I’m Dutch and in two months I’ll see a psychiatrist to get a diagnosis. I’m so curious what she’s going to ask cuz I honestly don’t know why anybody would make this shit up. I know that she’s supposed to be good though.

I had a discussion with someone on a Dutch forum recently who said people make this stuff up just to ‘be different’ so they are more accepted. The amount of anti-trans disinformation there is really crazy now.

I’m not trans myself (though I’m definitely a bit queer) but I have several trans friends and I know the stuff they go through so it triggers me. I’m really sorry this law is probably not making it through.

PS I’m sorry about your crush 😢 (Sorry I clicked through to your profile - not stalking 😇 )

The last one put me on the autism train and I said that if that’s true it doesn’t bother me in the least, so what about the trans diagnosis?

Yeah I probably am too though never diagnosed. Doesn’t really bother me either. Either way I am who I am whatever label you put on it and I have to deal with that.

Yeah I’m surprised (well, more appalled) about my “friends” often repeating complete BS misinformation that comes straight from the republican Trump campaign. Like that children are being indoctrinated (apparently this refers to the Rugers Stichting campaign “Lentekriebels” but it is really a complete BS point, it’s purely aimed at understanding and against bullying). Or that children of 10-12 are receiving gender surgery which is also complete nonsense.

I’ve stopped talking to some of them because I’m so sick of hearing this BS. I’m not even sure where they get infected by this narrative, maybe tiktok or something.

In Holland the government just said they dropped all plans to do this 🤬 The plans were basically ready to be signed off.

Of course in the last election the extreme-right won 25% of the votes so the cause is clear 😭

I had an older couple of gay men treat me like a zoo animal for just hanging around drinking coffee as a trans woman at pride, in Provincetown of all places, wearing my regular clothes. Like, shoving a camera in my face and commenting to one another about how butch they felt I was. I would have dumped my drink over him if I hadn’t been so shocked. A pride flag doesn’t really tell me anything about whether you’re transphobic.

Wow, so sorry you had to deal with that. 😢 Especially from older gay men who probably had to fight for their own rights when they were young.

When I look at my own environment it seems the anti-trans sentiment seems to be exploding. Especially since the fascists became the biggest party in the last Dutch elections. I’ve literally had to cut some “friends” off because I was sick of hearing their BS. Always the same tired fake facts crap too (like “they’re trying to convert our kids”)

I’m not trans but some of my friends are, and my impression is that it has become much harder for them in recent years. I always wear rainbow bands in June mainly because I thought it was all inclusive (and I couldn’t find progress ones). But I’ll try to find a progress one or a trans-flag one to wear beside it this year ❤️

I’m glad to say my employer is not like this, they promote pride month and have banners on their website etc.

Unfortunately they don’t do this in Hungary, Saudi Arabia etc. I wish they were a bit more pushy on those sides but profit first I guess.

Thank you ❤️ But I’m not trans myself (though I am kinda on the LGBT spectrum). I do have several trans friends and I don’t stand for that kind of derisive talk. All this hate has prompted me to join campaigns at work and help organise events because I want to do something against it.

The trans minority specifically seems to be the ultimate scapegoat for them, since it’s such a tiny minority.

Yes exactly. The smaller the minority and the more they stand out the better. Because there is less likelyhood that they offend their own supporters, or that those actually are friends with someone from the minority and know things are not as presented.

I always ask why they are so hung up on trans people, after all they harm no one, and what they do is their business alone. It always results in some contrived reason. The point my “ex-friends” kept bringing up was their children, somehow they are harmed irreparably if they see someone who used to be a man in women’s clothes. Or that it’s not “natural” (so what, your tattoo isn’t either, or many other lifesaving medical procedures). But anyway I got sick of this discussion.

But it’s terrifying how much crap they are presented with on things like TikTok and Instagram, once they view one hate video it serves them more and more because they keep looking at them. Most of them are easily debunked but there are just so many.

It’s because the extreme-right campaigns are fuelled by hate and discontent. And it helps them by chanelling it towards minority groups by blaming them for everything (obviously a majority won’t work because they would alienate too much of their own userbase). So the narrative is ‘the brown people’ cause all the problems, the LGBT community etc etc. Hate unites people more easily than love 😢

What worries me the most is that formerly normal sane ‘friends’ actually buy into this BS and have become rabiate trans-haters practically overnight. 😢

The whole Anti-LGBT campaign blowing over from the US to Europe. In the Netherlands I see more and more of the same 😭

So sad. This is the result of demonising the LGBTQ+ community by the right 😢 😭

Oh ok, I didn’t realise things were so bad there :(

I have never been in Bulgaria but I was in Romania and it was pretty LGBT friendly there. But again. Also in the city. I assume the countryside is much different.

peaking of men, the Balkan macho culture created a fear of gay people (literal homophobia). On a regular basis I hear men speaking about being afraid of being raped by gay men in certain situations (think massage rooms, men’s locker rooms, bars).

So “macho” men complaining they are afraid? Lol.

And of course this won’t happen. In fact what I see is that the more kinky people get, the more important expressed consent becomes. Of course the gay scene is pretty fast and loose with consent in some circles but you won’t end up in those places unless you go looking for them.

Congrats!

Wow I’m kinda surprised they didn’t have this already. Glad for the LGBTQ+ population but I’m surprised there were still countries in EU where it wasn’t legal (except of course Hungary due to populism)

Say what you will about Biden, but his administration has some pretty slick operators in it.

It’s a lot slicker if they actually pull it off. As you mention Netanyahu is just ignoring them altogether.

The grant summary explains that trans boys are “at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable.”

Good that they are trying to tackle the problem but why not make the whole program more inclusive so the transgender kids feel actually included in the whole thing? Setting up special sex-ed programs just for them still sets them apart from the rest. And even though not all the content will apply to the cisgendered kids it will foster understanding of transsexuality. This is what we do in Europe (except the regimes like Hungary), transsexuality is now a topic of sex-ed.