Among the breakout sessions at the World Congress of Families global summit in Moldova last Friday and Saturday was a panel on “Gender Ideology – The Latest Attack on the Family and the Legal Challenges It Poses.” Like the conference as a whole, the “gender ideology” panel brought U.S. Religious Right activists together with counterparts from Russia and Europe to denounce “myths” about what they portrayed as an authoritarian liberal political ideology around sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

The Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg walked the audience through a PowerPoint presentation on “Five Myths of Gender Identity,” which argued that transgender identity is unscientific. He denied that gender transition is ever medically necessary or that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is a form of sex discrimination.

Sprigg’s final “myth” was that the transgender movement is a progressive movement—an odd topic to take on in a setting where “progressive” is a dirty word. Sprigg claimed that many self-identified gays and lesbians are “concerned about the T” because “masculine girls and feminine boys who at one time might have grown up to identify as lesbian women or as gay men are now being told that they are actually the opposite sex.” He also positioned himself, as others on the Right have done, in alliance with some feminists—so-called TERFs—who argue that trans activists are not trying to overcome gender stereotypes but instead are “trying to conform to rigid gender stereotypes of the opposite sex.” Read more via Right Wing Watch