How Europe Lost the Plot on Women’s Rights

A depressingly low bar.

The EU is probably the safest place to be a woman, with all of its downsides

Here is a related article by Kathleen Stock to the point I posted above; that academics from the US are now moving abroad and this might influence the debate on TR.

https://unherd.com/2025/04/the-invasion-of-americas-cringe-academics/

I don't know all of the academics mentioned (saw some of the names in another thread but don't know their work). At one point Doc Stock seems to say that this is now the reverse of what GC academics like her experienced, and they did not all leave the country, even if they had to leave their institutions.

"Or, slightly less portentously, it’s just business as usual for the relationship between government and universities, except this time with overlords who don’t force you to list your pronouns but punish you for doing it instead. What a truly independent, politically diverse intelligentsia might look like is as much of an irrelevant mystery as it ever was; for what would the point be in funding that?"

And then she criticizes that there are not enough academics who work on their concepts regardless of which political wind is the mainstream.

I'm not sure that this works, because the motivation behind the state-led changes to academic work in the US is now part of a bigger, even more sinister concept of politics.
On the other hand, as I read in the FWR forum, the politics behind the TRA movement is also much more influential and bigger than it seems in the first place, with the Denton playbook and all.

Maddy lives in Spain, I believe . Where straight men confess to claim to be ‘trans’ in order to attain preferential treatment intended to benefit women.

I find it quite depressing that many people seem to think women have to choose between sex based rights and protections and rights such as abortions and female healthcare.

Btw, in the European country I live they spend more on innovations in trans healthcare than innovations for female healthcare. Says it all really....

I’m intrigued - could you expand on that?
I agree with what you’ve said, but I’m also concerned about where Europe is headed.

Good oh! You do you. In the meantime, we’ll continue to fight for women’s rights while you can continue to value men more highly,

I live in Europe (not UK). I'm very happy with my rights thank you. Look what's happened in the USA.

No thank you.

Which is one reason the UK voted to leave. The British are definitely in favour of pragmatism over idealism. Which is maybe why trans ideology has found the UK such a rocky ride?

There are various threads on here suggesting that you might be wrong.

On the topic of Europe trying to entice top scientists from the US in light of the political developments, apart from topics like climate science or vaccines, they also want to be a safe haven for researchers on gender.

"Citing significant cuts to federal research spending in the U.S., as well as coercive measures targeting specific universities and researchers investigating climate science, vaccines and minority and gender issues, the commissioner said the bloc was in a unique position to serve as a refuge for top scientists. She also set out a trove of enticements for researchers hit by Trump's moves."

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-exploit-dunald-trump-brain-drain-academic-research-progressive-institutions/

(indeed the link has a typo included by Politico's staff)

Maybe women's right campaigners need to be aware there could be a new influx of TRAs under this campaign, too.

Not all trans people want to destroy women's rights. I think it's pretty transphobic when self identified allies imply they do.

I was reading about Turkish president Reycip Erdogan the other day.... and at one point he was reported to have said that " Democracy is the method you use to get where you want to go, but when you get there it is no longer needed".

Benign dictators with a good feel for their country can outmanoeuver democratic bodies which require a majority to make changes. Equally, they can go horribly wrong when someone with less honourable motives gets the ear of the dictator.

It’s interesting to see how supposedly democratic regimes are influenced. I guess that’s partly because we have never really achieved true democracy or representation.

Money dictates too much and unscrupulous people have so much advantage over the honest.

Interesting that even though the Yogyakarta principles never actually made it into policy, they still influenced so much.

I understand the appeal of organizations like this from an idealist POV, it can seem very appealing for a top down organization led by the educated elite to help push slower nations to do the right thing, whatever that is.

And I think that institutions to promote international cooperation and dialogue are useful and necessary.

But fundamentally, I believe in democratic politics as a grass roots project where the granting of power and institutional leverage should be pushed up, rather than pushed down.

In a way it reminds me of the controversy around the separation of the Eastern Orthodox Churches from the Catholic Church, around the question of the power of the papacy. Traditionally in the old Orthodox model, although local institutions have control over many things, on fundamental issues that affect everyone, theological change must include everyone - it's only possible through an often very slow process of convincing everyone that your view is the right one.

Unlike the model with the papacy, where there can potentially be extremely fast change mandated from the central authority.

It's notable that in the second model, although it can innovate quickly, you have a lot more potential for groups feeling that they are being oppressed and for splits and rebellions.

“a pre operative sexually disinhibited transsexual may upset other patients”.

Knowing I might get chucked out of hospital if I complained at the time, and as long as I felt safe if I was in the room with such a man, if I got the opportunity, there would be films making it to friendly journalists.

These men love exposure after all. It would only be giving him what he wanted.

If someone came along and say we are removing women's rights because men say they should, everyone would go "no this is wrong". Put on a dress and it becomes "trans rights are human rights" and every fucker forgets women's rights because sex is no longer important. And women wanting to uphold sex based rights get vilified as evil. And no one can understand why this is a problem?! Like really?

Women's rights depend on us being able to accurately name the female sex as distinct from the male sex.

This is not rocket science. Men's fantasies are not something women have to facilitate.

In fairness, the Council does a lot of other stuff apart from genderwoo which Churchill probably wouldn't have objected to - though he wouldn't have liked their work to ban smoking

The Council of Europe is a human rights/law organisation, and includes the ECHR. The EU was a trading block.

I think to be member of the EU, have to be a member of the Council, but that might not be true. There are non EU members of the Council.

I can see how the Council of Europe could get involved with trans rights if trans were are defined group and suffer oppression. But they arent a defined group, and they do have the same rights as everyone else. They are issued with birth certificates, passports, have a right to employment. What they dont necessarily have is the right to be a middle aged man following a girl into a changing room, or be a man in the womans boxing league.

Thank you, I'll do some reading but I can't imagine this is what Churchill intended!

Same thing in Scotland re the over-correction from a rigid, homophobic and very macho culture…