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

Abortion remains a criminal offence in the UK because of the left’s timidity. We must learn from that – and fast

Tuesday’s vote in parliament was a missed opportunity – and proof that progressives are allowing the right to shape the key debates

Stella Creasy
Wed 18 Jun 2025

Around the world, the antis are joining forces. Whether anti-abortion, anti-transgender, anti-immigrant, anti-human rights or just anti anyone who doesn’t look like them, they are collaborating; amplifying one another and sharing their political and cultural successes. Their rhetoric now dominates our discussions, and increasingly our ballot boxes. In response, some argue caution or even capitulation – as if we can stop the public being dragged to the extremes if we speak in hushed tones or water down our ambitions for social justice. As we witness the consequences of this, it is time to speak up for those values that drive us to show that another future is possible.

On Tuesday, parliament had the opportunity to set abortion in England and Wales on the same modern, regulated footing as it is in Northern Ireland: as a human right. Instead, a vote on this was explicitly blocked by the providers of this service and their supporters, telling MPs to back another amendment, to get a single exemption from prosecution for women “over the line” instead. That is what happened. In contrast, my proposed amendment would have gone further, offering “protection to all those involved in ensuring that women can access safe and legal abortions”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/18/abortion-criminal-offence-uk-parliament-progressives

18.06.2025

Opinion

abortion law reform

anti-choice campaigns

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice oppression

NHS contraceptive pills funding Orban ‘propaganda’ as Hungary restricts abortion

Profits from contraceptive pills used by the NHS are funding an organisation with close ties to Hungary’s hard right government which has restricted access to abortion.

Paul Dobson
January 5, 2025

Gedeon Richter – a pharmaceutical firm based in Budapest – sells hundreds of millions of pounds worth of contraceptive pills globally each year and has rights to provide some commonly prescribed types of the pill to the NHS.

Analysis of financial documents shows that a ten per cent stake in Gedeon Richter is owned by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) – which has been described as the “pet university” and “propaganda institution” of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

Continued; https://theferret.scot/nhs-pills-orban-propaganda-hungary-abortion/

05.01.2025

News

Gedeon Richter

Mathias Corvinus Collegium

What Do the European Parliament Elections Mean for Gender Equality in Europe and Beyond?

The recent European Parliament elections show what happens when far-right parties gain institutional power in governmental structures. The U.S. must take note.

6/14/2024
by ALEXANDRIA WILSON-MCDONALD

In the fall of 2023, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico ran on a campaign promising to side with Hungary’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who recently shut down gender studies programs in Hungary, to get rid of the so-called “genderists” in the European Union. He was referring to people who support gender equality measures and LGBTQ+ rights.

Orbán and Fico are part of what has become known as the anti-gender movement, an amalgamation of populist and right-wing politicians, religious leaders and conservative activists—from men’s rights groups to antiabortion groups—that oppose gender equality measures, including reproductive rights, sex education in schools, marriage equality for LGBTQ+ couples, trans rights and legislation to combat gender-based violence. This movement has deep ties to the conservative movement in the United States.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/14/european-parliament-elections-right-conservative-women-abortion-gender/

Dozens of Hungarian women travel to Austria for abortions every week, amid tightening laws

Abortions are legal in Hungary but humiliating treatment and waiting lists prompt women to terminate their pregnancies outside of the country, women and experts told Euronews. Their main destination is Austria.

By Lili Rutai
16/08/2023

“I was sure I didn’t want to go through this procedure in Hungary,” Adri, 32, who asked to be identified only by her first name, says. She lives in an agglomeration of Budapest, works as a life coach and raises her son alone. She got pregnant again, two years ago, and decided to get an abortion.

Surgical abortions are legal until the 12th week in Hungary but women are required to attend two mandatory meetings with a state service. The first one is to inform them of other opportunities, including adoption, Réka Lebedi, a lawyer at Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ), a human rights NGO, explained. The second’s purpose is to inform them of the dangers of the surgery.

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/08/16/dozens-of-hungarian-women-travel-to-austria-for-abortions-every-week-amid-tightening-laws