Several organisations have complained to EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola condemning an event that, they claim,
“framed trans rights as harmful to women and children and urging action against hate speech.”
The recent event, titled
“How Trans Policy Harms Women and Children”,
was said by the complainants to
“position the human rights of trans people as contrary to those of women and children.”
This, it is also claimed, is
“a common anti-trans narrative used by anti-rights and anti-democracy actors to alienate and dehumanise trans people.”
MCC Brussels, which says it “is committed to providing a home for critical debate about the future of Europe”, participated in the event.
Frank Furedi, its Executive Director, countered the criticism.
He told this website on Tuesday: “The European Parliament is supposed to be a place where political ideas can be debated, but clearly these organisations have no tolerance for a debate about any part of their increasingly radical agenda.”
He went on, “The event set out in detail how policies such as self-ID leave women at serious risk, and how these NGOs have abandoned any genuine concern for women’s rights.”
Speaking to Brussels Morning, he alleged, “It is especially ironic that these NGOs accuse the event of “shrinking civil society space” when it is their parasitical reliance on government money which has done more than anything to corrupt genuine civil society.”
The complainants say,
“Within the European Institutions, there should be no space for anti-rights movements, including any backlash against universal human rights that contribute to attacks on democracy and the shrinking of civil society space.
The letter was sent by six groups: ILGA-Europe, Eurochild, IPPF European Network, EL*C, TGEU, and IGLYO.
In the letter, they emphasised that
“fundamental human rights protections for trans individuals, including personal autonomy, privacy, identity, non-discrimination, bodily integrity, and protection from violence, are equally vital for all, including women and children.”
The various organisations alleged that the event “spreads misinformation and fosters a hostile environment, thereby contradicting the European Union’s core values as outlined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).”
They state,
“It should not have been approved to take place on European Parliament grounds.”
In addition to requesting immediate attention to the matter, the coalition sought a meeting with President Metsola to discuss broader strategies for countering
“hate speech and discriminatory narratives within the European Parliament.”
They stressed the need to prevent similar events in the future and to
“safeguard the institution’s role as a defender of human rights and democracy.”
No one from the event organiser was immediately available for comment.
Further comment came from Stella O’Malley, a psychotherapist and Executive Director of Genspect, an international organisation that advocates for a non-medicalised approach to gender dysphoria.
She told this site: “Genspect provides daily group support meetings to people who identify as trans as well as detransitioners and families impacted. We have helped thousands of people through our services.
“Lobby groups demanding censorship should hear from the detransitioners I work with weekly. Their stories of being rushed through medical interventions only to deeply regret them later aren’t ‘hate speech’ – this is crucial evidence of harm being done that is being deliberately ignored.
“At Genspect, we see the growing number of young people who feel betrayed by systems that failed to explore their mental health before making permanent changes to their bodies. When organisations claim our concerns ‘dehumanise’ people, they’ve got it precisely backwards. What’s truly dehumanising is silencing those who question whether current approaches are genuinely helping vulnerable youth.
“The European Parliament should remain a place where evidence can be presented without being labelled ‘anti-democracy’ simply for challenging a particular ideology. These groups writing to President Metsola should consider a fundamental question: how can any policy truly protect people if examining its real-world consequences is forbidden?”
