The Women's Declaration International (WDI), formerly the Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC), is an international advocacy organisation founded in the United Kingdom. WDI has published a Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights, [1] and has developed model legislation to restrict transgender rights that has been used in state legislatures in the United States. [2]
The organisation has been described as gender-critical, [3] anti-trans, [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] anti-LGBTQ+, [4] [10] anti-gender, [11] [12] trans-exclusionary, [13] trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF), [14] [15] and as a hate group, [16] and in several countries the group has been linked to the far right. [17] [18] [19] The Southern Poverty Law Center consider it part of an "anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network". [4] [10] The largest U.S. feminist organisation, the National Organization for Women, described WDI as "anti-trans bigots disguised as feminists." [20]
The Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC) was founded by Sheila Jeffreys and Heather Brunskell-Evans. [7] In February 2018, Brunskell-Evans had been removed from her role as Women's Equality Party spokesperson and resigned from the party after the party opened an investigation into comments she made to the BBC about the parents of transgender children. [21] In March 2018, Jeffreys attended a "Transgenderism and the War on Women" event at the Parliament of the United Kingdom sponsored by Conservative MP David Davies, and during her presentation, said: "when men claim to be women ... and parasitically occupy the bodies of the oppressed, they speak for the oppressed. They become to be recognised as the oppressed. There's no space for women's liberation". [22]
Mauro Cabral Grinspan, Ilana Eloit, David Paternotte and Mieke Verloo described WDI as "one of the key players of anti-trans feminism at a global scale". [5]
In March 2019, the WHRC launched the Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights in New York, [1] co-authored by Maureen O'Hara, Jeffreys and Brunskell-Evans. [23] In 2019, the group appeared to "primarily exist as the organisation behind the declaration", according to Pink News . [24]
In advance of a planned event at the Scottish Parliament hosted by MSP Jenny Marra and MSP Joan McAlpine in November 2019, the group described the declaration as intended to be "a statement on the importance of keeping the current sex based definition of woman". [1] The document refers to trans women as "men who claim a female gender identity". [1] [24] The Association for Women's Rights in Development has said the declaration co-opts the "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) framework to claim that 'sex' is an immutable category and 'gender' is not a legitimate concept", [25] and the "'sex-based' rhetoric misuses concepts of sex and gender to push a deeply discriminatory agenda". [13] Legal scholar and human rights expert Sandra Duffy described the declaration's concept of "sex-based rights" as "a fiction with the pretense of legality". [26]
The advocacy groups LGB Alliance and Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) signed the declaration in 2019, [24] while the Equality Network and the Scottish Trans Alliance criticised it. [1] Emma Ritch, executive director of the feminist policy organisation Engender said that "this so-called ‘declaration on women’s sex-based rights’ [...] doesn’t include women’s rights to housing, pay equality, access to justice, social security, education, or political representation. When it talks about violence against women, freedom of expression, and children's rights it does so entirely through the warped lens of antipathy towards trans people" [24] and that "trans rights and women's rights are consistent with one another, and we call on Holyrood to continue to shape legislation and scrutinise policy in order to uphold the rights of all women, including trans women, in Scotland". [1] Scottish Women's Aid said "We are immensely saddened that the Scottish Parliament, an institution we value and care so much about, would be used by those seeking to stigmatise and discriminate against trans women". [27]
The group says it is "female-only" and the Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights was created to "lobby nations to maintain language protecting women and girls on the basis of sex rather than gender or gender identity". [23] In December 2021, the group changed its name to Women's Declaration International. [28]
The "supporting organizations" that have signed WDI's manifesto include Women's Liberation Front, LGB Alliance, Deep Green Resistance, European Network of Migrant Women, Lesbian Rights Alliance, Womad, and Let Women Speak, and websites Spinster and Ovarit. [29]
In 2021, the group called for the repeal of the Gender Recognition Act in a submission to the Women and Equalities Select Committee for an inquiry chaired by Tory MP Caroline Nokes. [7]
For International Women's Day in 2021, WHRC Norway (now WDI Norway) proposed the slogans "No to heresy in primary schools, girls and women do not have a penis" and "Only women are women," that were accused of being hateful and transphobic by the established feminist organisations. [30] Christine Marie Jentoft, an advisor on gender diversity at the Norwegian Organisation for Sexual and Gender Diversity, described WHRC as a hate group that works to deprive transgender people of autonomy and rights. [16] Gender studies professor Elisabeth L. Engebretsen described the group's Norwegian branch as anti-gender and part of a "complex threat to democracy" that "represent[s] a reactionary populist backlash to basic human rights principles," and that seeks to "demonize the very basics of trans existence". [11]
