As avmag.gr reports in an article: In the aforementioned article, a series of transphobic, homophobic and sexist positions were expressed, on the occasion of an announcement by the New Left Youth, which contained the inclusive phrase ” people with a uterus “.
Now, the scientific organization for the mental health of LGBTQI+ people, Orlando LGBT+ , Intersex Greece and the Proud Seniors Greece Association responded with press releases to the article by the collective “The Purple” but also took a stand on the general increase in transphobia within the most progressive spaces.
Orlando LGBT+
To allies, feminists and rights defenders, collectives, progressive parties and organizations:
In recent days, it seems that public debate has opened up in Greece on social media, in relevant groups and many personal profiles around terfism – that is, the feminist movement that excludes trans people from feminist claims, reproduces abusive speech and relativizes their rights (terf= trans exclusionary radical feminism).
This phenomenon, which is associated with the reproduction of far-right arguments, even by members and frameworks of the Left, is not new in Europe and the US, and its correlation with the reproduction and strengthening of far-right propaganda has been widely studied – but it seems that it is now being discussed more in the Greek context.
Trans people have been targeted by the international far-right in recent years, culminating in Trump’s extreme policies in the US that deprive them of their basic rights, confront them with a direct threat to their lives and free self-realization, exclude them from vital health services, expose them to extreme violence and fascist practices, lead them once again to the torture of conversion therapies, outlaw their safe support services, allow state violence and arbitrariness with mandatory body checks and non-free access to public spaces such as toilets, recreational areas, professional settings, etc., while at the same time engaging in fascist practices of censorship in school textbooks, ministerial circulars and research programs.
Any “feminist” argument that reproduces far-right schemes against trans people and the recognition of their rights is dangerous, far from any concept of inclusive, intersectional feminism and far from any movement towards the necessary reorganization of the progressive world in the face of the far-right threat in both Europe and Greece.
As we observe that within several movement and progressive circles the reflexes towards the above are rather particularly low, we draw attention, call for vigilance and declare that any relativization, tolerance, or support of such arguments on the part of institutional bodies, parties and organizations will find us opposed – both our body and (we are the ones who are against) every LGBTQI+/queer organization or collective that we know of in Greece.
Trans/LGBTQ+ rights and queer liberation should, in all their basic aspects, constitute a field of self-evident consensus among progressive forces and actors and not be issues of retreat in them – but should be part of the intersecting class, racial, and gendered social struggles for equality and social justice.
The far right internationally decides to place them at the center of its polemics, creating a moral panic in its favor – along with its xenophobic arguments.
We will not take a step back in this and we call on all the above bodies/individuals/organizations to isolate ideologically dangerous and phobic arguments.
The fight for trans/queer rights today, more than ever, is also an anti-fascist struggle that meets every anti-fascist struggle of our time.
To our wider communities:
Our strength comes from far and wide – from the concentration camps to the interdisciplinary struggles of our emancipation, the struggles for a dignified life, health, work, protection from violence (state, systemic, social), substantive civil rights and equality.
We draw from these struggles whenever necessary.
The strength is in togetherness.
Intersex Greece
On the occasion of the recent publication by the collective “The Purple” entitled “Female or Duckling Gender?” (S. Vovou, 12/03/25), all of us in the Greek Intersex Community, which consistently fights for the human rights of ALL women, femininity and intersex people, feel the need to react critically, interdisciplinary and feministically against the devaluation, interphobia, transphobia, terf-racism and outdated biologism that the text in question exudes:
As the Board of Directors of Intersex Greece , we wish to respond to the recent text of the Feminist Organization “The Purple” and the text “Gender female or duckling@”, in which opinions are expressed against trans and intersex individuals, as well as sex workers, as well as any life that does not belong to the “female gender”, responding that on the one hand, the term gender alone indicates the very history of fascism in the name of the racial cleansing of the “Third” world/gender and that if there is a power that has tried to eliminate the concept of woman, it is not the LGBTQI+ movement but the patriarchy.
We believe that the use of the plural creates the impression of a war between the LGBTQI+ movement and women, which is completely inappropriate. Furthermore, we consider it completely inappropriate for an organization to talk about the struggles of the feminist movement as its own property. We also consider it inappropriate to suggest that the institution of marriage has historically been a tool of oppression, as this gives the right to this organization to deny the right of members of the LGBTQI+ movement to claim it as a means of recognizing love and freedom. It is important to recognize that different desires and needs are part of a complex framework, and we should not indicate the “correct” truth of desire based on biological or other reductions that imply the superiority of one gender.
