Peaked

A podcast about gender identity ideology, women's rights, and free speech in the EU. peaked.substack.com

The Conversion Therapy Vote 01/24/2026

The Conversion Therapy Vote 🎙️ Peaked — Episode 2 Reports of conversion therapy are "completely exaggerated" Host: Róisín Michaux Guest: Kurt Krickler Link (free version): https://peaked.substack.com/p/reports-of-conversion-therapy-are?r=1numbu Episode Overview Kurt Krickler is a lifelong gay rights advocate who worked with the lobbying organisation ILGA-Europe from its earliest days. He was an ILGA volunteer before they even added the L, never mind the T, the Q or the I (or the worryingly ambiguous “plus+”). He watched the organisation’s evolution from a group of scrappy activists to what it is today: a multi-million euro, multi-tentacled monster that fights to deny sex-based protections, where Kurt once fought to establish them. Having left ILGA when their mission creeped, Kurt has been pulled out of activist retirement to try to undo some of their more recent damage. He is one of the founding members of Athena Forum, a Vienna-based organisation that seeks to play ILGA at their own game: namely, lobbying the institutions that have been completely captured — inside and out — in order to return some sense to policy and law on a European level. In particular, there’s a vote coming up in the next few days in the Council of Europe on a , introduced by a UK Labour MP, to ban “conversion therapy”. This conversion therapy ban gambit is now a long-standing LGBTIQ+ advocacy goal, and it’s not what it looks like. In the crudest terms, this resolution, if it were to be obeyed by Council of Europe member states, would make it extremely difficult to talk to a young person who has fallen into the gender identity trap. As such, it is a menace to young same-sex attracted (and gender non-conforming) people. Read more about the campaign on and if you’re in one of the 46 member states implicated, you can get involved. What we talked about What the Council of Europe is and how it differs from the European Union Why non-binding resolutions still matter politically and legally How “conversion therapy” has expanded far beyond its historical meaning The chilling effect on therapists working with gender-distressed patients How activists use things like non-binding resolutions to influence national legislation Problems with data integrity in EU-funded LGBTIQ discrimination research The institutional evolution of ILGA and the emergence of alternative advocacy voices Why Kurt co-founded Athena Forum and what it seeks to change About the guest Kurt Krickler is an Austrian gay rights activist who has been involved in European and international advocacy since the late 1970s. He co-founded Homosexuelle Initiative Wien (HOSI Wien) in 1979 and later served on the board of ILGA-Europe, including as Co-Secretary General from 1996 to 2003. After ILGA-Europe shifted its focus to gender identity to the detriment of its gay rights focus, Kurt helped co-founded Athena Forum in 2025, an organisation focused on sex-based rights, evidence-based policy, and engagement with European institutions. During the conversation, we reference a key moment in EU legal history: the inclusion of sexual orientation as a protected ground in the Treaty of Amsterdam, which came into force in 1999. A widely cited ILGA-Europe publication from that period, (1999), documents how this treaty change transformed LGBT advocacy in Europe and enabled EU-level anti-discrimination legislation and funding for NGOs. This shift marked the beginning of ILGA-Europe’s permanent institutional presence in Brussels and fundamentally changed the scale and scope of European LGBT lobbying. Why This Vote Matters Although Council of Europe resolutions are not legally binding, they are routinely used by advocacy organizations and policymakers to justify: National legislation Professional and regulatory guidelines Criminal sanctions Litigation strategies As Kurt explains, once such resolutions exist, they become reference points in parliamentary debates, ministerial briefings, and court arguments across Europe. Key Organisations & Resources 🔗 Peaked (Podcast & Writing) 🔗 Athena Forum 🔗 Council of Europe – Draft Resolution on Conversion Practices 🔗 ILGA-Europe – After Amsterdam: Sexual Orientation and the European Union (1999) 🔗 EU Fundamental Rights Agency – LGBTIQ Survey (2024) Host — Róisín Michaux (Verified Links) 🔗 Substack / Podcast Home 🔗 X (Twitter) 🔗 PayPal donate link 🔗 Apple Podcasts — Peaked Listen & Subscribe 🎧 Peaked is available via Substack and major podcast platforms. If you value independent analysis of European policy, free speech, and institutional power, consider subscribing. /episode/index/show/47e5929f-4b89-40f4-b1cf-1b4416b0cd5b/id/39862510