Kathleen Stock, who resigned from her position at the University of Sussex in 2021 following accusations of transphobia, [31] had been criticised by student protesters for signing WHRC's declaration. [32] [33] WHRC subsequently released a joint statement together with the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) in support of Stock. [34]
In June 2022 several groups opposing trans rights, including WDI USA, Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council and Women's Liberation Front, organized a rally called "Our Bodies, Our Sports" in Washington D.C. The American Independent noted that some of the organizers, but not WDI, are designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Lindsay Schubiner, an expert on extremism, said: "There has been a clear increase in organizing to promote anti-LGBTQ and specifically anti-trans bigotry and I think that we can see that trend line moving up. This event in particular looks like an attempt to legitimize and elevate and spread their transphobia and especially to build political power around specific anti-trans policy goals". The article also noted that WDI had tweeted in support of abortion rights. [35]
In September 2023, WDI USA organized their annual convention in San Francisco, drawing protests from local feminists and LGBT+ rights activists. [6] [36] [37] [38]
In its 2023 report titled Combating Anti-LGBTQ+ Pseudoscience, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described WDI as part of "the contemporary anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network" and said WDI's "Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights" promotes "anti-trans ideology" and has "become a model for anti-trans legislation." [4] [10] SPLC further said WDI engages in narrative manipulation. [10] The largest U.S. feminist organisation, the National Organization for Women (NOW), described WDI and WoLF as "anti-trans bigots disguised as feminists" and said WDI has a focus on "sex fundamentalism and hostility towards trans people". [20] [6]
The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) has described WHRC as a trojan horse in human rights spaces and argued that WHRC "engages in sensationalism and fear-mongering" to "undermine and water down the progressions of human rights standards that protect the rights of trans and gender non-conforming persons," [13] and that WDI promotes "extreme anti-trans misinformation". [25] AWID and the Trans Safety Network have both described WHRC/WDI as "an extreme anti-trans group". [25] [39] Equity Forward discussed WHRC in the context of the Trump administration's "anti-human rights multilateralism" and described it as anti-trans. [9] The Canadian Anti-Hate Network described WHRC as a "TERF project". [15]
Fascism scholar Simon Strick writes that WDI’s "extremist" positions have "isolated the WDI from wider international feminism and brought them into strategic coalitions with conservative and extreme right organizations". [18] [19] According to Vice the group has promoted conspiracy theories and false information. [8] An article in the journal Forskningspolitikk (Research Policy) noted that "WDI portrays itself as a women's rights organization, but spends almost all of its time persecuting trans women," including by "trolling trans people in social media". [40]
A 2023 report by Transgender Europe described WDI as one of the main anti-gender actors targeting trans people in Germany, and stated that WDI's tactics include fostering open hostility towards individual trans people, encouraging conspiracy thinking, building connections with the far right and promoting "shitstorms" against selected targets. [12] An article in Der Freitag argued that WDI openly promotes far-right views when it furthers the TERF cause. [17]
In Norway, WDI's leader and deputy leader Christina Eline Ellingsen and Tonje Gjevjon have appeared on the Youtube channel of the far-right anti-immigrant website Document.no. [41] Cathrine Linn Kristiansen, the chair of the main Norwegian radical feminist group, the Women's Front (Kvinnefronten), described WDI, on behalf of herself and her group, as "transphobes, racists and sexists" and said that "we strongly condemn them". [42] WDI Norway's first deputy leader Anne Kalvig said both the country's government-appointed Extremism Commission and the Norwegian Humanist Association had portrayed WDI as far-right and extremist. [43]
In 2022, WDI USA president Kara Dansky, who has served as a WoLF board member [44] and co-chair, [45] issued a statement of support on behalf of WDI USA for the Women's Bill of Rights developed by the Republican Study Committee group of Republican Party members in the United States House of Representatives, stating it "would enshrine into law many of the principles outlined in the global Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights, which we work to advance throughout U.S. law". [46]
By 2023, model legislation to restrict rights for transgender people had been distributed by Women's Declaration International USA to state legislatures in the United States. [2] Proposed legislation with language similar to the WDI model legislation was introduced in some state legislatures that seek to develop laws to restrict access to gender-affirming care for youth under age 18. [2]
In August 2024 WDI along with several other gender-critical groups including Women's Liberation Front and European Network of Migrant Women launched an open letter condemning UN Women for "demonizing and vilifying women who know that men are not women, and never will be," [47] in response to a UN Women statement that anti-gender and gender-critical movements are anti-rights movements that employ hate propaganda and disinformation. [48] [49]
Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social gender roles. Transphobia is a type of prejudice and discrimination, similar to racism, sexism, or ableism, and it is closely associated with homophobia. People of color who are transgender experience discrimination above and beyond that which can be explained as a simple combination of transphobia and racism.
