World
Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
Russian Supreme Court declared global LGBTQ rights movement ‘extremist’
NEPAL
The marriage between Maya Ram Bahadur Gurung and Surendra Pandey this past week in the Nepalese capital city of Kathmandu is being hailed by the country’s LGBTQ rights activists. Gurung, a transgender woman and Pandey, who is gay, was registered by the local municipality ward office four months after the Himalayan nation’s highest court legalized same-sex marriages in an interim order.
Sunil Babu Pant, the former executive director/CEO and founder of the Blue Diamond Society, first LGBTQ rights organization in Nepal, who has also served in the country’s parliament was present for the civil ceremony telling the Associated Press: “After 23 years of struggle, we got this historic achievement, and finally, Maya and Surendra got their marriage registered at the local administration office.”
In a later interview with Naya Prakashan news Pant noted. “A wedding in Nepal today can become the signpost in South Asia for a more equal tomorrow.”
Human Rights Watch reported that Gurung, a trans woman who is legally recognized as male, and Pandey, a cisgender gay man, held a Hindu wedding ceremony in 2017. They first attempted to legally register their marriage in June this year at the Kathmandu District Court, following an interim order by Nepal’s Supreme Court instructing authorities to register same-sex marriages while considering a case that argues for marriage equality across the country.
When that court rejected their registration, saying it did not need to recognize a couple that was not one legal male and one legal female, they appealed to the Patan High Court in September.
But the high court judges rejected the appeal, saying that it was the responsibility of the federal government to change the law before the lower authorities could register such marriages, HRW reported.
Nepal’s civil code currently only recognizes marriages between one man and one woman. The Supreme Court attempted to rectify that by ordering the creation of an interim registry for nontraditional marriages until parliament changes the law. The two lower courts then reversed the logic by claiming that the national law must be changed first.
MALAYSIA
Malaysian LGBTQ rights activists are decrying efforts by the Johor state government to establish a “rehab” center for “people in same-sex relations,” which would use the globally debunked conversion therapy to change sexual orientation.
Malaysian society is predominately Muslim and conservative. Human Rights Watch has noted that the government authorities in the Malay Archipelago are willing to enforce the rigid gender roles by which they compel all Malaysians to abide with few exceptions.
Speaking at the Johor state assembly on Wednesday, the state’s Islamic Religious Affairs Committee Chair Mohd Fared Mohd Khalid said 400,000 ringgit ($86,000) has been allocated for the rehabilitation center, which was expected to open in July next year the South China Morning Post reported.
“This rehabilitation center is established … for them to get back on the right path,” Fared told the assembly.
Aside from same-sex individuals, Fared proclaimed that the centre would also house “those who are deemed deviant” from the state-prescribed religious Islamic orthodoxy, which includes the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and Baha’i among some 42 groups, the state’s religious affairs body has identified as “deviant.”
The Malaysian government relies on the force of law to prohibit expression and conduct that fall outside of a heterosexual, cisgender norm. It is one of only a handful of countries that explicitly makes gender nonconformity a criminal offense.
Reacting to the rehab news, Justice for Sisters, a trans rights group, told the South China Morning Post that detaining people was a violation of the Malaysian Constitution, which safeguards personal liberty, privacy, dignity, equality and prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender.
“Detaining people on the grounds of changing their SOGIE — sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression — amounts to torture without a doubt,” said the group’s spokesperson, Thilaga Sulathireh.
Malaysia also criminalizes consensual same-sex conduct at both the federal and state levels. Its officials frequently insist that the laws criminalizing lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people are intended not primarily to punish, but rather to return them to “the right path,” statements echoed this past week by Johor’s Islamic Religious Affairs Committee chairman.
Human Rights Watch notes that officials under successive Malaysian governments have typically coded their approach to sexual and gender diversity in a logic of “prevention” and “rehabilitation,” backed by the threat of punishment. Former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who was in office between March 2020 and August 2021, described LGBTQ people as a threat to Islam, backed by “foreign influences” and a “disorder” that requires counseling.
THE VATICAN
Pope Francis this past week further disciplined another American prelate, retired Cardinal Raymond Burke, who has publicly critiqued Francis over the pope’s ongoing efforts for reforming the Catholic Church, especially over issues centered on LGBTQ Catholics and the LGBTQ community.