Faika El-Nagashi: former Green MP goes TERFing in Brussels 03/14/2025

Faika El-Nagashi: former Green MP goes TERFing in Brussels You wait and you wait and you wait for some handsomely-subsidised professional EU woman’s rights organisation to invite gender critical women to the table for a discussion, and then a beats them to the chase. Oh well. I would have much preferred the “gender mainstreaming” people of the (€12 million in EU funding, at ) to pull on their big girl pants and address the most important women’s issue of the past few decades, but nah. Too busy putting together powerpoints on the meaning of “gender budgeting”. And what about the women’s rights committee in the European Parliament? Women got a massive dopamine hit when the Spanish socialist party came out last year with a new “roadmap” that suggested they were in favour of the old-fashioned “women-are-real” political position (how far we’ve fallen). The document even mentioned protecting women’s sports categories. Even better, a member of that party, Lina Galvez, was selected to lead the women’s committee in the EU parliament in Brussels. The fact that elected alongside her is swivel-eyed trans rights fanatic Irene Montero means that any pro-reality positions will likely be tempered. But after years in the desert, it was still very cheering to see a left wing organisation of any type saying something sensible at the EU level. We can thank Spain’s formidable and long-standing (and loud) second-wave feminists for the pressure they applied on the Socialists. Well done, ladies. Who is Faika El-Nagashi? Faika is an Austrian member of the Green party who lost her seat in her national parliament in the most recent elections. She has been unpopular among her Green party colleagues ever since she started to terf out on main, starting when she where she laid out the problem with ceding women’s words and identities to men with a paraphilia called transvestic fetishism. She is a constant target of the pro-gender activists in her home country. She was even that she helped build. Faika is a difficult one for the identity-obsessed Left because she ticks all their favourite intersectional boxes: lesbian, “rainbow parent”, with a migrant background, lefty in all the ways that matter except this one…. She’s also been an activist for progressive causes her entire adult life, having even worked for the demonic ILGA-Europe (before they turned demonic). That means the usual smears of racism, anti-gender conformity etc. etc. simply roll off her (such an immature way to do politics — I can’t wait for this dumb era to be behind us). Faika wants to bring criticism of transgender ideology to the European institutions. She’s coming to Brussels next week to talk about it, alongside Stella O’Malley of Genspect and Ashley Frawley, a fellow of the Hungarian think-tank MCC Brussels who are hosting the event. Yeah yeah MCC are linked to the Hungarian government. The radfem WhatsApps are aglow with hand-wringing. But the women we elected to represent us have shunned us for years. It’s important to note that not all women in this big, hodge-podge, cobbled-together TERF movement are left wing (one of our biggest strengths, tbf) and most of us have had all our f***s depleted after years in the wilderness. In short: I don’t care. Many thanks to MCC Brussels and director for hosting us and letting Faika and Stella get their voices out there. If you can help Faika get an audience with some of the women’s rights orgs and individuals who have chosen to remain silent on the most egregious affront to women and girls of our lifetimes, and who are finally ready to face the issue, please do get in touch. Enjoy the interview, and please share widely if you can. : MCC Brussels livestream link (event Monday 17/03 at 6.30pm Brussels time): Get full access to Peaked at /episode/index/show/47e5929f-4b89-40f4-b1cf-1b4416b0cd5b/id/39810155