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is a radical feminist and gender-critical non-governmental organization opposing human trafficking, prostitution, and other forms of commercial sex. It has been described as a "neo-abolitionist lobby group" that represents a "carceral feminist anti-trafficking practice," and has been criticized for essentializing women and promoting a controversial and "ideologically charged" definition of trafficking. It is strongly opposed to the perspectives of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women and the sex workers rights movement. It has been linked to anti-trans groups and its Latin American regional branch is a signatory of the manifesto of far-right anti-trans group Women's Declaration International.
The Norwegian Organisation for Sexual and Gender Diversity is the oldest, largest and preeminent Norwegian member organization representing the interests of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons in Norway.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Norway have the same legal rights as non-LGBTQ people. In 1981, Norway became one of the first countries in the world to enact an anti-discrimination law explicitly including sexual orientation. Same-sex marriage, adoption, and assisted insemination treatments for lesbian couples have been legal since 2009. In 2016, Norway became the fourth country in Europe to pass a law allowing the change of legal sex for transgender people based on self-determination. On 1 January 2024, conversion therapy became legally banned within Norway.
Feminist views on transgender topics vary widely.
The Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) is an American self-described radical feminist advocacy organization that opposes transgender rights and related legislation. It has engaged in litigation on transgender topics, working against the Obama administration's Title IX directives which defined sex discrimination to include gender identity. WoLF describes itself as radical feminist, and according to its mission statement, it wishes to "abolish regressive gender roles and the epidemic of male violence using legal arguments, policy advocacy, and public education". It has been described by news sources, including The Washington Post, The Advocate, and NBC, as feminist, but progressive and feminist organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)and the National Organization for Women (NOW) challenge this characterization, with NOW describing WoLF, alongside Women's Declaration International, as "anti-trans bigots disguised as feminists".
The Swedish Women's Lobby is a Swedish gender-critical organization that claims to work for "sex-based rights."
TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. First recorded in 2008, the term TERF was originally used to distinguish transgender-inclusive feminists from a group of radical feminists who reject the position that trans women are women, reject the inclusion of trans women in women's spaces, and oppose transgender rights legislation. Trans-inclusive feminists assert that these ideas and positions are transphobic and discriminatory towards transgender people. The use of the term TERF has since broadened to include reference to people with trans-exclusionary views who are not necessarily involved with radical feminism. In the 2020s, the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is used synonymously with or overlaps with "gender-critical feminism".
Kajsa Ekis Ekman is a Swedish author, journalist, and debater. Her works have sparked debate in subjects regarding prostitution, surrogacy, transgender issues, and capitalism. She identifies as a feminist and has written a book and several articles from a gender-critical perspective. She participated in the Swedish launch of Women's Declaration International. Until 2022 she wrote for Dagens ETC, departing amid controversy in 2022. Later in 2022 she was hired as editor of Arbetaren, but let go shortly afterwards, which generated extensive debate. Currently, she is the editor-in-chief of Parabol Press and contributes to a number of other Swedish publications. The awards she received include the Robespierre Prize in 2010 and Lenin Award in 2020.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:
The Equality Act was a bill in the United States Congress, that, if passed, would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, federally funded programs, credit, and jury service. The Supreme Court's June 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County protects gay and transgender people in matters of employment, but not in other respects. The Bostock ruling also covered the Altitude Express and Harris Funeral Homes cases.
Transgender rights in the United Kingdom have varied significantly over time.
The LGB Alliance is a British advocacy group and registered charity founded in 2019 in opposition to the policies of LGBT rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues. Its founders are Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott. The LGB Alliance describes its objective as "asserting the right of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men to define themselves as same-sex attracted", and states that such a right is threatened by "attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender". The group has opposed a ban on conversion therapy that includes trans people in the UK, opposed the use of puberty blockers for children, and opposed gender recognition reform.
Woman's Place UK (WPUK) was a British political advocacy group founded in 2017. The group was opposed to gender self-identification for transgender people in the UK, and has advocated restricting access to women-only spaces on the basis of "sex, not gender".
