoctrination. No more nonsense.

Wilders’ populist PVV, which won a quarter of the seats in the Dutch House of Representatives in 2023, plays an outsize role in Dutch politics. Wilders himself proved too controversial to cobble together enough support from coalition partners to become prime minister (a position now held by independent Dick Schoof), but his party is the largest in the House, and his victory—referred to by the Associated Press as “one of the biggest political upsets in Dutch politics since World War II”—gives Wilders significant influence.

Wilders’ opposition to gender ideology is representative of populists across the West. He supports the sexual revolution and abortion, but the transgender movement has become a microcosm of the insanity and totalitarian instincts of the woke progressive project. Wilders, an atheist, does not oppose the cultural revolution that transformed the West after World War II but believes that it has now gone too far. Dutch Christians see Wilders as a conditional ally rather than an ideological fellow traveler. 

Throughout his career, Wilders has portrayed himself as a defender of liberal Dutch values—including feminism and gay rights—against the encroaching forces of mass Muslim immigration. His public statements include occasional references to “the Christian character of the nation,” but these are a rhetorical weapon rather than affection for the Dutch Calvinist heritage. Like other clever populist politicians, Wilders is willing to honor Christianity insofar as it helps him create a coalition opposed to mass migration from non-Christian countries.

As the transgender movement’s extremism became increasingly clear, their agenda proved a bridge too far for many defenders of the post-war liberal consensus. In 2022, Wilders’ PVV voted against the Transgender Act, which sought to allow trans-identifying people, including those under the age of 16, to easily change their gender on official documents, citing female safety in sex-segregated spaces—but hedged their bets slightly by calling it “symboolpolitiek” (symbolic politics) that wouldn’t genuinely help trans-identifying people. 

In 2024, a majority of MPs voted to “shelve” the law entirely as too controversial. Several other parties voted with the PVV, and the Telegraph noted that recent polling data “revealed hardening attitudes towards transgender people in the Netherlands, which has traditionally been among the most liberal countries on trans rights.” A national survey indicated only a quarter of Dutch people agreed with the statement: “People should be able to change [sex on] their passport from the age of 16 without a statement from an expert.” The politicians clearly noticed. 

 “We are absolutely not against changing sex,” stated Nicolien van Vroonhoven, the NSC MP who put the motion forward. “But it should not be too easy either. There are real risks to women’s safety. In England, for example, men are suddenly given access to women’s prisons, and that is not something we should want.” The transgender movement was once seen as the natural successor to the gay rights movement, and the T tacked onto the LGB. Most progressive politicians still believe this—or at least, claim to. Others are not so sure, especially as the last half-decade has given us a good look at what the transgender agenda looks like in practice.

Wilders has been willing to condemn the “madness” of gender ideology, and during the 2022 debate, he asked incredulously: “What is it? Tomorrow you’re a camel? The day after that, a dromedary?” But again, he hedged: “If people are transsexual, they get all the respect from the PVV. We have no problem with that.” In short, Wilders’ position appeared to be something approximating support for the foundational premise of gender ideology—that men can become women, and vice versa—but not “self-identification” and an ever-multiplying panoply of genders.

The brilliance of the Trump Administration’s executive order on gender, however, is that it thoroughly and painstakingly rejects gender ideology in its entirety. I don’t know if Wilders read it before he posted his support, but if so, his statement may indicate the realization that many are coming to: You cannot accept the premises of gender ideology while opposing the inevitable consequences of its social implementation. If “transgender are women,” they should be granted access to women’s facilities. If they are not women, then they should not. There is no centrist position on gender ideology. It is true, or it is false. Premises are policy.

The clarity of the American position creates the space for other leaders to reject gender ideology in its entirety. Donald Trump’s executive orders make it clear that his administration recognizes the impossibility of a “centrist” approach to the transgender agenda. The now-famous question “What is a woman?”, so indicative of the insanity of the past decade, has social implications from top to bottom. Europe’s populists have sensed that the transgender agenda represents, in the minds of many, the overreach of the progressive project. But they cannot merely oppose bits and pieces of it; they must reject the entire agenda or ultimately fail to fight the madness.

It appears that Geert Wilders understands this. His statement is certainly unequivocal enough. Populists and conservatives everywhere should follow suit.