Terry Reintke, lesbian German MEP and co-president of the European Parliament’s LGBTI Intergroup. (Twitter/TerryReintke)
Lesbian German MEP Terry Reintke says “hateful” anti-trans language used by radical feminists in Britain is spilling into other countries.
Reintke, 33, a Green politician who has been an MEP since 2013, made the comments in an Instagram Live with UK children’s charity Mermaids, which support young trans and gender-questioning children and their families.
As the co-president of the European Parliament’s LGBTI Intergroup, Reintke was one of a group of MEPs who last month condemned Hungary’s move to ban legal gender recognition for transgender and intersex people.
“These attacks on [trans] rights will not stand,” she reaffirmed in the Instagram Live. “We will continue to fight, and we will continue to stand in solidarity with the community in Hungary.”
To the Hungarian government:
You will not win with this attack on trans rights.
Trans people will not cease to exist just because you want them to.
And the European Parliament will stand with them and defend their rights as EU citizens.
💙🤍💗🤍💙#hungary #drop33 pic.twitter.com/SZyDniHHbC
— Terry Reintke (@TerryReintke) May 14, 2020
Terry Reintke also spoke to Lui Asquith, Mermaids‘ non-binary Instagram Live host, about her concern about the direction the UK government is going in regarding trans rights.
The Conservative minister for women and equalities, Liz Truss, provoked alarm recently with her comments on plans for reforming the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), which is the process by which trans people can update the gender marker on their birth certificates in the UK.
Truss said that her response would be informed by three “very important” principles – two of which, the protection of single-sex spaces and healthcare for trans youth, are unrelated to the GRA but are talking points often repeated by anti-trans feminists and organisations.
Speaking about anti-trans feminists, Reintke said that for her, feminism is about equality and also about “emancipation for people of all genders”.
“I think now there is a movement, and I think this is very present in the UK but also spilling over to other parts of Europe, that has had I would say a very hateful rhetoric towards the trans community and towards non-binary people,” Reintke said.
“If I look at Hungary, if I look at Poland, it’s a reminder that we are up against the same authoritarian narrative.
“When the Polish government was trying to restrict LGBT+ rights, at the same time they were trying to restrict women’s rights to emancipation.
“When you have these really divisive and hateful debates, it’s not helping the feminist movement or the queer movement. We should be working together,” she added.