A growing network of foreign organisations are pouring hundreds of millions of euros into “culture war” groups campaigning to roll back LGBTQ+ rights across Europe, European lawmakers have warned.
In a resolution published earlier this month, the European Parliament raised the alarm about foreign interference in all democratic processes in Europe,pointing out that most of the foreign funding originates from Russia and the US.
This foreign interference, coupled with disinformation and numerous attacks perpetrated by malicious foreign actors, is predicted to increase in the lead-up to the European Parliament elections in 2024, becoming more sophisticated in nature.
MEPs flagged that at least 50 organisations now fund anti-gender activities — opposing what they call gender ideology.
“Europe is seeing a growing number of anti-gender movements, specifically targeting sexual and reproductive health, women’s rights and LGBTIQ+ people,” the EU parliamentary report read.
“Such movements proliferate disinformation in order to reverse progress in women’s rights and gender equality. These movements have been reported to receive millions of euros in foreign funding, either public or private, including from Russia and the US.”
Funding and modus operandi
The strategies employed by these foreign actors have evolved over time, due to increasing funding and intensifying disinformation campaigns, human rights observers have warned.
Members of the US far-right and the Russian Orthodox Church, two major players of the anti-gender movement, have joined forces to ramp up funding to Europe-based ultra-traditionalist actors with a specific focus on targeting LGBTQ+ rights, according to sources who agreed to speak to Euronews on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Over the past decade, key Christian right organisations, usually funded by private individuals linked to far-right and libertarian causes in the US, and Russian oligarchs have established a network of agencies set up in human rights institutions across Europe to carry out anti-gender diplomacy and infiltrate positions of power in member states.
Other tactics include abusive lawsuits intended to suppress, intimidate and silence critics (SLAPPS), money and reputational laundering, physical harassment, sending paid fight squads to LGBTQ+ marches or drag stores, hacking journalists’ devices with the Pegasus software and using troll farms spreading disinformation against LGBTQ+ activists.
And the movement is gaining momentum with more organisations from other countries, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Vatican City, closing ranks in their anti-LGBTQ+ lobbying and funding.
Their usual targets include minorities in unstable countries where they can exploit polarisation to radicalise the political debate and fuel violence, sources said.
Undermining the case for EU membership
Georgia’s gay pride festival on 8 July is the latest LGBTQ+ event to have fallen victim to foreign interference.
A mob of up to 2,000 anti-LGBTQ+ protestersfrom the Russian-affiliated group Alt Info, stormed Tbilisi’s festival in an attack described by Pride’s director Mariam Kvaratskhelia as “pre-planned”.
“I definitely think this [disruption] was a pre-planned, coordinated action between the government and the radical groups … We think this operation was planned in order to sabotage the EU candidacy of Georgia,” she told Reuters.
Members of Alt-Info, an ultra-conservative TV broadcaster with close ties to the Georgian Orthodox Church, had already disrupted Tbilisi Pride in 2021. Since its foundation as a conservative media platform in 2019, the group has tried to expand its political influence by creating an alternative party to both the governing Georgian Dream and opposition United National Movement. Among its stated goals is pursuing closer relations with Russia.
The former Soviet republic’s path to EU candidacy has been slowed by deeply polarised politics and the excessive influence of vested interests in economic, political and public life, alongside its territorial dispute with Russia in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions.
And the cancellation of its Pride festival could deal yet another blow to its EU aspiration.
Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, condemned the “violent disruptions”, saying “anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric, disinformation and violence have no place in these debates”. The counter-protests represented a violation to the EU’s freedom of expression and right to peaceful assembly, the EU Ambassador for Gender & Diversity tweeted.
Divide and conquer
The same tension has broken out across Western Balkan countries where leaders have struggled to walk a fine identity and political line between anti-LGBTQ+ religious nationalist movements and pro-LGBTQ+ Europeanising public opinion.
While these countries generally have high levels of political and public support for joining the EU, their progress towards membership has stagnated over the past decade.
Religious nationalism has posed a significant challenge, as leaders from the Serbian Orthodox church, the Catholic church, and Islamic authorities have rallied behind their targeting of LGBTQ+ rights and formed coalitions with conservative political parties.