Gender-critical feminism, also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism or TERFism, is an ideology or movement that opposes what it refers to as "gender ideology", the concept of gender identity and transgender rights, especially gender self-identification. Gender-critical feminists believe that sex is biological and immutable, while believing gender, including both gender identity and gender roles, to be inherently oppressive. They reject the concept of transgender identities.
The Society For Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) is a non-profit organization that is known for its opposition to gender-affirming care for transgender youth and for engaging in political lobbying. The group routinely cites the unproven concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria and mistakenly claimed that conversion therapy techniques are only practiced on the basis of sexual orientation rather than gender identity. SEGM is often cited in anti-transgender legislation and court cases, sometimes filing court briefs.
FiLiA is a British gender-critical feminist charity founded in 2015 that describes itself as part of the women's liberation movement. FiLiA organizes a conference, held first in 2008 as Feminism in London, in different cities, which it now describes as the "largest annual grassroots feminist conference in Europe". FiLiA is gender-critical, and states that it supports "sex-based rights" and opposes what they refer to as "gender ideology." It has lobbied against gender recognition reform and considers gender self-identification a threat to "women's protected rights." Critics describe it as anti-transgender and transphobic. FiLiA is critical of the sex industry and as a result, it considers pornography harmful. It has campaigned on behalf of women internationally, and has held campaigns in countries such as Iran, Cyprus, and Kenya. It has been described as one of "the most important 'gender critical' groups" alongside Women's Declaration International. FiLiA has faced protests and attempted cancellations, notably in 2023 when the venue Platform attempted to cancel the conference due to alleged transphobia. In 2024 FiLiA launched the book The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, on what the authors describe as a campaign for "sex-based rights" by J.K. Rowling and others.
The Women's Group Ottar is a Norwegian radical feminist women's organization founded in 1991. It has its historical roots in the Norwegian Marxist-Leninist movement of the 1970s and has been described as the most radical women's organization and "a final offshoot of 70s feminism". Ottar began as an offshoot of the Women's Front, and later, it splintered again, resulting in the creation of two new groups with explicitly trans-exclusionary profiles, Women's Declaration International (WDI) Norway and Kvinneaktivistene. The Women's Front described WDI as "transphobes." While mainly focused on combating pornography and prostitution from a radical feminist perspective, Ottar has also faced criticism from the Red Party, the Red Youth, LGBT+ rights groups and others for promoting or tolerating anti-trans and anti-Jewish views within its ranks, and some prominent members such as Kari Jaquesson have expressed support for trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF), declared themselves to be TERFs and engaged in doxxing and harassment of trans women by publishing pre-transition photos of them. Ottar has previously declared Jaquesson to be "politically solidly founded in Ottar's radical feminism." In 2024 Ottar faced strong criticism when the chair of its largest chapter referred to a Jewish woman as a "Zionist pig."
Transphobia in Norway has evolved over time. Since the late 20th century and into the early 21st century, acceptance of transgender people has greatly increased. Norway has made significant progress in transgender rights, with strong support from political parties ranging from the most left-wing to the Conservative Party. In the 2020s, Norway has seen an increase in the anti-gender movement, from both gender critical radical feminist groups and the far right. Recently, hate crimes against transgender people have increased, and several anti-trans groups campaign against transgender people. The 2024 Extremism Commission's report cited sources that pointed to "the connections between radical feminism and Christian conservatism" in relation to anti-trans activism, noting that "these are groups and individuals who use violent and dehumanizing language and are also threatening and extremely active."
The early 21st century saw a rise in and increasing organisation around anti-transgender sentiments in the United Kingdom, the most common strain being that of gender-critical feminism. This has led to some referring to the United Kingdom by the nickname "TERF Island".
Among the most important 'gender critical' groups [...] are [...] the Women's Declaration International (WDI), formerly known as the Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC), Fair Play for Women (FPFW), Women's Place UK, Filia, Re-sisters, Sex Matters
Concerningly, the anti-trans Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC) held a parallel event that was permitted to be posted to CSW65's civil society forum. This event featured numerous anti-trans "feminist" speakers and propagated WHRC's exclusionary "Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights."
Table 5.2: Networked Groups by Typology [...] Narrative Manipulation: [...] Women's Declaration International
Jentoft mener WHRC er en hatgruppe som jobber for å frata transpersoner autonomi og rettigheter.[Jentoft believes the WHRC is a hate group that works to deprive transgender people of autonomy and rights.]
