Across the world, movements advancing gender justice and equality are confronting a surge of opposition framed around so-called “sex-based rights.” While these narratives often claim to protect women, they instead reinforce exclusionary, binary, and biologically essentialist understandings of sex and gender. Such frameworks erase the lived realities of trans, intersex, nonbinary, and gender-diverse people, while undermining the collective struggle against patriarchal systems that harm all women and structurally excluded genders.
To respond to the growing mobilisation of opposition against gender and rights, the Opposition Working Group of CMI! developed Understanding the Fallacy of “Sex-based Rights” Frameworks and Countering Exclusionary Arguments: An Advocacy Resource for Inclusive Rights as practical and empowering tools for advocates.
We created these resources out of a shared conviction: that feminist, human rights, and equality movements must remain inclusive, evidence-based, and rooted in solidarity. The rise of “sex-based rights” discourse reflects not only a backlash against gender and sexual diversity but also a deliberate effort to divide movements and weaken collective action. Our motivation is to ensure that advocates and allies are equipped with the knowledge, language, and confidence to challenge these exclusionary narratives — and to reaffirm a feminism that upholds the dignity, autonomy, and rights of everyone.
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