The Associated Press reported that Francis revoked Burke’s subsidized Vatican apartment and retirement salary, according to sources because he was a source of “disunity” in the church.
The move is “unprecedented in the Francis era,” Christopher White, a Vatican observer who writes for the National Catholic Reporter, told the BBC.
“Typically, retired cardinals continue to reside in Rome after stepping down from their positions, often remaining active in papal liturgies and ceremonial duties,” he said. “Evicting someone from their Vatican apartment sets a new precedent.”
Burke, who spends much of his time in the U.S. at the Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine he founded in his native Wisconsin, has not yet been notified of the pope’s actions according to the AP.
At the end of October, the pope convened a month long conference, known as a Synod of Bishops, followed an unprecedented two-year canvassing of rank-and-file Catholics. During the conference Jesuit Fr. James Martin, a popular spiritual author and editor of the LGBTQ Catholic publication Outreach, noted that on LGBTQ issues, “There were widely diverging views on the topic,” he said.
In early November, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Eastern Texas was “relieved” of his position as head of the Diocese of Tyler by Francis after Strickland’s refusal to resign in a dispute over the church’s LGBTQ inclusion in Catholic practices. Strickland often had echoed Burke’s positions.
Although retired in 2014, Burke had an incredibly anti-LGBTQ public record since, especially in vocalizing his opposition to plans to be inclusive of the LGBTQ community. Burke was once a high-ranking U.S. archbishop and head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican court, but was repeatedly demoted under Francis and then forced to retire.
In March 2020, Burke laid blame on the coronavirus pandemic on the LGBTQ community. As churches were forced to close during the lock-downs ordered by health officials, Burke wrote:
“Worship is particularly needed now because of ‘how distant our popular culture is from God,’ he wrote, noting abortion and euthanasia, then attacking the LGBTQ equality movement, particularly activism for recognition of trans identity.
“‘We need only to think of the pervasive attack upon the integrity of human sexuality, of our identity as man or woman, with the pretense of defining for ourselves, often employing violent means, a sexual identity other than that given to us by God,” he said. “With ever greater concern, we witness the devastating effect on individuals and families of the so-called ‘gender theory.'” Burke went on to say, “There is no question that great evils like pestilence are an effect of original sin and of our actual sins.’”
Burke once compared lesbian, gay, and bisexual people to murderers.
UNITED KINGDOM
Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss is said to be backing a private bill to be introduced into the House of Commons that will ban minor children under the age of 18 from accessing hormone therapy and block the National Health Service and the UK government from recognizing their social transition.
After Truss was one of 20 backbencher MPs to be selected to bring forward a bill, a source reportedly said she chose the legislation because she believes under-18s need to be protected from “making irreversible decisions about their bodies.”
PinkNewsUK pointed out that argument fails to consider the fact that trans under-18s are typically prescribed physically reversible puberty blockers and are only permitted to do so after lengthy medical checks.
Physically reversible puberty blockers are also typically only given to teenagers over the age of 16. It is exceptionally rare for under-16s to be prescribed puberty blockers.
Despite this, Truss is expected to formally present the bill on Wednesday during a House of Commons hearing where its MP backers will also attend, PinkNewsUK also reported.
A spokesperson for the UK government said in a statement: “This government is clear on the fundamental importance of biological sex.”
A magistrate’s court found a 51-year-old man guilty of a hate crime in an assault on Drag Race UK star The Vivienne this past June at a local McDonald’s. Alan Whitfield told the court that he had struck James Lee Williams, aka The Vivienne, in the face claiming that his actions were not motivated by homophobia but by what he described as “banter.”
During his testimony, 31-year-old Williams said he was subjected to a “barrage of abuse” from Whitfield after entering the fast food restaurant PinkNewsUK reported.
“He [Whitfield] carried on, then after the fourth ‘look at the state of you’ I said ‘look at the state of you’, I said ‘look at the state of your face’, to which he said ‘I’ve got skin cancer’ and then punched me straight in the face.”
PinkNewsUK reported that the RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star, who took home the crown in the first series in 2018, argued that the attack was motivated by homophobia because there were “countless other people” in the McDonald’s at the time.
Whitfield maintained throughout the proceedings that the assault “was nothing to do with him [Williams] being gay,” reiterating that he has LGBTQ members of his family.
