Malta’s government has introduced its long-anticipated “gender equality” bill, which would commit the country to the “gender identity” concepts of the homosexualist ideology, including fines for those who fail to endorse it. The Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act says that all who live in Malta have a “right to the recognition of their gender identity,” and to “be treated according to their gender identity.”
Equalities and Social Dialogue Minister Helena Dalli said at a press conference that the law will “allow transgender people to fulfill their potential” in their careers.
“I know many transgender people who are very talented but are forced into living an invisible life, they have a right to a normal life like anyone else,” she said.
Dr. Miriam Sciberras, head of Life Network, Malta’s leading pro-family group, told LifeSiteNews that the bill was especially alarming since it was being backed by International Planned Parenthood Federation, the world’s leading promoter of abortion but also of “gender” ideology, which seeks to break down the legal and social definitions of marriage and family life. Sciberras was recently assured by Malta’s new left-leaning president that the country’s abortion law, the last in Europe to completely outlaw abortion, would not be changed under her tenure.
The new bill contains no exemption for the Church to decline to employ self-described “transgender” persons as priests or Church workers, despite the country being between 95 and 98 percent Catholic. Similar laws in the UK have resulted in the shut-down or secularization of all the country’s Catholic adoption agencies.
In other countries where similar laws have been enacted, legal experts have pointed to the dangers of wording that leaves the definition and identification of offences up to the individual complainant’s subjective experience. Malta’s bill follows this trend, giving the definition of “gender identity” as “Each person’s internal and individual experience of gender.”
This “may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance and, or functions by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including name, dress, speech and mannerisms.”
The bill requires no external physical or even psychological signifier, leaving the determination of “gender” entirely up to the personal preference of the individual. It says that the “person shall not be required to provide proof of a surgical procedure for total or partial genital reassignment, hormonal therapies or any other psychiatric, psychological or medical treatment to make use of the right to gender identity.”
“It shall be the right of every person who is a Maltese citizen to request the Director to change the recorded gender and, or first name in order to reflect that person’s self-determined gender identity.”
The bill also provides that any member of the public who refuses to go along with the person’s “rectified gender” may be fined. “Whosoever shall knowingly expose any person who has availed of the provisions of Act, or shall insult or revile a person, shall, upon conviction, be liable to a fine (multa) of not less than one thousand euro (€1000) and not exceeding five thousand euro (€5000).”
It continues, “Every norm, regulation or procedure shall respect the right to gender identity. No norm or regulation or procedure may limit, restrict, or annul the exercise of the right to gender identity, and all norms must always be interpreted and enforced in a manner that favours access to this right.”
Moreover, the bill allows a government-appointed “interdisciplinary team” to do “gender reassignment” without the person’s consent “in exceptional circumstances.”
Such “treatment may be effected once there is an agreement between the Interdisciplinary Team and the persons exercising parental authority or tutor of the minor who is still unable to provide consent.”
At an international meeting on “gender rights” in Rome last week, Dalli thanked the Italian Presidency of the European Council for taking the initiative to bring together Ministers responsible for Equality of the various member states to discuss what measures were needed to promote “gender equality” throughout the Council of Europe’s member states. The Rome conference, titled “Gender Equality in Europe: An Unfinished Business,” was organized by the Italian Presidency of the Council of Europe, which has been a major driving force of the “gender ideology” in Italy and across Europe.
The internationalist backing for the Maltese government’s gender program was an open secret when Silvan Agius, human rights policy coordinator with the Ministry for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties, said the amendment to the Employment Act brings Maltese law into harmony with EU law. He told Malta Today, “This amendment is continuing the government’s equality mainstreaming exercise. The inclusion of gender reassignment in the Act also brings it in line with the anti-discrimination articles found in both Malta’s Constitution and the Equality for Men and Woman Act.”
Dalli is rapidly becoming one of Europe’s leading voices pressing for more legislation promoting the homosexualist/gender agenda that was this week named as “a threat to humanity” by Croatia’s Catholic bishops. At a meeting of EU-funded ILGA-Europe in Latvia earlier this month, Dalli spoke of the need to promote “social change.”
Dr. Sciberras told LifeSiteNews that the long-rumoured bill has come as a complete surprise to most opposition members of Malta’s Parliament. She was told that it was not shared with parliamentarians before it was published in full. But Helena Dalli had said in August that the bill was coming, and would be subject to “vetting and amending as necessary” by the government’s own “LGBTI Consultative Council.” Dalli made the announcement when she introduced the government’s “transgender” amendment to the Employment Discrimination law.