Trump Wants to Erase “Gender” in the UN

Folks are already up in arms against the Trump Administration for the leaked memo that would equate gender with sex and erase trans people from U.S. human rights protections. Now, it appears that the the administration is also seeking to remove the word “gender” from important UN human rights documents.

According to New Now Next, they would like to see the UN replace the word “gender” with “woman” in important documents. For example, when there is mention of “gender-based violence,” they want to change the wording to “violence against women.” The administration claims that using the word “gender” is pushing an “agenda” that they feel is not scientifically based, despite the fact that most scientists agree there is a difference between sex and gender.

Here’s what an official at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations told me today in response to reports that they are trying to change the term “gender-based violence” to “violence against women and girls” as reported today by the @guardian. pic.twitter.com/hmVGavC8iM

— Mary Emily O’SCARE-a (@MaryEmilyOHara) October 25, 2018

“If you only say violence against women, it doesn’t really tell the whole story,” said a senior diplomat at the UN according to New Now Next. “We shouldn’t be going along with encouraging their society to be regressive. And if that means a blazing row in the Third Committee, I would have a blazing row in committee, because I think some things are worth cherishing and worth hanging on to.”

Since this directly follows the news of the leaked memo, outraged trans activists are taking this as more evidence that the administration is seeking to remove the rights, and also the identity, of trans people.

“It’s clear the administration is engaged in a broad strategy of erasing transgender people’s existence across the federal government,” Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told New Now Next. “While it’s infuriating they would behave in such an extreme and volatile manner at the United Nations, we are confident their prejudice will lose out to science, reason, and the ongoing fight for human rights.”