After court deliberation, Justice Anthony Canning said that Whitfield’s evidence was “not credible.”
“Having considered this incident from beginning to end, we believe beyond reasonable doubt that the hostility shown by yourself from that outset was motivated and down to the perceived sexuality of the complainant and this was homophobic in nature.”
Whitfield will be sentenced in January.
IRELAND
A 25-year-old second year law student at the University College Cork is set to make history the first openly trans person in history to run for local election in Ireland.
Saoirse Mackin, who co-founded Trans+ Pride Cork in 2022, was nominated by the Social Democrats to run in Cork City North West’s 2024 election. Mackin, who transitioned in 2017, told LGBTQ+ media outlet GCN – Ireland, that if elected, one of her top priorities will be eliminating the excessive healthcare barriers that are in place for trans women in Ireland.
Mackin also advocates for better cycling infrastructures, as well as affordable housing and improved public services GCN noted.
She said, “If elected, my priority areas will include the provision of more affordable housing, improved public services, universal access to healthcare and the development of quality cycle infrastructure in Cork. I will also campaign for better local amenities, such as upgraded parks, green spaces, playgrounds and sports facilities.”
In addition to being a trans activist, Mackin is also a law student and community organiser who has bravely spoken up against the growing far-right movement in Ireland. She was also named in the Irish Examiner’s 100 Women of 2022 list.
RUSSIA
Russia’s Supreme Court this past week ruled that “the international LGBTQ movement” is “extremist” which, legal experts and human rights advocates say will lead to all LGBTQ groups and organizations in Russia being banned.
The Russian Justice Ministry had lodged an administrative legal claim with the High Court to recognize the International LGBTQ public movement as extremist and ban its activity in Russia. Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko did not specify whether it was seeking the closure of any specific groups or organizations, or if the designation would apply more broadly to the LGBTQ community, causes and individuals.
Speaking with Agence France-Presse, the head of the Sphere human rights group, which advocates for the Russian LGBTQ community, had criticized Chuychenko‘s actions.
“Russian authorities are once again forgetting that the LGBTQ+ community are human beings,” said Sphere head Dilya Gafurova, who has left Russia.
Authorities “don’t just want to erase us from the public field: They want to ban us as a social group,” Gafurova told AFP. “It’s a pretty typical move for repressive non-democratic regimes — the persecution of the most vulnerable. We will continue our fight,” he added.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in a statement issued from Geneva after the ruling said:
“This decision exposes human rights defenders and anyone standing up for the human rights of LGBT people to being labeled as ‘extremist’ — a term that has serious social and criminal ramifications in Russia,” said Türk. “No one should be jailed for doing human rights work or denied their human rights based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
“I call on the Russian authorities to repeal, immediately, laws that place improper restrictions on the work of human rights defenders or that discriminate against LGBT people. The law must uphold and defend the principles of equality and non-discrimination. The law must never be used to perpetuate inequality and discrimination,” Türk added.
Laws that must be reformed include those prohibiting gender-affirming medical and administrative procedures, and banning so-called “LGBT propaganda,” which made it illegal to discuss LGBT issues in Russia on penalty of substantial fines, Türk said.
The Türk also pointed out the wide use of the “extremist” label is more generally used to prosecute all those perceived as opponents, including politicians, journalists, human rights defenders and others.
“LGBTIQ people exist in every country, and a legal ban on the undefined ‘international LGBT movement’ will result in more violence, discrimination, and isolation of LGBTIQ people in Russia, who are already targeted for being who they are,” said Maria Sjödin, executive director of Outright International.
“Russia, which has already restricted access to information about LGBTIQ issues, is yet again violating the human rights of LGBTIQ people by restricting freedoms of association and expression. This is a great concern not just for human rights defenders focused on protecting the rights of LGBTIQ people but for everyone who believes in human rights for all,” Sjödin added.
Within 48 hours of the High Court’s ruling, multiple Russian Law enforcement agencies executed a series of raids multiple queer venues in the Russian capital. At one club located on Ulitsa Malaya Yakimanka Street in the center of Moscow, there were approximately 300 people gathered when Russian security forces burst in under the pretext of searching for drugs in the establishment. Several persons were detained.
