January 23, 2025 - 11:05am

Javier Milei has claimed that gender ideology, “in its most extreme forms”, is “outright child abuse”. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos this morning, the Argentinian President accused advocates for gender ideology of being “paedophiles”, and said that a “victimhood narrative” underpinned the “criminal ideology”.

In a special address, introduced by WEF President Børge Brende, Milei claimed that “wokeness” was destroying Western civilisation. “These forums [such as the World Economic Forum] promote the LGBT agenda, attempting to impose the idea that women are men and men are women simply based on self-perception,” he said. “And they say nothing about when a man dresses as a woman and kills his opponent in a boxing ring, or when a male prison inmate claims to be a woman and sexually assaults a female inmate.” At last year’s Olympic Games, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won a gold medal in the female welterweight category, following controversy over Khelif’s eligibility to compete against women. There is no documented case of a transgender boxer killing a female opponent during a fight.

Milei referred to the recent case in which two gay men in America, who he described as having “championed the banners of sexual diversity”, were jailed for sexually abusing their adopted children. “In its most extreme forms,” he went on, “gender ideology is outright child abuse. They are paedophiles. So I want to know: who would support that kind of behaviour?”

The Argentinian President added: “Healthy children are being irreversibly harmed through hormone treatment and mutilation, as if a 5-year-old child could possibly consent to such things. And should their family not agree to this, there will always be state agents ready to step in in favour of what they call the ‘best interests’ of the child.”

In March last year, Milei banned the use of gender-inclusive language in the Argentinian government, including on all official documents. Attempting to solve the country’s economic crisis, he has significantly cut government spending and scrapped a quota that required the inclusion of transgender people in the state workforce. Responding to accusations from the LGBTQ+ community that minority rights were being rolled back, a Milei spokesperson said last year: “The quota does not make much sense […] Each position will be occupied by the best, most capable person, be it a man, a woman, a transvestite or anything else.”

Milei claimed in Davos today that “the scandalous experiments in the name of this criminal ideology” will be viewed in future as akin to “those committed in the darkest periods in our history”. He continued: “Covering this multitude of abhorrent practices is the eternal victimhood narrative, always ready to hurl accusations of homophobia, transphobia and other fabricated terms whose sole purpose is to silence those of us who dare to expose this scandal.”