BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium’s first transgender politician to reach the higher echelons of government has come under stinging attack from the country’s extreme right, only days after she was appointed.
The new Belgian government sworn in Saturday includes Green Vice Premier Petra De Sutter, a professor specializing in gynecology and fertility who had been a member of the EU parliament since last year.
She posted upon her appointment that she was “proud that in (Belgium) and in most of (the EU) your gender identity does not define you as a person and is a non-issue.”
“I hope that my appointment as Minister and Deputy PM can trigger the debate in countries where this is not yet the case,” she wrote on Twitter.
On Wednesday though, she immediately became an issue and faced bitter criticism in the regional parliament of her native Flanders in northern Belgium.
Bart Claes of the Flemish Interest party had posted on Facebook that De Sutter “wants to destroy and replace all cornerstones of our Western civilization.”
De Sutter’s party colleague, legislator Bjorn Rzoska, decried attempts to “dehumanize her.” Rzoska received the backing of the legislature chairperson, Liesbeth Homans on Wednesday. Even though Homans defended the right of free speech, she added that personally she found Claes’ comments “extremely reprehensible.”
Claes, however, would not back down, saying in another Facebook post that “I don’t see the problem. I said that a transgender … is a transgender.”
Regulators authorized AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for use in adults throughout the European Union on Friday, amid criticism the bloc is not moving fast enough to vaccinate its population.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI lawyer was sentenced to probation for altering an email that the Justice Department relied on during its surveillance of an aide to President Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers lashed out Friday at rival Republicans who tried to repeal his statewide mask mandate, saying killing the order would be a ridiculous move comparable to abolishing speed limits.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As some conservatives in South Carolina celebrated getting a bill that would ban almost all abortions in the state past a legislative barrier and likely becoming law, they said they are not finished trying to end all abortions.
A Moscow court on Friday put the brother and several allies of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny under house arrest for two months as authorities sought to stymie more protests over the jailing of the top Kremlin foe.