“In the middle of the party, they stopped the music and began to enter the halls [the police]. There were also citizens of other countries at the party. At the exit, they photographed passports without permission to do so,” an LGBTQ rights activist who had previously spoken to other media outlets told the Washington Blade in a phone call Sunday.
The raids took place in at least four venues, and were reportedly expected by the clubs management and owners.
Security forces arrived at an establishment near the Avtozavodskaya metro station and a themed strip club for men near the Polyanka metro station in central Moscow. The administration of the clubs warned visitors about the events in advance, the Moscow Times reported.
According to an eyewitness to the police raid on Mono, a bar also located in the city’s central district on Pokrovsky Boulevard, “there was the usual party, then the owner came out and said that within an hour law enforcement would arrive in connection with the recent ruling by the Supreme Court. Within 20 minutes the dance floor started to empty,” Ostorozhno Novosti, an independent Russian news outlet reported.
The Moscow Times could not independently verify Ostorozhno Novosti’s reporting, and employees from at least two of the clubs believed to have been targeted on Friday denied the reports, which they called “fakes.”
“I wake up … and I’m reading the news, and, of course, it’s hilarious. Where was [this raid] when we had nothing going on?” the manager of the club Mono said in a video posted on social media Saturday.
The Blade has also been unable to verify Ostorozhno Novosti’s reporting on the Mono bar raid but in a series of phone calls and Telegram chats was able to determine that multiple raids had in fact taken place across central Moscow and that gay clubs and LGBTQ safe spaces were targeted.
In the Baltic city of St. Petersburg, the largest gay club, Central Station, according to independent news outlet Sota, reported the club’s management said that they were denied further rental of the site due to the “new law.”
Additional reporting from Pahichan Media, the South China Morning Post, Human Rights Watch, The BBC, PinkNewsUK, Agence France-Presse, The Moscow Times, GCN Ireland, the Vatican News and the Associated Press.
India’s Income Tax Department has opposed a same-sex couple’s petition that challenges Section 56(2)(x) of the Income Tax Act.
The provision exempts gifts between spouses from tax. The couple seeks the same benefit for their relationship.
At the center of the challenge is the explanation to the fifth provision of Section 56(2)(x). According to the petition, the provision excludes same-sex partners from the definition of “spouse.” The petition describes that exclusion as unconstitutional.
The provision defines “relative” to include an individual’s spouse, siblings, the spouse’s siblings, parents’ siblings, and other blood relatives.
Paiyo Ashiho and another petitioner, Vivek Divan, asked the Bombay High Court to recognize same-sex couples presumed to be in a marriage as “spouses” under the fifth provision to Section 56(2)(x).
A similar challenge is pending before the Karnataka High Court.
Bengaluru-based engineers Anurag Kalia and Akhilesh Godi have sought similar relief. Kalia said he wanted to give Godi a gold bracelet worth more than ₹115,500 ($1213.44.). The case remains pending.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government rejected the petition in an affidavit filed last year. It argued the plea was not legally tenable because it challenged no action or order of the Income Tax Department. Calling the petition an “abuse of process of law,” the government said the relief sought fell outside the scope of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The government also argued the petitioners sought the benefits available to a “spouse” without legal recognition of their relationship. According to the affidavit, they had not placed on record any law recognizing their relationship as a marriage. It urged the court to dismiss the petition with costs.
The case returned to the spotlight on July 6, when the Bombay High Court heard the petition.
Justices B.P. Colabawalla and Firdosh P. Pooniwalla adjourned the matter after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said he would appear on behalf of Modi’s government.
The petition comes nearly two years after the Indian Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling.
In 2023, a five-judge Constitution Bench, in a 3-2 verdict, declined to recognize the constitutional validity of same-sex marriage in India. The country’s top court said MPs must decide whether to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.
During the 2023 marriage equality hearings, lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the Supreme Court that marriage is a source of social validation, dignity, self-respect, fulfillment, and security. He argued that it also carries legal and civil benefits, including those related to taxation, inheritance, and adoption. Lawyer Anand Grover, who also appeared for the petitioners, told the court that marriage remains fundamental to the functioning of society and is necessary to access several state benefits, including joint tax benefits and surrogacy rights.
