The United Nations has overwhelmingly rejected a proposal from the United States seeking to define gender strictly as male or female. The resolution was introduced during the UN’s 70th Commission on the Status of Women, a major global conference on women’s rights. The U.S. cited “the many meanings or connotations of the term ‘gender’ that have become common in recent years and that are different from accepted prior usage.”
The proposal also referenced the 1995 Beijing Declaration. However, the declaration focused on addressing gender-based discrimination and inequality, not defining gender in biological-only terms. Even a letter from the Women’s Rights Caucus stated that the declaration did not explicitly define gender. International Crisis Group gender director Cristal Downing said member states agreed to disagree on the definition and “were more comfortable with leaving the term open to interpretation than they were with any attempt to create a shared definition”.
When it came to the US’s resolution, Belgium’s representative said that it was factually incorrect and that it attempted to rewrite the Beijing Declaration. Belgium called for a no-action motion to stop the proposal from moving forward. In the final vote, 23 countries opposed the U.S., 17 abstained, and only Pakistan and Chile supported it.