Ireland: new priestly caste, new child abuse scandal 09/17/2025

Ireland: new priestly caste, new child abuse scandal Maryann’s 15-year-old daughter is currently deep in the grip of a delusion that she is a boy. She, along with some of her friends, has been like that for two years already, but Maryann, a no-nonsense mother from working-class Dublin, has made absolutely clear to her little girl that she was having none of it - no binders, no hormones, no fake names. She was the second Irish woman I had met who had a daughter in this situation (the other mother’s child desisted, thankfully) and I think her testimony is useful for others who are perhaps under the impression that the ROGD phenomenon is not affecting Irish kids. Maryann agreed to talk to me because she is starting to feel really desperate. She has lost some of the fear that speaking out would alienate her daughter and make the situation worse (you hear about this ever-present fear often from women in the same situation). She said something during our interview that I really hadn’t considered before: I assumed that the biggest threat to these girls (and, less obviously, boys) was that as they approach 18, they would be scheming and planning to procure hormones and surgeries for the moment they are beyond the legal guardianship of their parents (they “hit the ground running,” as I’ve heard describe it). And yes, that danger is very real; there is an Irish Facebook group for dysphoric girls and it is full of “trans mascs” and “non-binary” girls arranging for the day they turn 18 and can start shopping for GPs, endocrinologists and psychiatrists who will grant them their diagnoses and T shots. One of the most popular discussions revolves around plans to fly abroad, most often to Spain, Poland, Greece and Lithuania, to get their breasts removed. Madrid is home to the most popular (read: cheapest, closest, and least scrupulous) plastic surgeon, Dr Jesus Lago, who will operate on young women without a psychiatric diagnosis. Dr Lago and his “informed consent” grift is such a hit among Irish trans youth that someone even set up a separate Facebook group called “Dr Jesus Lago’s Disciples”, where you can learn all about the procedure and recovery, and check out all the gruesome healing scars and choose which “style” of nipple placement is your fave. You can also find out where to get a decent Air BnB, and all about the public transport and sightseeing options near the clinic. Dr Lago does a roaring trade among young autistic Irish lesbians. Not dystopian at all. Irish patients often discuss paying for these procedures with financial help from the cross-border directive, an EU-derived law that allows patients to claim insurance reimbursement for surgical procedures not available at home, whether because they are not carried out or because the waiting list is too long. There are indeed surgeons who will carry out mastectomies on young Irish women convinced they are men, but they seem to require a doctor’s sign-off, according to the members in the Facebook group. But Maryann’s daughter is only 15, so all of that is a long way off, surely. There are a whole three years left for her to snap back to reality, saving her from Dr Lago’s butchering block - a promising potential luxury that mothers of 17-year-olds don’t have. Surely, then, there’s nothing immediate to worry about? But what does it do to a child, during one of the most important stages of her brain and identity development, to be plugged into a deep-set delusion - for years - that she is the opposite sex? To be convinced that she is moving through the world in the incorrect body, and that her parents are evil for not seeing it, for not accepting it, and for not making an effort to help her “fix” nature’s error? This is what scares Maryann, and it’s what reduces her to tears. What state will her little girl’s mental health be in if and when she crashes? What is happening inside her poor, confused, vulnerable brain? Why is her school, the state, the media, corporations, the entire non-profit sector colluding to mentally torture her - and thousands like her - in this bizarre, unforgivable way? It’s child abuse. At a recent conference in Dublin organised by the , the mother of a desisted girl spoke about the “deprogramming” process her child went through. The girl thought she was a boy for three whole years; it took 18 months, her mother said, to bring her back to reality. She was able to do this by feeding her daughter testimonies from detransitioners, as well as videos by the wonderful on the non-airbrushed reality of the graphic nature of “gender affirming care”. But she also spoke about a phenomenon in cult deprogramming whereby the deprogrammee seems to “float” sporadically back into the delusion, thanks to perhaps a memory or a snippet of a song or other signal that relates to their former beliefs. It sounded terrifying. Where are all the women’s mag editors? Not a single parenting magazine, mommy blogger or family lifestyle weekend supplement editor has dared broach the very real phenomenon of the isolated, scared mother of the sudden-onset “trans kid”, who is forced to watch as her beautiful child gets sucked into this pervasive cult of self-deception. The , and any resistance to the constant, state-sponsored propaganda to do so is vilified by polite society. The non-affirming moms keep quiet about how they feel, for fear that they’ll lose everything: their job, their social circle, and not least, their relationship with their child. That’s a clue that the ROGD issue in Ireland is probably vastly underestimated. Hopefully will burst some bubbles, and more parents will come forward and speak about Ireland’s shameful new child abuse scandal, one that maims the bodies and destroys the minds of children and young people - every single one of whom is perfect exactly the way they are. The priests of the new cult- the autogynephilic men who require the existence of the “trans child” to legitimise, destigmatise and defetishise their own sexual predilection - will one day be exposed for what they are. As will the new nuns - the pious #BeKind maidens who cane the knuckles of anyone who questions the (frankly, increasingly evil-sounding) “kindness”, “tolerance” and “inclusion” dogmas. Irish society had just broken free from the perverted, robed patriarchs of the past. Here come the new crop. Can’t wait to watch them all squirm during the public inquiries and tribunals. And I hope people like Maryann will have the strength left to take a front-row seat so that everyone can learn what Ireland’s newest priestly caste has inflicted on women like her. I’m certainly not the first to compare wrongbodyism to religion. Irish academic . But I think the coverup of abuse is one facet that is often forgotten. If you ask a lapsed Catholic like meself about their biggest takeaway from Ireland’s centuries-long capture by the Catholic church, they’ll likely say the hush-hushed abuse scandals stick foremost in their minds. That’s where the trans cult is headed, too. Mark my words. I met Maryann when I flew to Ireland to document the first homegrown Let Women Speak-style event, called Women Are Speaking (yes it was a shitshow, no we were not permitted by the home-haircut crew to speak - check out some coverage of it under the #WomenAreSpeakingLimerick hashtag). My trip was supported by normies like you who help pay for my flights and hostels. Please donate to fund my jet-setting lifestyle keeping record of the grassroots TERF movement - for your granddaughters’ reading pleasure. Get full access to Peaked at /episode/index/show/47e5929f-4b89-40f4-b1cf-1b4416b0cd5b/id/39810145

