The European Parliament (EP), by adopting a resolution on negotiating positions during the session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, clearly confirmed the fact and common position that trans women are women, and that their human rights are an integral part of the European framework for gender equality and protection from violence.
This was announced today by the Spectrum Association.
According to them, for Montenegro, as a candidate for membership in the European Union, this decision has a strong message: human rights must be a priority in the accession process, which is, at least through the documents it adopts and whose implementation it has committed itself to, it has formally recognized.
"At a time of increased political pressure to relativize or deny the rights of trans people, and to place the fight against the human rights of trans people at the center of the global right-wing agenda, this decision by the European Parliament represents an unequivocal position that fundamental human rights cannot be put up for political negotiation, and that there is no gender equality without the equality of transgender people," the statement said.
Spektra said that the resolution was adopted by a large majority (with 340 votes to 141), including the majority of the most influential political group in the Parliament, the European People's Party (EPP), whose members aspire to be the ruling party in Montenegro, thus confirming that the protection of the human rights of trans people remains part of a broader European consensus across parties of different political affiliations.
"This sends a strong political message at the European level that Europe stands in defense of gender equality and democracy, and resists attempts to instrumentalize the human rights of trans people in order to undermine these efforts. It is precisely this resolution that makes it clear that the European Parliament and the parties that make it up are ready to respond to agendas that will inevitably continue to be part of attempts in the global arena - to attack the democratization efforts of international institutions and the states that participate in them by attacking the trans community," the statement emphasizes.
The Spektra Association adds that it notes that attacks on the human rights of trans people have not accidentally taken over the central part of the current political discourse, but are part of a broader organized action by the global right, financed by the most powerful centers of power, which, through identity conflicts, diverts attention from issues of responsibility and concentration of power, and gradually narrows the space for public freedoms.
"Examples like Hungary, where the authorities, by banning Pride, restricted everyone's right to protest, have shown how the criminalization of queer life is being used as a lever for broader repression - from restricting the right to assembly and freedom of movement, to the criminalization of resistance," Spektra said in a statement.
They added that in Montenegro, legal gender recognition is still conditioned by the "retrograde and inhumane practice of sterilization."
"Such a practice represents the grossest violation of the bodily autonomy and dignity of trans people, and is contrary to European and international law. The adoption of the Law on Legal Recognition of Gender Identity on the Basis of Self-Determination, the adoption of which is part of the Action Plan for Chapter 23 and the EU Accession Programme for 2026-2027, and planned for June this year, should finally put an end to this practice. The European Parliament has sent a clear message about the direction of European policy on the international scene. It is now up to the institutions of Montenegro to show whether they are ready to follow that direction with concrete legislative decisions," the statement concludes.
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