LGBTQIA+ community criticizes negative focus on transgender people in election campaign

Several LGBTQIA+ organizations are angry about the negative focus on transgender and non-binary people in the election campaign. "I have never seen this to this extent before," says chairwoman Remke Verdegem of the Transgender Network. Philip Tijsma from COC Netherlands also sees "a striking number of examples" of negative attention in the election campaign.

"In recent years, the tone towards the community has become more negative, in politics, but also on the street and the internet," says Verdegem. "What's new is that some parties are ridiculing trans people and their rights and making them a campaign issue." The Transgender Network is concerned about this. "We are a small community of a few hundred thousand people. The attention is disproportionate and also dangerous because you can easily project all kinds of nonsense onto a small minority."

Verdegem was responding to, among other things, a debate on Wednesday evening between FVD party leader Thierry Baudet and D66 list leader Rob Jetten on the radio program NOS op 3 about people who identify as non-binary, including one person in the audience. Baudet responded by saying he didn't know what non-binary meant. "You say you are something that I don't think exists," the FVD party leader said. He also said that "it is not possible to change your gender".

DENK has also previously expressed criticism of the LGBTQIA+ community. The party's election program features a picture of rainbow flags and a drag queen reading "Shall we act normal again?".

Tijsma from COC Netherlands describes the negative attention as a "gloomy wind". "But my impression is that this is a small group that is very vocal in society and politics. The rainbow community is incredibly resilient; we don't allow ourselves to be cornered. Fortunately, many parties are explicitly in favor of it. But it's not nice at all."

According to Martijn Kamphorst, editor-in-chief of the queer lifestyle magazine Winq, the negative attention leads to more online hate. "With their comments, they legitimize the dehumanization of our community, which is very scary," he says. He also finds it problematic when parties don't speak out on LGBTQIA+ issues.

For example, NSC, PVV, and BBB, parties that are relatively high up in the polls, did not take part in the COC's rainbow debate. "They are not taking part in the discussion, which means, for example, that legislative changes in the area of multiple parenthood and changes to gender registration are being unnecessarily delayed. This is partly responsible for the fact that the Netherlands is slipping further and further down the European league table of LGBTQ rights.