Ireland's constitutional woman-ectomy 03/16/2024

Ireland's constitutional woman-ectomy There are many seriously insulting things about the transvestification of womanhood - one of my chief beefs is the way the acronym HRT, used to describe hormone replacement therapy for women going through the menopause, has been stolen and repurposed by men who use it for aesthetic enhancement (not that it works). First they hijacked the HRT name, then they ; the increased demand for synthetic female hormones has put intense strain on an already patchy supply. In the past few years, hormones intended for sweating, sleepless women have been rerouted to autogynephiles convinced that synthetically-induced breast buds will help them reach that gender high. (They even to complain about the shortages.) But probably even worse than all that is the way that the most vile trolling of women happens on the day purportedly to be for us and about us. Yes, we’ve reached the eve of International Women’s Day (IWD) and I am already on high alert for all the men in party shop wigs who will appear on panels, in videos, and in newspaper articles, making statements about how the day is for them, actually. The theme of IWD this year is “inclusivity”, which almost guarantees a man in a dress will be celebrated as the very bestest of women. Deep breaths, ladies. I feel like this one’s gonna be rough. Taking the trolling to never-before-achieved levels, the Irish government and its NGO army announced a few months ago that it was time to excise the Irish constitution of any mention of women - and that the referendum on the issue would be held on IWD. The reason? For 100 years or so, the text has contained a reference to women’s “duties in the home”, which at first glance seems mighty sexist. I grew up knowing vaguely about misogyny in the constitution. But I was also told that it didn’t have any real effect in the real lives of women, and that it was simply - symbolically - not ideal. But as we are learning, the offending text has a progressive interpretation that could have been deployed in legal cases throughout the decades by women who didn’t want to be pushed out to work after they had kids. The text actually makes it possible to make the case that a woman’s duties to her kids are more important to society than working (hard to argue with that). . It certainly seems part of the international effort to chip away at any and all mention of sex in law and policy. The Countess have already run to stop the removal of sexed language in Irish law before, but it’s happening in other countries too. Just this week from a piece of legislation, claiming they were just cleaning up the grammar, when someone spotted by chance that “mother” had been replaced with “parent from whom the child is born”. The pols claimed it was simply a mistake, but it seems like they thought they could get away with it. The backlash unequivocally proved they could not, and the change was undone. I spoke to Sandra Adams, the spokeswoman for the Countess, who told me that the government could have, for example, made the text less sexist by proposing to edit it to simply add fathers alongside mothers. (Another Irish campaigner, Sarah Holmes, combed through the constitution text and found 114 references to male sex pronouns that nobody seems bothered about). So is it really about evening the playing field, about making our founding legal document symbolically more egalitarian? Or does it have something to do with international pressure to gender-neutralise everything, or maybe the upcoming legal changes to surrogacy laws - or something else? Sandra and I thrash out a few theories, and she tells me why, without clarification on a few essential points, the best thing for the people of Ireland to do tomorrow is to #VoteNoNo. Enjoy agus beannachtaí. Grift: I take days off to TERF, which affects my income. Some people give me donations and it really helps. Just dropping this button here apropos of nothing: Get full access to Peaked at /episode/index/show/47e5929f-4b89-40f4-b1cf-1b4416b0cd5b/id/39810150

A date with a puberty blocker doctor 07/17/2023

Peaked

TOPICS