Wild horses have freedom to be

EU citizens, less and less so

We just returned from another rodeo out east. We learnt a thing or two while we were there. Silver Diamond Stables are renowned in the area around the capital city for raising impeccable Lipizzaners. They were originally bred in the Hapsburg empire and have been the stars of the royal stables in Vienna. One would think that Europe is self-sustained at breeding them, but in fact they are not. Silver Diamond have actually been breeding them and they have been successfully exporting some to Europe from time to time. We were sad to learn, though, that Dan, the oldest son of the owner, had not returned from his latest trip. When Jackson, the owner, told us the story, he was still emotional. “They arrested him and put him behind bars while he was trying to get a few horses sold in Munich,” was the gist of his story. What we all wanted to know, though, is which heinous act he might have committed while he was in Germany. But we didn’t need much patience. Jackson soon gave us the reason: “he said that horses can only be mares or stallions.” Apparently, Dan will be in prison for five years for that egregious statement.

A Lippizan horse being ridden at Vienna’s Palace Schoenbrunn. Picture by By Machoxx, CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

While the above will not happen today, it soon may. The European Commission has recently launched its “LGBTQI+ Equality Strategy 2026-2030.” To anyone not familiar with the European Commission’s internal workings, well, it operates in an eerily similar way to the Communist parties in China, North Korea, or in the former Soviet Union. Besides being composed of unelected officials, it also issues five-year plans on a wide range of topics, the only difference to communist parties being that the five-year plans are referred to as “strategies.” Strategies are non-binding documents by themselves, but over the course of the specified timeline, the European Commission will investigate how the topics mentioned in them can best be codified: through directives, ordinances, or recommendations. In spite of it consisting of unelected officials, its directives, as we have recently discussed, become a legal requirement to be implemented by member states’ legislatures. This mechanism, therefore, de facto nullifies democracy in member states, since we have recently witnessed many examples of member states being pressured, or even fined, by the European Commission for not implementing one or another of its directives, or even for not implementing it fast enough. A strategy document thusly is a canary in the coal mine: it looks ahead into which laws the European Commission will most likely codify and ergo, its non-binding status should not be seen as a reason to dismiss it. So what is exactly in the European commission’s alphabet-soup-and-arithmetic-operator-strategy?

There is much to say about the document itself, as well as about public statements made by the Commission surrounding it. However, it is pretty easy to summarize the intent it clearly emanates. The EU’s Union of Equality strategy consists of three steps: protect, empower and engage.

Title page of the European Union’s Union of Equality strategy document. Public domain.

In this three-pronged approach, protection of “LGBTQI+ people” will consist of “ensuring safety and tackling hate” against them, as well as by “ensuring protection for LGBTQI+ migrants.” It may sound reasonable that the European Commission thinks that the safety of of its “LGBTQI+ people” needs to be ascertained. But then, isn’t it already any government’s task to safeguard its citizens from violence? Do we really need an additional strategy for legislative proposals to “ensure safety?” At first sight, one would think not. So it is worthwhile diving into the details of what the Commission thinks needs to change.

The document starts off by stating that:

“It is essential to combat and prevent all forms of violence and dismantle hateful narratives to uphold the common EU values of equality, human dignity and respect of fundamental rights for all.”

At this point, most will still largely agree with the values of human dignity and respect for human rights. It is already another question, though, if more is needed than traditional policing to accomplish that. It may not be clear to all why per se “hateful narratives” need to be “combated” to accomplish this same goal. Nor is it clear at this point what those are, but the document soon explains that. The first “harmful practice” it brings up, is “conversion therapy,” which it defines as

“deeply harmful interventions that rely on the medically false idea that LGBT[IQ+] people are sick, inflicting severe pain and suffering, and resulting in long-lasting psychological and physical damage,”

thereby using a phrase copied from a corresponding United Nations study.

All of the above would sound reasonable … if the year still were 1960. At that time, gay people were excluded from society indeed. Some were subjected to conversion therapy against their will, which included internment in psychological wards, where some were “treated” with electric shocks to “straighten” their orientation. That surely has led to physical and psychological damage.

