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PoliticsSocietyCommentary

US Resolution to Protect Women and Girls Faces Uphill Battle at the UN

Michael Waltz, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., in Munich, Germany, February 13, 2026. (Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Grace Melton / @GVSMelton

Grace Melton is The Heritage Foundation's senior associate for international social issues. She is part of the think tank's DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family.

The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women is wrapping up this week amid historic disagreement between delegations over what it means to be a woman. You read that right. Diplomats at the annual international meeting focused on “women’s issues” are engaged in negotiations and backroom maneuvers to avoid clearly defining what they mean by the word “gender.”

Last week when the meeting opened it was the first time in the Commission’s 70 years that the “agreed conclusions”—the negotiated document that the diplomats usually adopt by consensus—had to go to a vote.

The U.S. diplomats requested that the Commission members take more time to negotiate a document that all countries could agree to, and then subsequently proposed amendments to the document that would have brought it more in line with U.S. policy. The U.S opposed the “ambiguous language promoting gender ideology,” as well as references to “sexual and reproductive health and rights,” which U.N. agencies use to promote abortion.

But the Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women, Costa Rica’s Ms. Maritza Cha Valverde, used procedural machinations to require that the proposed U.S. amendments be packaged together, effectively killing their chances of passage. She was able to censor the countries that shared some of the U.S.’ objections to the document but were unwilling to join in opposition on all of them.

Ultimately, the controversial “agreed conclusions” were adopted by a vote of 37 in favor, with six abstentions and only the U.S. voting “no.”

This ideological battle is nothing new. The U.N. bureaucracy and European countries routinely push gender ideology and a radical abortion agenda under the guise of women’s rights and gender equality. And over the past several years they have labeled their opposition—those who hold traditional beliefs about the sanctity of life and the protection of the family—as “the pushback” or “anti-rights actors.”

Last year, the newly reelected Trump administration opposed the business-as-usual progressive agenda at Commission on the Status of Women. And this year, the U.S. is taking its defense of women and girls a step further. As the new Promoting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance Policy illustrates, the Trump administration intends to “promote human flourishing” by opposing abortion, gender ideology, and DEI activities at home and abroad.

After losing the vote last week, the U.S. delegation is now proposing a new resolution on the “Protection of Women and Girls Through Appropriate Terminology.” It seeks to reaffirm the original language from the 1994 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which defines “gender” according to “its ordinary, generally accepted usage, as referring to men and women.” It rejects any expansion of the term to include “gender identity” or other subjective and ideological terms.

Pro-life and pro-family organizations, including Family Watch International, are encouraging the many countries that consistently oppose radical gender ideology to join with the U.S. in sponsoring the resolution.

While the U.S. resolution faces an uphill battle—some say insurmountable—these countries would be wise to support it nonetheless. A strong showing of support would challenge any assertion that customary international law has developed to expand the meaning of gender to include “transgender” or other so-called “gender identities.”

Such support would build on the momentum of the successful vote late last year in the General Assembly to remove controversial “sexual orientation and gender identity” language from a resolution on implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. And it would send a clear message to U.N. bureaucrats that U.N. Member States have the sovereign right to define U.N. policy through transparent processes.

The dangers of gender ideology are not theoretical. Ms. Reem Alsalem, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, has highlighted many of them in her recent report on sex-based violence against women and girls. Women’s dignity, privacy, safety, and opportunities are at stake when men can violate female-only spaces by claiming to “identify” as women. 

Sadly, much of the world is only beginning to understand the horrific physical and psychological harms that those who have attempted to “transition” to another sex, boys and girls alike, have experienced under the euphemistically named “gender-affirming care” regimen of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgeries that aim to change the appearance of their bodies.  

For too long, activists on the Left have insisted that abortion is necessary for women’s empowerment, that motherhood and family are impediments to personal fulfillment, and now, that “gender identity” is something real that others must validate.

These are lies that hurt women and girls. In the decades since the Beijing conference, more people have come to recognize them as ideological deceptions that hurt men, women, and children alike. Now it’s time for more countries to confront those lies at the U.N., even when that means they’ll likely lose a vote.

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