Resisting the Weaponization of Girls’ and Women’s Rights
10 March 2025 | As the 69th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69) begins, we must confront a dangerous and unsettling reality: hate groups and fascists in power are working to erase trans, non-binary, and LGBTQIA+ people from global spaces like CSW — under the false pretense of “protecting” girls and women.
This is a deliberate, calculated attack. And it’s not new. Anti-rights actors have long used gender equality as a Trojan horse for pushing a fascist agenda — one that strips away fundamental rights, fuels disinformation, and exploits fear to consolidate power. They have been laying the groundwork for years, infiltrating institutions, testing narratives, and refining their strategies. Now that they hold power in key global capitals, their attacks have intensified and become alarmingly more effective. This isn’t just a threat to marginalized girls, women, and gender-diverse people. It’s a threat to us all. A threat to democracy itself.
Their strategies are not new, but their reach and impact have expanded. They infiltrate policy spaces, manipulate human rights language, and frame themselves as defenders of “family values” while dismantling protections for the most vulnerable among us.
Let’s be clear: They are not here to protect us. They are here to control us. Hate groups are not protecting girls and women; they’re making the world more violent and restrictive for all of us. The same actors attacking LGBTQIA+ rights today are also dismantling access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), blocking action on climate justice, and criminalizing feminist activism.
We refuse to let them co-opt our movement, erase our communities, or dictate our collective future. Women Deliver stands in unwavering solidarity with all girls, women, and gender-diverse people worldwide.
We also know that rejecting their agenda is not enough — we must build something stronger. This is not a time for despair, but for defiance. The forces attacking our rights are well-funded, relentless, and deeply entrenched in the very institutions and global spaces meant to advance gender equality. Our resistance must be just as strategic, just as unyielding, and just as united.
Feminist movements, LGBTQIA+ advocates, climate leaders, and anti-colonial activists must stand together — our fights are intertwined, and so is our power.
At CSW and in all global spaces, we will not yield. Hate groups do not speak for us. They will not decide who deserves rights or erase us from the future.
We will fight. We will resist. And together, we will build the world we know is possible.
