At the latest session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which just concluded last week, delegates dialogued with two U.N. human rights experts who have written reports focused on gender ideology. These two experts’ views on “gender questions,” and their recommendations for how countries can protect human rights, reflected radically different views on society and “gender.”

Gender ideology—which centers on the idea that one’s subjective “gender identity” can differ from one’s biological sex—is a polarizing issue throughout the world. What began as a radical theory in Western ivory towers a few decades ago has now spread into every nook and cranny of everyday life, from education and medicine to politics and entertainment. And it’s increasingly the subject of heated debate in the field of international human rights.

Graeme Reid, the “Independent Expert” on sexual orientation and gender identity, wholeheartedly endorses gender ideology. His most recent report focused on sexual orientation and gender identity in relation to forced displacement. Its recommendations read like a wish list of the most ardent gender ideologue.

According to Reid, states should provide “gender-appropriate accommodation for transgender and gender-diverse persons.” In effect, this would mean that displaced persons seeking government housing could be placed with other immigrants based on how they “identify.” This could result in men who identify as women, or as “gender-diverse,” sharing rooms with vulnerable displaced women. 

Reid also recommends that governments use “gender identity and preferred names as identifiers rather than only sex and name at birth,” and that governments ensure that their “national policies and legal systems guarantee non-discrimination on all grounds, including sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Of course, that overlooks the fact that places that have included “gender identity” as a category of non-discrimination have experienced numerous threats to freedom of speech and belief.

Ignoring that, Reid took special aim at the U.S. in his report, writing that “legislative efforts have disproportionately focused on transgender persons, who remain vulnerable to scapegoating, discrimination and violence.”

His report lamented the limited access to state-funded and private health care in many of the countries that host displaced people. However, it praised Mexico City, where “individuals are guaranteed public health services, including … gender affirming care for transgender individuals regardless of their immigration status.”

In reality, the ghoulish and irreversible medical interventions euphemistically called “gender-affirming care” are a frontal attack on human rights, not a praiseworthy example of health care.  

That view is shared by the other expert, Reem Alsalem, the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, who clearly sees gender ideology as an assault on the rights and protections of women and girls. She delivered her report on “sex-based”—rather than gender ideologues’ “gender-based”—violence against women to the U.N. delegates.

“I never imagined the day would come where my mandate would deem it necessary to prepare a report affirming that the words ‘women’ and ‘girls’ refer to distinct biological and legal categories,” she said.

In responding to criticism from European and U.N. officials, Alsalem noted that sex is “an innate, immutable and fundamental aspect of human existence for men and women alike,” pointedly remarking, “sex is actually not a social construct, gender is.”

In her report, Alsalem noted that “gender identity” is a term that “lacks a codified definition in international law.” On the other hand, international law is unambiguous in its defense of sex-based protections. She urged governments to protect female-only spaces and insisted that “[f]orfeiting female-specific terminology under the pretext of inclusion is not justified in international law.”

The report highlighted the loss of single-sex spaces and the denial of freedom of belief and of speech as just two of the many consequences of erasing sex-specific considerations. In her spoken remarks, Alsalem noted that some international groups and governments have called her “regressive, racist, colonial, transphobic, fascist and nazi” for her views, but that those verbal attacks pale in comparison to the violence and hatred directed at many others who have taken a stand against gender ideology.

Her report made several bold recommendations, including that governments prohibit efforts to “transition” children through “legal, social, and experimental, irreversible medical interventions.” It called upon states to provide “effective remedies, accountability mechanisms, and robust support services” for anyone harmed by such interventions in the past, and particularly for detransitioners.

Unlike Reid, who praised government support for “gender-affirming care,” Alsalem expressed outrage that “no U.N. agency that has a mandate on human rights nor the rights of children has spoken out about the documented long-term harms of so-called pediatric gender transitions and how they violate the human rights of children.”

Yet despite the failure of the U.N. human rights apparatus writ large, opposition to gender ideology is growing on both sides of the Atlantic. Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, the U.S. has taken a strong stance against gender ideology in its international engagements.

Before the session adjourned, the Human Rights Council voted to renew Reid’s sexual orientation and gender ideology mandate, despite opposition from several African and Islamic countries. But Alsalem remains outspoken in her defense of women and confident in her opposition to gender ideology.

When each side of the gender debate makes its arguments out in the open, it’s clear which will better protect the human rights of women and girls. As Alsalem argued, “you cannot protect what you cannot define.”

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