Chief Justice Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, in his minority opinion, said the Income Tax Act provides numerous tax benefits for payments made on behalf of a spouse, including deductions for life and health insurance premiums. He also noted that marriage confers several financial benefits on a spouse, including eligibility for gratuity, funeral expenses, medical benefits, and provident fund claims as the dependent of a deceased spouse.
In the marriage equality ruling, the Supreme Court recognized queer people cannot be discriminated against. The court said denying queer couples the material benefits and services available to heterosexual couples violates their fundamental rights.
While issuing directions to the federal, state, and territory governments; Chandrachud said the government should ensure there was no discrimination in access to goods and services. He also directed governments to sensitize the public about queer rights, establish a hotline for the queer community, create safe houses for queer couples, and ensure intersex children were not forced to undergo medical operations.
The petition is awaiting its next hearing before the Bombay High Court.
India’s tax system relies on both direct and indirect taxes, although its direct tax base remains relatively narrow. Individuals pay income tax at progressive rates of up to 30 percent, while consumers pay taxes on most goods and services through the Goods and Services Tax. The Income Tax Act also provides exemptions, deductions, and other tax benefits for eligible taxpayers, including those linked to family relationships and legal marital status.
India’s LGBTQ community is estimated to comprise between 135 million and 140 million people, or nearly 10 percent of the country’s population. Collectively, it is estimated to have a purchasing power exceeding $168 billion. The World Bank estimated that exclusion based on sexual orientation and gender identity cost India between $1.9 billion and $30.8 billion in lost economic output annually, or up to 1.7 percent of its gross domestic product.
India imposed a separate Gift Tax Act in 1958 to tax certain transfers of property made without consideration. Parliament repealed the law in 1998 to simplify the tax system and encourage genuine gifting. However, concerns over tax avoidance later prompted the government to bring gifts back within the Income Tax Act. Today, specified gifts exceeding prescribed limits may be taxed under Section 56(2)(x), subject to exemptions that include gifts received from relatives.
Under the Income Tax Act, gifts received from non-relatives exceeding ₹50,000 ($525.30) in a financial year are generally treated as taxable income, unless they qualify for a statutory exemption. Gifts received from specified relatives, including a spouse, are exempt from tax regardless of their value.
Tarun Khaitan — a research director and professor of public law at the London School of Economics Law School, honorary professorial fellow at Melbourne Law School, and associate fellow of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford — told the Washington Blade the guarantee of equality and non-discrimination under India’s constitution was deliberately framed in broad terms because its framers envisaged that the understanding of those principles would evolve over time. They did not intend to freeze their meaning in 1950, he said. Instead, older and newer statutes alike must be interpreted in light of the constitution’s contemporary understanding.
“Constitutional values must inform the interpretation of all laws in India. It is well established in Indian jurisprudence that if a term can carry two meanings, the court will give it the meaning that complies with constitutional demands,” Khaitan said. “The term ‘spouse’ is not defined in the Income Tax Act, and unlike ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ is not a legal term of art in Indian family law. Its use by the Income Tax Act therefore is apt for judicial interpretation, which must be guided by the constitutional guarantees of equality and liberty.”
Asked how courts should balance respect for legislative choices with their constitutional responsibility to safeguard equality and dignity, Khaitan said he was not convinced that the legislature had made a clear choice in this case. He noted that the Income Tax Act uses the term “spouse” without defining it, adding that no other Indian law, to his knowledge, defines the term either. Its meaning has evolved over time, he said, pointing to the Oxford English Dictionary, which now defines a spouse as “a husband or wife, or a person joined to another in a comparable legally recognized union.”
Khaitan said the decision to restrict the meaning of “spouse” to different-sex married couples appeared to be the government’s interpretation rather than one expressly adopted by MPs. Even so, he said, courts have a duty to safeguard constitutional rights, although those rights are not absolute. The state, he said, must justify any restriction by demonstrating that it serves a sufficiently important public interest and that the limitation is proportionate to that objective.
“The extension of marriage would be a symbolic expression of equal acceptance of same-sex relations by law as well as a the extension of the bundle of material incidents that typically attach to it. Whether or not such extension happens, concerns such as inheritance, hospital visitation rights, decisions regarding end of life care, pensions etc affect the lives of same-sex couples as well as unmarried different-sex couples in a real, material sense,” Khaitan said. “There is no conceptual reason why the expressive salience of ‘marriage’ and the material incidents of a domestic partnership cannot be unbundled.”