In recent years, anti-LGBTQ+ actions have turned more violent, with physical assaults by ultranationalist protesters on attendees of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Pride in March of this year, the Belgrade Pride in 2022 and the Zagreb Pride in 2021.
The controversy surrounding a veto that would have recognised same-sex unions in Serbia in 2021 is just another example of the growing conservative backlash against LGBTQ+ rights taking hold in Western Balkan countries.
‘The tip of the iceberg’
Yet, this trend is not unique to Western Balkan countries.
In 2021, the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) unearthed more than $707.2 million (€600 million) worth of anti-gender funding from the United States, the Russian Federation, and Europe, specifically targeting LGBTQ+ rights across Europe between 2009 and 2018.
The wide-ranging report, which examined 117 anti-gender funding actors active in Europe, insisted the findings were only the “tip of the iceberg” as half of them — 63 — had no existing financial data.
“Of course there are enormous data gaps that cannot be filled at the moment, so $700 million is really the tip of the iceberg of how big this anti-gender movement is,” said EPF’s secretary Neil Datta.
According to Evelyne Paradis, executive director of ILGA-Europe, the anti-gender movement’s efforts to further polarise public discourse is dragging pro-democracy governments into fuelling prejudice and hatred towards LGBTQ+ people.
“The practice of scapegoating LGBTQ+ people is starting to be instrumentalised by both the pro-democracy and the anti-democracy sides. If you make it a marker of how good you are, then you’re creating this divide,” she told Euronews.
“This [growing polarisation] is not helping what should be a healthier, calmer conversation. What’s happening at the moment is the complete opposite.”
Instead, Paradis said pro-democracy governments need to move forward with their progressive agenda and steer clear of the perverse effects of foreign-funded polarisation.
“We’re all in reaction mode and it’s very hard to resist and be in a pro-active mode. Governments need to pass through the anti-gender movement’s negative agenda and keep on pushing our positive agenda. That’s where the strategy of the opposition is working – it’s really pushing everybody in the reactive mode.”
Oh clutch my pearls, classical literature is not as pure as today’s fundamentalist Christian nationalist who just don’t want their children to get an education but they demand the right to stop your child or anyone from getting one. This is not about parental control, it is about one minor fundamentalist religious group having complete control over the education of all the children in the entire state. But only for public schools. The schools paid for with tax dollars and that educate the lower incomes. The private schools do not have to follow these stupid bigoted rules. My dogs that love gravy, this has been a Christian Taliban moral police take over. Next girls will only be allowed to attend school until the 8th grade and must wear ankle length dresses, and everyone will be in drab colors. Hugs
School district officials in Hillsborough County, Fla., have implemented a newly designed curriculum guide for English teachers that will see students reading only selections from William Shakespeare plays.
“There’s some raunchiness in Shakespeare. Because that’s what sold tickets during his time,” said Joseph Cool, a reading teacher at Gaither High School.
“I think the rest of the nation — no, the world, is laughing us,” he added. “Taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd.”
Schools in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa Bay and the surrounding area, are mostly assigning excerpts by the English language’s most famous writer. The schools previously required students to read two of Shakespeare’s novels or plays, in their entirety, per year.
The decision comes as educators must prepare students for a new set of state exams that cover a wide variety of subject matter, and also, “in consideration of the law,” according to a school district spokesperson, which means teaching it could open educators up to disciplinary measures if a parent were to file a complaint.
The “law” in question is the new Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibits teaching any content that is sexual in nature.
Florida high schools are now removing Shakespeare, including the full text of “Romeo and Juliet,” to comply with Republicans’ new law restricting “sexual content.”
“I think the rest of the nation — no, the world, is laughing at us,” a teacher said.
