Belgium’s anti-gender movement has grown rapidly in recent years, shifting from small Catholic and far-right circles into mainstream political debate, according to the Belgian country analysis in Forbidden Colours’ ‘Hate Review 2026‘.
The study describes Belgium as a country at a crossroads. Its legal framework remains among Europe’s most progressive on LGBTIQ+ rights and women’s rights, but anti-woke and anti-trans narratives have increasingly entered mainstream political discourse. The report identifies the 2022–2023 backlash against comprehensive relationship and sexuality education as the key turning point.
Forbidden Colours says Belgium’s anti-gender movement emerged later than in several other European countries. Early mobilisation was largely confined to Catholic pro-life groups and marginal far-right organisations, while major reforms such as same-sex marriage in 2003, adoption rights in 2006 and self-determined legal gender recognition in 2017 were adopted before a broader anti-gender movement had developed.
The organisation’s assessment is that this changed dramatically during the EVRAS controversy.
EVRAS became a turning point
EVRAS, Éducation à la Vie Relationnelle, Affective et Sexuelle, had existed in Belgium since the early 2010s, but remained largely outside major political controversy. The introduction of new guidelines in 2022 and the decision in 2023 to make the programme systematic in French-speaking schools triggered a much larger mobilisation.
Opponents portrayed EVRAS as an ideological programme that threatened parental authority and exposed children to inappropriate material. The campaign brought together groups that would not normally operate as a single movement, including conservative Catholic organisations, Muslim conservative groups, anti-vaccine networks, parents’ organisations and conspiracy-oriented actors.
A petition launched by the Belgian branch of the French organisation Observatoire de la Petite Sirène collected more than 19,000 signatures by September 2023.
Hundreds of people demonstrated outside the French Community Parliament on 7 September, followed by a larger demonstration of around 1,500 people in central Brussels ten days later, according to the report.
The campaign also escalated beyond protests and petitions. Between 10 and 15 September 2023, eight schools in the Charleroi and Liège regions were vandalised or set on fire, with “No EVRAS” messages left on walls.
The report describes the EVRAS crisis as the moment when Belgium’s anti-gender campaigns “transformed and accelerated”.
From Catholic conservatism to anti-woke politics
The report identifies several distinct phases in the development of anti-gender rhetoric in Belgium.
Initially, opposition was largely framed around Catholic social teaching, abortion, euthanasia and bioethical questions. From around 2013, Belgian activists began adopting language and campaigning methods from the French La Manif pour tous movement, including the concept of “gender ideology”. The 2015 March for the Family in Antwerp was one of the most visible manifestations of this phase, although it failed to develop into a lasting mass movement.
From around 2017, the report identifies two new strands: anti-trans campaigning and the use of LGBTIQ+ and women’s rights within nationalist arguments about immigration and Islam.
The decisive change came after 2022, when these different strands began converging with the broader anti-woke debate.
The report points to publications by the MR’s Centre Jean Gol, N-VA’s Bart De Wever and Vlaams Belang as examples of anti-woke discourse entering mainstream party politics. It argues that debates over gender, trans rights and anti-racism increasingly became part of a wider political narrative about culture and identity.
Abortion reform has also stalled
Abortion is another area where the study sees growing political pressure.
Belgium currently permits abortion up to 12 weeks, with a mandatory six-day waiting period. Parliamentary efforts to extend the limit to 18 weeks and abolish the waiting period have repeatedly failed to produce an agreement.
The report notes that an expert report in 2023 unanimously recommended extending the legal limit to 18 weeks and removing the waiting period. A further report in 2025 again recommended both changes.
Nevertheless, a bill was rejected by the Justice Committee in October 2025. The study attributes the continuing deadlock to opposition from parties including CD&V and N-VA. It also notes that the Arizona coalition parties had already agreed in 2024 to block abortion reform proposals before the federal government was formed.
The report does not describe Belgium as having experienced major legal regression. Instead, it highlights the growing ability of anti-gender actors to obstruct further reforms.
That distinction is important: according to the study’s assessment, Belgium’s existing legal framework remains relatively resilient, while political pressure is increasingly making further advances more difficult.
Courts are becoming another battleground
The Belgian movement has also increasingly used litigation.
The report highlights challenges to EVRAS brought before the Constitutional Court and the Council of State. Among those involved were the Collectif des Parents en Action de Liège, Muslim organisations including Diyanet de Belgique and the Fédération Islamique de Belgique, and Innocence en Danger, supported by the Institut Thomas-More. The Constitutional Court rejected the EVRAS challenges in May 2025.
The study also discusses litigation surrounding euthanasia, including the Mortier v. Belgium case before the European Court of Human Rights. Although the Court did not find a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights in its 2022 judgment, it called for improvements to Belgium’s oversight procedures. Anti-rights organisations subsequently presented the ruling as supporting their wider criticism of Belgian bioethical legislation.
Belgium remains a European hub
There is another Belgian peculiarity: the country is not only a target of anti-gender mobilisation but also an important European base for organisations involved in it.
Because Brussels hosts the European institutions, the report identifies a concentration of international organisations involved in legal advocacy, lobbying, political networking and campaign activities.
These include ADF International, the One of Us Federation, the European Christian Political Party, FAFCE, VITA International, the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Ordo Iuris and the World Youth Alliance.
According to the report, their direct influence on Belgian national and regional mobilisation remains limited. Their importance instead lies in Brussels’ role as a hub for European coordination and the circulation of strategies and narratives between countries.
What comes next?
Forbidden Colours expects the anti-gender movement in Belgium to consolidate its position primarily within mainstream party politics rather than through large street movements.
The report expects anti-woke and anti-trans narratives to continue appearing in political debates, electoral competition and media coverage. It does not expect major legal regression in the immediate future, citing the resilience of Belgium’s existing legal framework, but predicts continued pressure against further advances in gender equality.
It identifies trans healthcare for minors, legal recognition of non-binary people and surrogacy as likely future areas of mobilisation. The report also expects strategic litigation and cross-border disinformation, particularly involving France, to remain important tools.
The overall picture is therefore less one of an immediate dismantling of Belgium’s existing LGBTIQ+ and reproductive-rights framework than of a changing political environment.
Belgium’s anti-gender movement remains fragmented and lacks the level of state influence documented elsewhere in Europe. But according to the Hate Review, it has moved well beyond the marginal Catholic and far-right circles where it was largely confined two decades ago, and has increasingly become part of mainstream political debate.
Activity remained largely absent or marginal across the different categories until around 2020, before becoming more organised and proactive by 2025, particularly in laws and constitutional changes, mobilisation, organisations and networks, and narratives and media.
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