Danish politicians upset about children taken as “hostages” to a hearing

According to Kristeligt Dagblad, the Association for the Support of Transgender Children brought a 10-year-old boy and a 15-year-old kid, last Tuesday. They were used as examples during a hearing in a parliamentarian committee about a bill on legal gender reassignment.

Apart from the association, there were also the organisations Børns Vilkår and LGBT+ Denmark. The mission of the three organisations was to try to influence politicians to allow legal gender reassignment for children under 18. Today, adults are consulted to change the minor’s legal gender. In several European countries, lawmakers are considering lowering the threshold for gender reassignment.

Taken hostage

At least four members of the Folketing complained at the Presidium. Among others, the Danish People’s Party’s Mikkel Bjørn is behind the complaint. He said several committee members were amazed that children had been brought along.

“It happened in a rather peculiar way, where the children had to act as levers for the political agenda that the organisations tried to promote”, he explained to Kristeligt Dagblad. “I think it is absolutely not normal to drag children along.”

Mikkel Bjørn says that the 10-year-old was the chairman of the Association for Support for Transgender Children’s Own Child, who was asked some suggestive questions in Mikkel Bjørn’s opinion.

“For example, the child was asked: ‘You haven’t regretted changing sex, have you?’, to which the 10-year-old replied, ‘no’. I think it happened in a way where you pushed a child in front of you to achieve a political goal,” says Mikkel Bjørn.

He also believes that the children’s presence made it difficult to get into the debate in depth. “For example, asking a possibly critical question was difficult when a 10-year-old transgender was listening along. Not everything can be discussed on a principled level when minors are present,” says Mikkel Bjørn.

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In addition to Bjørn, Mette Thiesen (also Danish People’s Party), Susie Jensen (Danish Democrats), and Katrine Daugaard (Liberal) have also signed the complaint.

Daugaard found the situation unpleasant, she told KD. “If the children had come without adults, only open and clarifying questions would have been asked. It had been a different situation. But here, it was mixed up with the organisations’ gender ideological goals. I think the children were taken hostage,” she says.

Identity politics

Helge Sune Nymand, chairman of the Association for Support for Transgender Children, says that the association had brought the children along because the legislation on legal gender reassignment for children is about the children in particular.

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“Some of the country’s politicians seem to suffer from the misunderstanding that we are engaged in a strange identity politics project. But our agenda is not political, as it were. It is more down-to-earth and is about some conditions we would like to improve for our transgender children – and other children in the same situation,” he says.

Speaker

The Folketing’s Speaker, Søren Gade, will decide about the complaint. Kristeligt Dagblad has asked a former chairman, Henrik Dam Kristensen, what he would have done. He says he would have rejected the complaint. “I have never heard that you are not allowed to take children on deputations (the group that has represented, ed.). There may be good reasons to do so. An appearance is an opportunity to present a point of view to politicians. You have to be careful not to make the reins too tight for who can and cannot come. As chairman, I would not have made myself the chief judge over that,” he says to the paper.