If your kids are go to school in Tampa, thanks to bigly failing @GovRonDeSantis, they will read Shakespeare "while avoiding anything racy or sexual," i.e. "excerpts" from "Romeo & Juliet," "Othello," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Macbeth" not full plays https://t.co/jETfpNm6Vy
[Jerusalem] saw this, yet she was more corrupt than [Samaria] in her lusting and in her prostitutions, which were worse than those of her sister. She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, mounted horsemen, all of them handsome young men. And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. But she carried her prostitutions further; she saw male figures carved on the wall, images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, with belts around their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers—a picture of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. When she saw them she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their lust, and after she defiled herself with them, she turned from them in disgust. When she carried on her prostitutions so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned from her sister. Yet she increased her prostitutions, remembering the days of her youth, when she prostituted herself in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your bosom and caressed your young breasts. – Ezekiel 23:11-2
It is happening in Sarasota County too: “Teachers offloading books in DeSantis’ Florida, resellers say,” Aug. 4.
I work in a Sarasota County thrift store. This summer, the store has received thousands of books from schools and classroom libraries. They are marked with the names of teachers or schools.
It is clear from the wide variety of titles that teachers work hard to help every student feel validated and included in a diverse classroom.
I literally cried in the store when I saw the titles: Newbery Award and Honor Books, the highest award a children’s book can receive from the American Library Association, no longer available to children in their schools. Most of the books depict characters from minority and vulnerable populations.
Reading novels with characters that face struggles the reader does not experience develops empathy for others. Perhaps our governor could read a few and develop a little empathy himself.
I feel sorry for all the youngsters in Florida who are being deprived of everything except a selective education which intentionally leaves gigantic holes in their curriculum.
Those who go off to college (esp. out of state) are going to find out they’re years behind their classmates.
Only the public schools. The elite private schools are not bound by the state curriculum and will be able to teach real history, literature, art, etc. Rhonda’s children go to private school.
The ones who are exceptionally smart will find a way to get educated. I’m concerned about the others. Not every child is going to be able to do what Tara Westover did.
I am running out of words to describe how fucked up and out of touch with reality the fundamentalist Christian nationalist racist dictatorship of DeathSantis Florida kingdom. They are so scared of not following 1950s gender stereotypes and the social acceptance of LGBTQ+ kids that even nicknames must now get a parent’s approval / permission slip. I can see that teacher phone call “Mrs Bigot your 8 your son Theodore wants to be called Teddy and your 10 year old son Harold wishes to be called Skip, I need to inform you of this in case it is a gender sexual orientation thing and get you to write your formal approval”! WTF It is nutz. What about kids calling each other names? What about the mean names the bigots kids are taught to call the gay or trans kids, do the teachers need to get permission for that? They are not allowed to stop it anymore in the bigoted kingdom of DeathSantis. Hugs
Students who attend school in Florida will now need parental permission to use a nickname or preferred name in school, thanks to a law put in place by the state’s governor, Ronald Dion DeSantis, who famously goes by a nickname — Ron.
The rule will soon hit all Florida districts and follows new legislation that was adopted in July that aims to “strengthen the rights of parents and safeguard their child’s educational record to ensure the use of the child’s legal name in school or a parent-approved nickname,” according to Florida’s Department of Education.
Students who wish to be called anything other than their legal name in school will need their parents to sign off, according to memos sent to parents by Orange County Public Schools and Seminole County Public Schools. Marion County Schools and Volusia County Schools confirmed to FOX 35 that they have plans to issue similar memos.
For example, if your child’s name is Robert but likes to be called “Rob,” the form will need to be filled out to make that happen.
This form also applies to transgender students who wish to be called something other than their legal name, according to the school district. This, however, does not allow teachers and staff to use a student’s preferred pronouns, and does not allow a teacher or staff member to ask a student’s preferred pronoun, which was barred under House Bill 1069.
For example, if your child's name is Robert but likes to be called Rob, the form will need to be filled out so teachers and staff can call your child Rob. https://t.co/fwwxtt0287
some people are shocked when I tell them the unabridged complete works of Shakespeare was in the bookcase of the bedroom I shared with my brother when I was 8 years old and he was 4. The set was given to this pastor’s family by another pastor.
What the fuck. I’ve gone by my middle name — without needing anyone’s permission — for decades. The only people who call me by my first name are 1) my mom, and 2) telemarketers.
