By Agim Baci
"When a law becomes a tool to force people to think alike, it ceases to be a law and becomes an instrument of tyranny."
This is what the French philosopher Montesquieu warned, giving perhaps one of the strongest definitions of the evils and evils contained in a project, as in the case of the debate over "gender self-determination", where a small part of society seeks to impose itself on the majority by inventing concepts that can change not only the understanding of gender, but also logic, science and justice.
But why should we be cautious about trying to redefine the concept of gender?
First, we must assert that the draft law “On Gender Equality” has no connection to the Istanbul Convention, as the drafters of the draft law “On Gender Equality” have tried to defend. In fact, the defenders of the draft law make a deliberate misreading and an attempt to give an international basis to a draft law that has no connection to either the spirit or the text of the Convention.
The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, known as the Istanbul Convention (adopted in 2011), is one of the most serious documents that recognizes violence against women as a violation of human rights and a form of gender discrimination. But its purpose is clear: to protect women and girls from violence, to punish perpetrators, to provide shelter for victims and to educate society. At no point does this document invent new concepts of “gender” or “gender self-determination”. And even less is it an ideological manual to rewrite the meaning of man and woman. In fact, in Article 3(c), the Convention explains that “gender” means the roles, behaviors and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women.
So, the word "gender" there has no connection to the personal identity or subjective feelings of the individual.
The Convention speaks about the social roles that create inequality — not to change or reinvent them. It is essentially binary: it deals with two categories, man and woman. Nothing in its text suggests the existence of a “third gender” or a “gender spectrum” that the Albanian draft law attempts to legalize. From the introduction to the last article, the Convention is exclusively focused on women. In fact, the Preamble expressly states: “Violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women.”
This is why many European states have ratified the Convention without changing the binary definition of gender. The Convention was designed to address a real inequality between women and men – not to promote new identity theories that have no international legal basis.
One of the points often used to “support” the Albanian draft law is Article 4(3) of the Convention, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. But this article does not change the definition of “gender”. It only ensures that no one is excluded from protection if they are a victim of violence. This is a procedural non-discrimination clause, not a basis for gender redefinition.
But, in the case of the draft law currently under debate in the Assembly, this article has been misread, turning it into an ideological basis, which subverts the very logic of the Convention.
In none of its articles does the Istanbul Convention require states to:
• recognize more than two genders;
• change civil registers based on gender self-determination; or
• include gender identities as legal categories.
These are initiatives that some countries have pursued according to their domestic policies, but they do not stem from the Convention. In essence, the Convention rests on the biological and social reality of both sexes — because only in this way can the inequalities that lead to violence against women be understood. The claim that the Albanian draft law “harmonizes with the Istanbul Convention” is more a political trick than a legal fact. The Convention does not recognize “gender identity” as a legal category, does not require a redefinition of man and woman, and does not speak of “fluid gender.” Its purpose is clear: to protect women from violence, not to undo the concept of woman.
If this bill is approved without the changes proposed by many critics, it will not only lose its connection with the Istanbul Convention, but also with the logic of gender equality itself. Because gender equality, to be true, must be based on the real existence of both sexes and not on their denial. And this, more clearly than anyone, has been said by Europe itself.
Moreover, such a draft law does not only contradict the Istanbul Convention, which is being abused as a protection, but also the standards of the European Union. The defenders of the draft law claim that the law is harmonized with the EU Strategy for Gender Equality 2020–2025. But a quick analysis shows that this is one of the most serious and deliberate misinterpretations that has been made of an official EU document. In fact, the Albanian draft law is not in line with EU standards; on the contrary, it deeply deviates from them, distorting the basic notions on which the entire European policy on gender equality is built.
The European Commission's strategic document clearly defines its goal: to ensure equality between women and men, that is, between the two biological sexes. Every policy, measure or objective of its work – from closing the pay gap to balancing decision-making – is built on this binary axis.
The claim that the EU has moved towards a “fluid” understanding of gender or a replacement of the categories “man” and “woman” with “subjective gender identities” is completely untrue. No EU document supports such an approach. In fact, the draft law in question deliberately misuses the phrase found in the EU strategy – “in all their diversity” – to justify the inclusion of concepts related to gender identity.
The EU does not talk about “gender diversity”, but about diversity of experience within the category of women or men – e.g. the experience of a disabled woman, a migrant woman or an elderly woman. These are social dimensions, not the creation of new gender categories.
Finally, it is worth saying that the dangerous distortion of the draft law is the artificial merging of gender issues with those of sexual identity, as in no official document of the Commission, Parliament or Council of the EU does there exist a formulation that legally recognizes "gender self-determination" as a basis for building public policies.
The use of this concept in the Albanian draft law is an ideological import, without legal reference in the EU framework. Indeed, many EU member states, such as France, Hungary, Greece, Poland or Italy, have refused to include this notion in their national legislation. So it is absurd to claim that the adoption of this law “brings us closer to the EU”, when many EU member states themselves have carefully excluded it from their legal frameworks.
Therefore, Albania must stop, reflect, and follow the example of countries that have dared to say: enough with ideology, it is time to return to biological reality and the true protection of fundamental human rights.
