Inside Europe’s billion-dollar anti-gender movement

A new report reveals how groups critical of so-called gender ideology across the EU raised $1.18 billion to target abortion, sex education and LGBTQ+ rights.

By Federica Di Sario, Parliament Magazine
26 Jun 2025

For progressives in Europe, 2013 was a year of hope. France adopted historic legislation legalising same-sex marriage. Only a few months later, the UK extended similar rights through the Marriage Act. Portugal implemented a new law to protect transgender rights. And even Ireland — long a Catholic stronghold — introduced new measures to shield queer youth from bullying.

But 2013 also marked a turning point for a group of religious conservatives. Alarmed by what they saw as an erosion of traditional values, they began to mobilise. A decade later, activism once confined to the political fringe has evolved into a billion-euro operation seeking to defeat “gender ideology.”

Continued: https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/inside-europes-billioneuro-antigender-movement

26.06.2025

Commentary

Aleksandar Vučić

American Center for Law & Justice

Bert-Jan Ruissen

European branch of the Center for Reproductive Rights

European Center for Law and Justice

European Conservatives and Reformists

European Court of Human Rights

European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights

French Fonds de dotation GT Editions

gender identity rights

‘You feel like a criminal’: How trans people are pushed further to the margins in anti-abortion Brazil

Dec 8, 2024

São Paulo, Brazil — In the summer of 2023, Matheus terminated his pregnancy at a friend’s house. 26-year-old Matheus, who identifies as nonbinary and uses he/she pronouns, said he, made the decision because he felt unsafe with the person he had sex with, and the pregnancy triggered his gender dysphoria.

“I thought about how my body would be with the pregnancy, and it shakes me,” he told CNN, sitting at a park in the Brazilian city of São José dos Campos. “My breasts would have milk, and my breasts are a part of my body, that really bothers me”. Despite the toll the pregnancy would have taken on Matheus’ mental health – whose real name has been changed to protect his identity – what he did is illegal.

Continued: https://www.bundle.app/en/breakingNews/'you-feel-like-a-criminal':-how-trans-people-are-pushed-further-to-the-margins-in-anti-abortion-braz-da92d3b1-953c-4e45-bc98-a3ebee9f794f

Why the anti-trans movement is inseparable from the anti-abortion movement

The transphobes who put a target on the back of Nex Benedict, who was beaten to death, are a threat to everyone

Chrissy Stroop
22 February 2024

In the United States, as in the United Kingdom, there are some self-identified liberals and leftists who insist on pitting cisgender women’s rights against trans rights, baselessly arguing that draconian discrimination against transgender people is necessary to “protect women and girls”.

As a transgender American woman, the willingness of such people to partner with right-wingers to put a target on my back is bewildering and painful. The fact is, after all, that trans people suffer violence disproportionately. Just this month, in fact, a non-binary, Native American teenager, Nex Benedict, was beaten to death by other students in a school bathroom in Oklahoma, and the school administration didn’t even call an ambulance to try to save them.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/trans-rights-abortion-rights-america-adf-chrissy-stroop-nex-benedict/

22.02.2024

Commentary

Alliance Defending Freedom

anti-choice and anti-trans

anti-choice bigotry

Chrissy Stroop

Nex Benedict

Southern Poverty Law Center

The Supreme Court Ruling the Right Is Using to Eradicate Transgender People

The high court’s infamous abortion decision is now being wielded against gender-affirming care—in the first of many attacks on our rights to come.

Zane McNeill, New Republic
February 14, 2024

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its now infamous ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the adverse disruptions to both the legal landscape of abortion and the quality of life of both abortion-seekers and pregnant patients across the country were nearly immediate. But the dystopia of the Dobbs holding isn’t limited to reproductive freedoms—it has also endangered other constitutional privacy matters that determine the right to purchase and use contraception, the right of same-sex intimacy and marriage, and the right to marry across racial lines. However, what’s become clear is that the far right intends to test the judicial system for future breaches by first targeting transgender people’s access to gender-affirming care.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/178681/dobbs-ruling-war-trans-community

Canada – Right-wing extremism is connected to being anti-choice – but we can win on abortion rights

As we see the growing restriction of abortion in the US, it is important that we remain vigilant of a growing anti-choice movement on the right.

by Joyce Arthur, rabble.ca
February 8, 2024

Canada has done well without any abortion law or restrictions since 1988, leaving abortion care under the same medical regulations as other healthcare. Indeed, abortion care follows the same pattern around the world regardless of law – people who want abortions have them as early as possible, while a small number of later abortions will always be needed for compelling social or medical reasons. Laws trying to regulate abortion are redundant and restrictions are harmful.

