Official Communications From India WDI
India WDI has submitted a formal communication to the Chief Justice of India with concerns regarding legal inclusion of gender identity ideology in various walks of life and how t contributes to the erosion of women’s sex-based rights
The following grounds were covered in the letter:
- Gender identity and the absence of scientific basis
- Co-opting Hijras
- Problems with NALSA v Union of India (2014) and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019
- International Human Rights law enshrines non-discrimination and other rights on the basis of sex, not gender
- Encroachment of the gender industry into the rights of women and girls in India
- The global misogyny of gender identity
- Medicalisation to exacerbate sex stereotypes
- Dangers of such stereotypes
- Growing global recognition of the dangers of gender identity ideology
In conclusion we wrote:
According to a report of the United Nations Population Fund, 45.8 million Indian girls are ‘missing’, which is a descriptor for prenatal or postnatal mortality in girl children, due to son preference. These girls make up the world-wide morality numbers not because of an innate ‘feeling’ of being female; but because they were biologically female and hence not wanted. Indian girls, some as young as five years-old, are sold and trafficked into the sex trade not because of their ‘gender identity’, but because of their sex.
Many Indian women are able to exercise their right to free movement because of women-only compartments in public transport like the metro. These women-only coaches, hostels, toilets, changing rooms, and medical wards offer women and girls safety from the ever-present threat of male aggression. Sex-segregated bathrooms allow girls to move freely, safe from male aggression; so women-only spaces are a right and not a privilege for a man in a saree to also avail of.
Article 48 of the Indian Constitution says that it is a fundamental duty of all Indian citizens to have a scientific temper of inquiry. But if the intelligentsia were to abandon any critical thinking and blindly follow an unscientific ideology which clearly violates the rights of women and girls- then the future of the rights of women and girls in this country is indeed very dark.
As we have highlighted above, women around the world are persevering in the face of witch-hunts and harassment. Women are making films, holding conferences, making associations, writing letters, and creating their own women-only spaces where men are not allowed to intrude- because women and girls have been abandoned by institutions which were supposed to look out for them.
It is with this concern that we approach you to please take the dangers of gender identity ideology into account, and suggest your esteemed colleagues to do the same before it is too late for the women and girls of India.
We are a group of lifelong leftist, anti-caste women, and it is insulting to be teamed with far right voices that also seem to have concerns about this phenomenon, albeit with a completely different motivation. We are faced with slurs like TERFs, Nazi, fascists, bigots and much more on a daily basis; but our political standpoint has never wavered. We are feminists, our singular goal is to work towards achieving women and girls’ sex-based rights. It will be our privilege and honour to present our position on the subject at any point your esteemed office would have us. We sincerely hope you don’t rush into making any further changes to the legalities of this ideology without hearing views from across the board.
Spinster
Gettr