Just finished reading for the second time “Downfall” byTraudl Junge Hitlers personal secretary. For Florida aand indeed America in many many ways an exacting template If we do NOT learn from history we are destined to repeat in It.’s been not quite 100 years
I had one high school teacher, Sister Mary Robertine, who insisted on calling all students by their “real” name. Classmate Frank gave it to her when she called him “Francis” (Frank was his legal name).
Thanks to Ali for the link. This is important information that in red states run by republicans it is illegal to teach to kids. In Florida, even 18-year-old seniors in high school and higher education college kids are too sensitive and delicate to learn that not all heroes are cis straight people. After all the important people in history were a cis straight people and it is important to never mention the LGBTQ+ people at all or people might think they were normal and great. Hugs
“Baron Von Steuben” was responsible for whipping the the U.S. military into shape when things were looking bleakest
The article link is from Ali, thank you Ali. The court ruling was all about racism, returning the more affluent whites back to the preferential position while denying underprivileged people of color a higher education. The end result is classes of mostly or all white people going on to lead businesses or large law firms leading to political power and people of color being regulated to lower income labor servitude jobs. The 1950s all over again. It is an attempt by racists to make a white power nation continue. Hugs
The right-wing activist behind SCOTUS’ Affirmative Action decision is now attacking a venture capital fund that supports Black women-owned small businesses.
ATLANTA, GA – APRIL 07: (L-R) Tobey R. Sanders, actress Keisha Knight Pulliam, and Arian Simone attend the “Festival of Laughs” tour at Philips Arena on April 7, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia.
On Wednesday, the nonprofit American Alliance for Equal Rights filed a lawsuit against an Atlanta-based venture capital fund that supports Black women and other minority-owned small businesses. The nonprofit was founded by none other than right-wing crusader Edward Blum, who has made it his mission to destroy affirmative action.
The lawsuit filed against the Fearless Fund alleges that the fund is “operating a racially-discriminatory program” in violation of the Civil Rights Act. The Fearless Fund was founded by three Black women — executive Ayana Parsons, actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, and entrepreneur Arian Simone.
As their website notes, less than 2.2.% of all Venture Capital funding goes towards women-founded businesses, and less than 1% of total funding goes towards businesses founded by women of color. And yet, for some reason, folks like Blum are convinced this number should be even lower.
It’s worth noting that Blum and his team are clearly riding high from Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision. In fact, they cite it at the top of their lawsuit.
Even before this lawsuit, conservatives were looking for ways to weaponize the Supreme Court’s decision in the workplace. In July, 13 Republican attorneys general wrote a letter demanding that Fortune 100 companies stop their affirmative action programs.
Amalea Smirniotopoulos, NAACP Legal Defense Fund Senior Policy Counsel, says that these Republican attorneys general are trying to make the Supreme Court’s affirmative decision about something it’s not.
“This was another attempt to chill completely lawful efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion by corporations,” says Smirniotopoulos. “By really trying to stretch the meaning of the decision in the Harvard and UNC cases and frankly by also restating things that have always been true about discrimination law and employment.”
“This letter is a scare tactic,” says University of New Mexico Constitutional and Employment Law Professor Vinay Harpalani. “And unfortunately, it’s a pretty good one.”
Although the Supreme Court decision didn’t touch on hiring practices, Harpalani says that conservatives will certainly try to use it as a basis for challenging race in employment. “The law, as it is now, allows affirmative action in employment,” says Harpalani. “But if the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, I’m not at all confident that they would continue to allow it.”
The immediate threat is that companies begin to back-away from DEI programs, said Justin Hansford, Executive Director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University.
“Some of these companies weren’t really doing that much anyway… and what they were doing was done only under pressure,” says Hansford. “This could be an excuse for some companies that already didn’t want to push the envelope on diversity to start walking things back.”
As for the lawsuit against Fearless Fund, an obvious concern is that it could scare off investors who might otherwise want to similarly invest in women of color. However, it’s still too soon to say (especially in this climate) whether the case has legs.