The European Commission does not seem to understand, though, that the year is no longer 1960. Back in those days, gay or lesbian (GL) people were heavily suppressed, so it was very fair to assume that virtually no false positives existed. Today’s society is vastly different. In a society that, in many places, will send even the smallest children to classrooms filled with “gay pride” and “trans” flags, force them to attend drag queen story hours and then bottle feed them what can only be called LGBT propaganda at home in TV shows and social media, one should expect the opposite. In fact, in today’s society it has become pretty plausible that a child grows up thinking that it is gay, only to realize being actually straight later in life. If such adults doubt their sexual orientation and want counseling on how to become straight, they should have the right to get it. It is absolutely deceptive to refer to such counseling by the same word that was once used to describe forced electro-shock therapy.

The Commission’s coverage of the term “conversion therapy” doesn’t stop at sexual orientation, though. It also includes “gender identity.” So, when a child is being told at school that it has “been born in the wrong body,” it has to be subjected to cross-gender hormone “therapy,” chemical castration and genital lobotomy referred to as “surgery” to “affirm” its true identity. Any reasonable person who tries to talk the child back into reason and accept its body the way it is, is providing the “harmful practice” of “conversion therapy,” which the European Commission wants to “combat.” No matter that even a farthing of common sense should tell anyone that those practices are wildly harmful to the children they are inflicted upon and that children can never, ever give informed consent. We shouldn’t need scientific papers or investigative journalism to confirm either of those statements, but actually both have recently confirmed what most of us innately know to be true. Only the European Commission seems wont to deny reality. While it is intent on reducing alcohol consumption, it has no compunctions to subject even the youngest to destructive “puberty blockers.” It would in fact be both medically and morally more comforting if the European Commission promoted hard liquor for three-year-olds than the malpractice of “gender-affirming care.”

That said, having labeled any attempt to try and let a child be happy in its natural body as “conversion therapy” and having labeled that a “harmful practice,” how does the European Commission want to “combat” it? Of course, the answer is by expanding the existing legislation against “hate,” which presently focuses on race and gender, such that it also covers “gender identity.” The document then proceeds by proposing to “include hate speech and hate crime in the list of ‘EU crimes’ under Article 83(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).” To understand what this implies, we should note that that Article 83(1) of the TFEU currently lists terrorism, trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation of women and children, illicit drug trafficking, illicit arms trafficking, money laundering, corruption, counterfeiting of means of payment, computer crime and organized crime as its constituents. Based on this proposal, any form of “hate” would be added to that list, which would also include “hate” based on “gender identity,” such as “conversion therapy.”

In simple wording, what this document intends to implement, is an absolute tyranny of the masses by the woke death cult. Any school can label any child of any age as “having gender dysphoria.” The child will then be subjected to the medical malpractices of “gender-affirming care,” get another name and be treated as if it were of the other gender. If any friend, family member, religious leader or even parent does as much as to raise doubt about the child’s “gender identity,” they will be found guilty of the “hate crime” of providing “conversion therapy,” which per the by then reworded Article 83(1) will be equal to terrorism. Apparently, that is what the European Commission thinks is necessary to “protect” the “LGBTQI+ people.” But it does not stop there. Besides these two steps towards “protection,” nobody will meanwhile be surprised that, along with other thinly veiled efforts to censor expression, the European Commission also plans to “protect” them by “countering hate and discrimination online.” Anyone who spreads the word about, for instance, the obvious, absolute and inalienable truth that God knows to put people on the planet in the right body, will be treated as a terrorist.

The three-pronged approach of the European Commission’s Union of Equality strategy: Protect, Empower, Engage. Public domain.

Beyond protection, the Commission intends to further “empower” the “LGBTQI+ people,” as if even more “empowerment” were needed on a continent where most every store, sidewalk, government building and sports venue have plastered over with “pride” flags. They will adopt a whole-of-society approach, in which educational institutions and companies that “discriminate” by not having a trans flag on every door, will not be able to get EU funding. Of course, cultural and sports events must participate in empowerment and “affirmation.” Sports leagues will be forced to deny the existence of essential biology and will only have one option, which is to allow to have women be outcompeted by mediocre men who merely say they are women in female sports. To state that this is unfair, is “terrorism.”

