What happens in Brussels does not stay in Brussels
Today we publish our new report: Beneath the Surface: How gender identity is reshaping Europe. It is the first to map how contested activist demands have been written into European law and policy through soft-law mechanisms, lobbying and institutional capture.
“Over the past 15 years, the EU and the Council of Europe have turned activist slogans into official frameworks. This has undermined sex-based rights, removed safeguards for children and adolescents and eroded pluralism and freedom of expression.“
Often without public debate or democratic accountability, transactivist concepts have been embedded in legislation, policy, data collection, education and healthcare. With deliberately opaque language, the public has been left unable to follow, while growing polarisation has silenced or defamed critics — including feminists, academics, parents, lesbians and gays, health practitioners, educators, human rights advocates and journalists.
Our report details how transactivist lobby groups, aided by political ignorance and compliance, have embedded gender identity norms within European institutions and reshaped Europe.
- the influence of the Yogyakarta Principles and the monopoly of transactivist lobby groups in Brussels
- the extension of these frameworks beyond Europe through funding, training units, external action and diplomacy
- the push for self-ID, conversion therapy bans on gender identity and gender expression, and expanded hate-speech laws
What happens in Brussels does not stay in Brussels. This is a European story that uproots reality.