Very interesting, wonderful calm delivery. Informative. Well reasoned with out a lot of science or medical jargon, just cutting through the bullshit. Towards the end she even addresses those that still claim gametes are the real determining factor of a persons sex. I enjoyed this. Hugs
TERFs say the LGBTQ community is harming women by erasing biological sex. But can they even agree on what biological sex IS?
Compare the actions of the pride attendees and the Nazi thugs. The pride people were having fun, smiling, laughing, dancing, singing. The Nazis were screaming threats while brandishing weapons, scaring the kids and others attending the event. Which one was presenting what was good for children to see, angry face covered armed shouting men or dancing happy singing pride people? Also these thugs claimed that masks kept them from breathing when it was necessary due to a public health threat now wear them to hide their identity so they don’t get fired for what they are doing. Notice in one of the tweets, one of the men loaded a round in the chamber to threaten reporters on a public street. These are the thugs that DeathSantis hires as staff and refuses to denounce. These are the people that trump claimed were very good people on both sides. Hugs.
An armed Neo-Nazi group protested a Pride in the Park event in Watertown, Wisconsin, on Saturday afternoon that featured a drag story time and drag shows.
Video journalist Oliya Scootercaster took to Twitter on Saturday to document the protest and wrote, “BLOOD TRIBE group marching in Watertown Wisconsin protesting Pride in the park.” In her videos, one Neo-Nazi group member can be seen carrying a weapon.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Blood Tribe is described as “a neo-Nazi group with semi-autonomous chapters in the United States and Canada. Blood Tribe promotes hardline white supremacist views and openly directs its vitriol at Jews, ‘non-whites’ and the LGBTQ+ community.”
We’re out here with @GAG_Wisconsin at the Watertown, WI “Pride in the Park” event. Lots of protesters showed up! The all ages drag show is about to start. We will not waver. We will let them know loud and clear that NONE OF THIS is for children!#GaysAgainstGroomerspic.twitter.com/pADfBMmMr7
— Gays Against Groomers (@againstgrmrs) July 29, 2023
Gays Against Groomers organized a protest of a "Pride in the Park" event in Watertown, Wisconsin. Armed neo nazis with AR-15's showed up. pic.twitter.com/Zte7HOpEca
VIDEO THREAD: Today, avowed Neo-Nazi group "Blood Tribe" rallied with rifles and swastika flags outside an LGBT "Pride in the Park" event in Watertown, Wisconsin.
"Us or the pedophiles!" they chanted at the crowd, which included children. "There will be blood, blood blood!"… pic.twitter.com/DBtntCGerG
2. One participant in the pride event confronted the Nazis, explaining that "It just makes me so happy that I get to wake up every day and just love who I want without fear of judgement or fucking Nazis apparently."
3. "Us or the pedophiles!" the Blood Tribe chanted as they marched around the Pride in the Park event.
A woman confronted them, and a rifle-wielding Nazi told her "I would say, young lady, that you would look a lot lovelier if you were wearing a proper dress." pic.twitter.com/jzJ8NJ9T42
Myself and 2 other press @ScooterCasterNY and @KristanTHarris followed the Neo-Nazi Blood Tribe group as they marched to their exit point somewhere else in Watertown.
"You better go away, I'm telling you man," one said.
6. As Blood Tribe tried to leave, they paused, apparently irritated at press behind them. One approached with an AK rifle that he chambered a round in moments earlier and asked if we were "trying to dox us."
"If you keep following me man -" he said before smacking his rifle.
Fortunately, Harrisburg’s Pride had no visible Nazis on Saturday. Just the usual Truly Religious…not there to heckle or incite, of course, just concerned about our souls. They’re just so fucking thoughty, bless their hearts.
P.S. Sometimes I listen to those right wing talkers on the radio (talk about a soul killing experience). The outrageous and inflammatory venom directed at Transfolks (and those who support them) is going to egg on someone to do violence and they know it.
They know it, they make money off it. And they will make money off of the result of their stochastic terrorism as will their MSM peers. They will make even more money as they squeal about how unfairly they are being portrayed and they cycle continues. Stay safe, my dear.
Scottie's Playtime 