Abroad, Canada has a reputation as a socially liberal western democracy that guarantees reproductive rights and minority rights such as for gender expansive people. The Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a self-declared feminist foreign policy and has often spoken out in favour of abortion rights.

Continued: https://rabble.ca/health/right-wing-extremism-is-connected-to-being-anti-choice-but-we-can-win-on-abortion-rights/

We Must Fight for Abortion and LGBTQ Rights—and Our Own Bodies

The right to bodily autonomy is sacrosanct, whether you’re someone who needs an abortion, gender-affirming care, or simply want to live your truth openly.

Martha Plimpton
Sep. 21, 2023

It’s been more than a year since Roe v. Wade was struck down, and abortion rights are clearly in a dire crisis. Fifteen states have total abortion bans in effect and two others have six-week bans. Most of the Southeast and Midwest are now abortion deserts and pregnant people are forced to travel hundreds, even thousands, of miles to access abortion care.

I’ve watched the escalating attacks on abortion rights with a mix of horror and outrage. I’ve had more than one abortion in my life, and for a variety of reasons—because I was too young to have kids, or not in a stable relationship, or as a result of illness and complications early on. Each time I made that decision, I was sure it was the right one for me and I was fortunate to have access to the care that I needed. I’m not ashamed of my abortions—I’m grateful.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/martha-plimpton-we-must-fight-for-abortion-and-lgbtq-rightsand-our-own-bodies

Why Do Conservatives Attack Abortion and Trans Rights in the Same Ways?

Sept. 21, 2023
By Jennifer Finney Boylan

We were at the sinks in the ladies room, the stranger and I, washing our hands, when a trans woman came out of a stall, looked in the mirror and sighed. After she left, the stranger turned to me and said: “Can you believe that? A man, in here!” She shook her head disapprovingly.

This was 20 years ago, but I’ve never forgotten that stranger’s disdain. It has stayed with me, because the moment called for me to respond to her with courage. What I delivered instead was cowardice.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/opinion/abortion-trans-rights-republicans.html

21.09.2023

American Academy of Pediatrics

Irin Carmon

Jennifer Finney Boylan

trans rights and abortion rights

transgender rights

‘Death Star law’ to abortion: the new rightwing laws taking effect in Texas

Hundreds of new state laws come into effect on 1 September, including attacking trans rights, further limiting abortion and pushing back climate efforts

Ed Pilkington
Fri 1 Sep 2023

On Friday, the Republican-controlled legislature in Texas will dump an avalanche of virulent new laws on the state’s 30 million residents, cementing its reputation as a hotbed of the far-right turmoil that is sweeping America.

Hundreds of laws will come into effect as the product of the legislative session that Texas holds every two years. Among them are a number of highly controversial targeted bills that will have a seismic impact on some of the most vulnerable Texan communities.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/01/texas-new-laws-republican-legislature

01.09.2023

News

Death Star law

Equality Texas

gender-affirming care

gender-affirming health care for transgender children

How South Carolina’s abortion law sounds to transgender men

South Carolina Public Radio | By Scott Morgan
August 29, 2023

For gender-expansive people in general, and for transgender men in particular, South Carolina’s ban on most abortions after six weeks raises scary questions. Chief among those is one Matthew Ward asks: Who is in charge of our bodies?

“Who gets to decide what we can and cannot do?” asks Ward, a transgender man in his mid-20s. “This sort of legislation is trying to take bodily autonomy away from people, and being trans sort of relies on bodily autonomy. It's part of the same problem.”

Continued: https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2023-08-29/how-south-carolinas-abortion-law-sounds-to-transgender-men

USA – The next wave of abortion rights ballot measures looks different from the last

How the tactics and arguments are changing ahead of 2024.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Jul 12, 2023

Last election cycle, abortion rights won in all six states with abortion ballot measures, including in red states like Kentucky and Montana that otherwise elected Republican lawmakers.

Now, this fall and in next year’s election, national liberal groups are planning to invest more heavily in ballot measure campaigns, seeing them as vehicles both to protect access to abortion care and to amplify their broader political message that abortion bans are out of step with voters.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy/23784409/abortion-ballot-measure-ohio-reproductive-rights-2024