We condemn the racial and gender racism expressed in the text, as it downplays the importance and validity of the existence of trans and intersex people, as well as sex workers, through references to their small percentage. At the same time, the text not only simplifies the recognition of sex work, but also presents it as a danger and even a threat. The indifference to the safety and well-being of sex workers is unacceptable and reflects an attitude that not only marginalizes the voices of our fellow human beings, but also reproduces fascism through the classification of life into “worthy” and “undeserving”, from a position of privilege.
We condemn in the text the connection attempted between surrogacy, as a tool for the commercialization of the female body, and the right of LGBTQI+ people to have equal access to it. Particularly in the days we live in, the stigmatization of the LGBTQI+ movement requires sensitivity and broader understanding to ensure justice and equality. We point out that the solution is not a war against the LGBTQI+ movement, but the abolition of patriarchy, which endangers concepts such as life, freedom, equality, self-determination and self-determination.
We point out that the statement that “most of the LGBTQI+ movement adopts the symbols of so-called femininity” reproduces the idea that only individuals assigned female at birth can use such symbols. As does the statement that “our biology is given to us by nature”. While the claim that “reproductive biological sexes are two” reproduces the binary perception of gender that ignores the complexity of human bodies, identities and cultures. The reference to “Frankenstein”, the adoption of the phrase “minor minority” devalues the value and human experience of individuals outside the binary spectrum, shaping a patriarchal hierarchy around the recognition of “right”.
We regretfully acknowledge that many of the problematic ideas that run through the discourse expressed in the text reproduce Donald Trump’s statements and the ideologies promoted by the far right: Binary perception of gender, constant reference to biology and invisibility of other experiences under the pretext that they constitute a tiny minority, re-imposition of female identity on any categories that escape binary biological determinism. Non-recognition of human rights as universal. Attack on self-determination, self-determination as well as an inclusive understanding of gender issues. The text reproduces a discourse of eugenics based on biology, which Trump himself and the far right politics promote.
For the Board of Directors of Intersex Greece, women, trans men/women, intersex people, queers, non-binary people, as well as any lives that are in a state of persecution, share common challenges against social inequalities and sexist policies. Instead of dividing our struggles, we should seek to build bridges that unite and empower us. Solidarity between different bodies, genders and identities can be a powerful force for emancipation, for social change, but also a huge force against fascism.
Proud Seniors Greece
Who benefits from attacks on the loatki+ community?
The election of Trump marked an organized cycle of attacks on the gains made by liberation movements and a series of oppressed groups. The demonization of Black lives matter, #metoo, queer people, and especially trans people had begun earlier with the so-called “anti-woke” agenda. The big difference, however, is that from far-right demagoguery, we are now moving to the implementation of specific policies that now become state laws and cut off any gains (health monitoring for trans adolescents, the right to abortion). At the same time, they legitimize verbal and physical violence, homo-transphobia, and misogyny.
Trans people are clearly the most targeted group, the easiest to demonize for “violating nature and biology,” the most socially vulnerable, the one who fights daily battles for survival, gender transition, and their very existence. Trump and his various henchmen rushed to make statements that “there are two genders,” trampling (intentionally or out of ignorance) the reality of the spectrum in sexuality and gender identity. Intersex people remain the target of abuse, as their very existence calls into question the male-female binary.
These attacks rightly triggered waves of indignation and resistance (mass demonstrations for March 8, practical defense of the right to abortion, judicial challenges to anti-trans laws, etc.), sending the message that sexist practices will not pass.
And in Greece, as a gay+ community, we have achieved a series of conquests (cohabitation agreement and then marriage for same-sex couples, legal recognition of gender identity self-determination, abolition of conversion therapies, etc.), which we rightly consider as “half”, and we demand their expansion for all of us. At the same time, we do not underestimate the rise of the far-right of “Fatherland religion-family” and the pressures it exerts (successfully) on the New Democracy government to adopt the homo-transphobic agenda, we do not forget the increasing violence and feminicides. We believe that we can stop them with inclusion as a guide, with solidarity between gay+ and the women’s movement and with synergy with all parts of society that abhor sexism and discrimination.
