American delegates are bringing anti-trans rhetoric to the United Nations

A new ProPublica report found an effort by U.S. delegates to delete the word “gender” from internal resolutions and documents at the United Nations

The Trump administration is using its anti-trans agenda to potentially interrupt progress and governance around the world.

A bombshell report from ProPublica uncovered an effort by U.S. delegates to eliminate the word “gender” from internal resolutions and documents at the United Nations—including those that have nothing to do with trans people.

In June, a UN meeting intended to form a panel of scientists to address the impacts of toxic waste was derailed by American delegate Liz Nichols, who used her allotted time to denounce how the word gender was used to replace the “biological reality of sex.” 

According to ProPublica, American delegates condemned “gender ideology” in at least six speeches at the UN, and asked the organization to embrace its terminology for men and women in at least two instances—though it’s unknown if any changes were made as a result.
A moral panic over an innocuous word like gender seems pretty out of place at the UN. But the push to litigate it this extensively could be a way to delay the UN from getting anything done at all—we explain how.

Cody Corrall is Xtra's Social Video Producer. Their work has appeared in BuzzFeed News, TechCrunch, the Chicago Reader, CINE-FILE, Thrillist, Paste Magazine, and other places on the world wide web. He lives in Chicago and speaks English.

Senior editor Mel Woods is an English-speaking Vancouver-based writer, editor and audio producer and a former associate editor with HuffPost Canada. A proud prairie queer and ranch dressing expert, their work has also appeared in Vice, Slate, the Tyee, the CBC, the Globe and Mail and the Walrus.

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