UN Women post in support of LGBTQs and say ‘gender-critical’ people are ‘anti-rights’
"Anti-rights movements are on the rise and trying to reverse progress"
UN Women has posted an unequivocal message of support of LGBTQs and trans people for Pride month.
The organisation, previously known as the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, advocates for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Created in July 2010 by the United Nations General Assembly, current goodwill ambassadors for UN Women include Nicole Kidman, Anne Hathaway and Emma Watson.
In a carousel posted on the UN Women Instagram account on Tuesday (11 June 2024), the group also called gender-critical campaigners “anti-rights.”
“We must act collectively to protect and support LGBTIQ+ equality and rights”
In a caption, a UN rep said: “Anti-rights movements are on the rise and trying to reverse progress. They put the rights and lives of LGBTQI+ people at risk by: using hateful propaganda and disinformation to target LGBTIQ+ people [and] falsely portraying the rights of LGBTIQ+ people as competing with women’s rights.”
The statement concludes: “We must act collectively to protect and support LGBTIQ+ equality and rights.”
Elsewhere, the post cites research by IGLA-Europe which found an increase in the frequency and brutality of violent acts against LGBTQ people across 54 countries last year.
The group also cites a statistic from the Association for Women’s Rights in Development that indicates “anti-rights movements have seen a 50% increase in global funding since 2012.”
An explainer on the UN Women website titled LGBTIQ+ communities and the anti-rights pushback: 5 things to know furthermore states: “There is a long tradition in which anti-rights movements frame equality for women and LGBTIQ+ people as a threat to so-called ‘traditional’ family values.
“Movements encompassing ‘anti-gender’, ‘gender-critical’, and ‘men’s rights’ have taken this to new extremes, tapping into wider fears about the future of society and accusing feminist and LGBTIQ+ movements of threatening civilization itself.
“Anti-rights movements have pushed for overtly discriminatory policies and restrictions on essential services, and even for the criminalisation of people based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”