From this perspective, it is sad to see fragments of the once militant second wave of feminism choosing, especially at this juncture, a sectarian line that pits women against the queer community, ultimately fueling homo-transphobia. Let’s take a look:
The verbal reference to the term “people with a uterus” was only the pretext. Why target an inclusive term, which certainly does not invalidate but includes women along with trans men (who may have a uterus)? The only purpose is to invalidate trans men.
The denigration of the gay+ demand for marriage equality erases the needs of gay+ couples for access to insurance coverage, healthcare, and inheritance law with the supposedly advanced commentary of rejecting marriage and the ironic reference to love. But to reject something, you have to have access to it. Here lies the point of the claim! It would be reasonable, on the same grounds, to consider the right to divorce unnecessary (since marriage is obsolete)…
Sex work is work. Alienated of course, like any work in the capitalist system, but today it is a reality. Its excommunication and the treatment of people of any gender identity who live from it as helpless sheep and victims does not solve any problem, on the contrary it stigmatizes and excludes. The demand for insurance and health coverage and basic protection for sex workers limits the risks and brings them closer to the organized working class.
The attack on the demand of the gay+ community for inclusive adoption, attributing responsibility for the commercialization of surrogacy to them, obscures the reality that the latter was established in 2002 with the vote of almost all parties and with recipients not of course gay couples, but well-off heterosexual couples. Instead of targeting the gay+ community, wouldn’t it be more effective to repeal the subsequent law of the Samaras government that opened the doors to “surrogacy tourism” and to tighten the framework aimed at surrogacy for altruistic reasons only? For the commercialization of birth, the responsibility lies with the neoliberal state that turned the care surrounding pregnancy and childbirth into a gift to individuals. One last thing: We consider the right to procreation to be an inalienable human right. Let us recall that depriving groups of people of the right to have children (as well as the right to marry) was a typical practice of negative eugenics, of which women were also victims (sterilization of women who had “hypersexual” activity or simply happened to have large genitals). It would be more useful to remember what unites us.
How many genders are there? The existence of intersex and trans people de facto refutes the “axiom” that “there are only two genders.” So why so much insistence on the part of the far right and turf feminists? If the obvious conclusion of this denial is that trans and intersex people are ostracized from the human, the real issue is not how many genders there are but how many and which genders fall within the spectrum of “normal” and which are characterized as “monsters” and “abnormal.” Biological determinism is a neoliberal perception of nature and not a timeless truth.
In the reasonably charged debate that opened, turf feminists attempted an appeal to the left reflexively, discrediting the struggle for women’s rights as an individual neoliberal claim that competes with the collective cause of changing society. It is a false argument. Let us recall that women’s rights in the era when they were first formulated (second wave of feminism – 1970s) were treated by the Stalinist left as bourgeois entitlement. History repeats itself like a farce. The rights formulated by both women’s rights and the women’s movement referred to individual freedoms, but were conquered collectively. The struggle for human emancipation and therefore for the individual rights of minorities remains the task of the Left.
It is imperative to consider the political impact of these positions in the current context. The attack on queer rights is the Trojan Horse for the attack on women’s rights. We should not be fooled by the agenda of the far right, no matter how much turf feminists claim that their views coincide only momentarily. The real and declared goal of the far right is the return to the past, to the traditional roles represented by the male-female dipole and of course to the stereotypical role of women. The attack on the trans community is only the beginning, the next rights that will be attempted to be dismantled are those that women and the queer community have conquered after decades of struggle. Who doubts that, if we let them crush trans people, they will turn against the right to marriage for same-sex couples, and sooner or later to abortion (which is already here), ultimately to the right of women and all individuals, with or without a uterus, to have a say in their own bodies?
In the fight against sexism, beyond the long-standing struggles of women, trans and queer+ struggles have made a decisive contribution.
By destabilizing the stereotypical image of women and men in the public sphere, they expand the ways in which each individual dreams of living their lives. The fight for human emancipation cannot but be the cause of all the oppressed.
Proud Seniors Greece, LGBTQI+ Support Group for people over 50, denounce the personal attacks that our association’s president, Yiannos Kanellopoulos, received, with inappropriate expressions and characterizations by homo-transphobic trolls who found a field of action on social media. It is clear that a manifesto of confrontation with the LGBTQI+ community, even if it does not have this intention, encourages abusive behaviors against trans people!
SOURCE: avmag.gr
