ABOVE: Petra de Sutter at the ILGA conference in 2018. (Photo by Sparrow (麻雀), from Wikimedia Commons)
A lawmaker in Belgium last week became Europe’s highest-ranking transgender politician.
The Brussels Times reported Prime Minister Alexander De Croo named Petra De Sutter as one of his government’s deputy prime ministers. The newspaper said De Croo also appointed De Sutter, a member of Groen, the Flemish Green Party, as his civil service minister.
King Philippe swore in De Croo’s new government Oct. 1.
De Croo and De Sutter are both from Belgium’s Dutch-speaking region. De Sutter is also a former member of the European Parliament.
“I am proud that in Belgium and in most of Europe your gender identity does not define you as a person and is a non-issue,” tweeted De Sutter Oct. 4. “I hope that my appointment as minister and deputy prime minister can trigger the debate in countries where this is not yet the case.”
De Sutter ended her tweet with the hashtag “fight transphobia.”
I am proud that in 🇧🇪 and in most of 🇪🇺 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. #fighttransphobia pic.twitter.com/WdgHu2gyy6
— Petra De Sutter (@pdsutter) October 4, 2020
Carla Antonelli, a trans member of the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party who sits in the Madrid Assembly, is among those who congratulated De Sutter. ILGA-Europe Senior Policy Officer Cianán Russell echoed Antonelli.
“Congratulations, Petra De Sutter, for constantly showing us a path in which trans people can be people first, valuable as whole persons, with transness as just one piece in the whole,” said Russell in their own tweet.
Something we hear from marginalised groups is “respect our expertise”. It’s not “respect our expertise only about our own lives”, but period – our expertise. (1/6 https://t.co/5SoEGQO4Uh
— Cianán B. Russell (they) (@ciabr) October 2, 2020