Of course, they will also end “discriminatory practices” on the workfloor, which they motivate using a recently published, yet content-wise outdated study by the OECD that claims that “diversity” boosts economic growth. In this case too, the European Commission seems to still think the year is 1960. Yes, when entire swaths of the population cannot get hired because of their skin colour, that will be detrimental for the economy. That situation has, however, not existed anywhere in Europe for at least forty years. In more recent years, it has become overly obvious that forced implementation of DEI and ESG lead to toxic workplaces and a demotivated workforce, by creating a culture in which regular employees are constantly fearful of “offending” any of the individuals with premier “characteristics” and in which often the best performing employees get passed over by low performers that happen to have one of the identity boxes checked. Notably that even happens in critical functions, such as medical settings or aviation authorities. Besides this being common sense, research more accurate than the one cited by the European Commission actually confirms that DEI creates inefficient workplaces and is therefore a clear negative to the corporate bottom line.

The European Commission’s public announcement of their "Union of Equality Strategy on their feed on X (October 8, 2025).

The European Commission announced Union of Equality strategy in a post with the statement “Freedom to love. Freedom to be.” In reality though, it seems to be a strategy that does not bring too much “freedom to be.” It delivers “freedom to be,” except for those who have common sense. It delivers “freedom to be,” except for those who believe in God. It delivers “freedom to be,” except for those who commit wrongthink. It seems to deliver “freedom to be” to tyrannical bureaucrats and take it away from the vast majority that disagrees with one or more of the Strategy’s tenets.

In fact, if implemented, the EU’s “Union of Equality” may end up making any of the mainstream religions illegal. This is sadly in line with a few other events along the same lines in other places. A recent, new law in New South Wales has also made “conversion therapy” illegal and it even went as far as outlawing prayer over a person’s “gender identity,” also based on the motivation that such activities “are based on the false premise that LGBTQIA+ people are disordered and require treatment.” Judging by any of the ones who delude themselves into thinking that they are the opposite gender, there is nothing “false” about such a premise. Treatment by a trained psychologist into accepting their own body would be a very good outcome for them.

Besides Austrialia, heated discussions are presently taking place in Canada about Bill C-9, a bill that intends to extend the applicability of “hate crime” and intends to strip the protections for religious expression in good faith from it. The representative who sponsored the bill can be heard questioning in the Canadian parliament if some passages in religious texts like the books of Leviticus or Deuteronomy can ever be preached in good faith. He obviously believes they cannot. What he does not (want to?) understand, is that any passage of any religious text can always be preached in good faith. Even when the message in it can be hurtful to some who receive it, it will often benefit those same persons on the long run to hear it.

The Union of Equality strategy has not yet been implemented, but it very well may. To the least, it is a clear reflection of the Euro-bureaucracy’s state of mind: impose the most draconic measures out of self-perceived moral superiority for the reasons that could not be more wrong. The document is a clear manifestation of the Euro-blob’s complete and total disconnect from reality and society, as well as its complete and absolute moral bankruptcy. However, this time they may finally be going to far. Present popularity polls gauge Europe’s most powerful “leaders” at approval rates consistently below thirty percent. If they implement the Union of Equality strategy, they will make Europe morally inferior to totalitarian states like China or Venezuela: Europe will become equally oppressive, but at least states like China still manage to recognize that children are always born in the right body. If they codify a strategy that is supported by the at most one percent of self-glorifying Euro-elites, yet wildly unpopular in the population and in so doing, end up outlawing any of the mainstream religions, than that will most likely have been the European Union’s last act. Only future can tell.

Lippizaner mare and dark foal. The foal is sure to grow up to a full grown mare or stallion. Picture by Keith Roper, CC-BY-2.0 license.

A few weeks later, one of Silver Diamonds’ F-150s drove up to our house, enveloped in the usual cloud of reddish dust. When it had stopped, both Jackson and Dan got out. So glad to see both of them. As it turned out, it paid off being from the one continent considered a part of the West that still has reason. Diplomats from our side had put as much pressure as they could on the Germans and a little later, Dan we released. He’s welcome here at the ranch. For I know one thing to be true: my foals have all turned out to be healthy mares or stallions. Not a single one of them has ever needed to identify as a mallion or as a stare.

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