Belgium finally got a new government yesterday. After about 500 days of political gridlock a new government under Prime Minister Alexander De Croo took office. It is a government consisting of the 2 Liberal Parties, 2 Socialist Parties, 2 Green Parties, and the Flemish Christian-Democratic Party. In Belgium: the parties are split over a linguistic (majority Dutch — minority French) divide, so you have two parties for each ideological grouping.
What’s special with this government? Well, for one, one of the new deputy Prime Ministers is a transgender person. Petra De Sutter, as professor of gynaecology at Ghent University, head of the Department of Reproductive Medicine at Ghent University Hospital (UZ Gent) and previously a member of the Belgian Senate (2014-2019) and a member of the European Parliament (2019-2020) for the Greens, was named Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Civil Service and Pubic Enterprises.
CNN even has an article about it: Belgium's new Deputy Prime Minister is Europe's most senior transgender politician
This shows that Belgium is one of the more progressive countries in Europe and the World. Belgium also with Elio Di Rupo already had a gay Prime Minister from 2011 to 2014. The country has liberal laws with regards to abortion, gay marriage (Belgium was the second country in the world to do so when it legalized gay marriage in 2003) and euthanasia. Euthanasia was legalized in 2002 and in 2014 the law was changed to allow euthanasia also for minors.
With regards to ethical issues, the USA is still a long way from what is considered normal or is considered to be one’s private business in Belgium. Can you imagine in the USA a gay president or a transgender vice-president? Those days are not yet for now. But let us hope that with time the USA will become more progressive as well. But for now: kudos to Belgium to not fall into the bigoty trap.