Khaitan has had his scholarship cited by the Supreme Court in several constitutional cases, including Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, which decriminalized consensual same-sex relations, and Lt. Col. Nitisha v. Union of India, a landmark judgment on indirect discrimination.
Netherlands
Tens of thousands take part in World Pride March
Event capped off two weeks of celebrations in Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM — Tens of thousands of people on Saturday participated in the World Pride March in Amsterdam.
Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin and Paolo Rondelli, who in 2022 became the world’s first openly gay head of state when he became Captain Regent of San Marino, are among those who participated alongside Massachusetts state Rep. Jack Lewis and Olena Shevchenko, chair of Insight, an LGBTQ advocacy group in Ukraine, and others.
Members of D66, the centrist Dutch political party that Prime Minister Rob Jetten heads, also marched.
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister. He participated in the opening of the World Pride Human Rights Conference on Aug. 5 and spoke on a panel with Rondelli, former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, and other gay and lesbian current and former heads of government.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The march took place a week after hundreds of thousands of people lined Amsterdam’s canals for the city’s annual Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade.
A terrorist attack at Berlin’s Christopher Street Day on July 25 left one person dead and more than two dozen others injured.
The incident overshadowed World Pride, which began hours earlier and ended on Saturday.
Dutch authorities increased security measures in the aftermath of the July 25 attack. No incidents were reported during World Pride.
Netherlands
Dutch PM: More needs to be done to defend trans rights
Rob Jetten on Friday was on World Pride Human Rights Conference panel
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in Amsterdam until Aug. 10.
AMSTERDAM — Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten on Friday said more needs to be done to defend transgender people and their rights.
“Everywhere in the Western world, it’s definitely the group that’s the most vulnerable in the moment and it’s rather well-picked also by our advisories,” he said during a panel at the World Pride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam that Ying Xin and Diego García Blum of Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights Policy moderated. “They’ve chosen the smallest group within our broader community (trans people) to attack them, to ensure that we can strip their rights and if they’ve done with that, they’ll go after the next group within our community, so we shouldn’t be naïve about what’s behind it.”
“It’s very well-funded. It’s very well-organized and we have to organize as well to fight back and to win this fight,” added Jetten. “We 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.”
Jetten in February became the Netherlands’ first openly gay prime minister.
He appeared on the panel alongside former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who in 2017 became his country’s first openly gay head of government, and former San Marino Captain Regent Paolo Rondelli, who was his country’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2007-2016.
Several other current former heads of government who are gay or lesbian also participated in the panel. They include former Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, former Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, and Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora. California Congressman Mark Takano, who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund CEO Evan Low were among those who attended.
Jetten in his remarks said he was “very surprised” to learn that “not only in the U.S. but also in some European countries that we’ve let them decide what the gay group looked like.” The Dutch prime minister further pointed out that conservatives began “to attack the debate on toilets or starting this debate about trans people in Olympic games.”
“That is, of course, a ridiculous debate to start, but we’ve 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,” said Jetten. “We got distracted by some fresh meat that was thrown into the area by some very conservative people.”
“We 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,” he added. “Because if we don’t win this fight for trans people, we’re going to lose the bigger fight for all LGBTQ people in the world.”
Varadkar noted Ireland in 2015 passed a law that allows people to legally change their gender without surgery or other medical interventions.
He conceded there was “a liberal wind blowing across the world at the time, and it was largely uncontested.”
“It would be harder now, quite frankly, to do that legislation,” said Varadkar.
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’s government later blocked the measure from taking effect.
The U.K. Supreme Court in 2025 ruled the legal definition of a woman under the country’s Equality Act is limited to “biological women.” Author J.K. Rowling is among those who praised the decision that stemmed from a case that challenged the Scottish government’s decision to include trans women in its definition of women when it sought to increase the number of women on government boards.
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 “will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”
“We have to stay united,” said Rondelli. “The 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.”
“Trans people are the target at the moment,” he added. “But after them it will probably be some others, so we have to stay united.”
Boris Dittrich, the Dutch Senate’s First Vice President and a member of Jetten’s D66 party who was previously global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch’s LGBTQ Rights Program, at the end of the panel asked about protecting intersex babies from what advocates maintain are unnecessary surgeries.
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