A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK says Amnesty who claim over 50% are Gender Critical groups

[IwantToRetire]

Quote:

Anti-rights actors seek a society in which women and men have fixed and distinct roles, based on what they view as ‘natural’ and ‘traditional’. These actors perceive the idea that gender is socially constructed as a threat because it suggests that gender roles can, and do, change across societies and over time. In fact, progress in the rights of women and LGBT+ people has been underpinned by changing understandings of gender and social roles.

Anti-rights actors refer to this perceived threat as ‘gender ideology’, portraying it as an attack on national traditions, family structures, marriage and religious freedom. These narratives often seek to generate fear and uncertainty and rely on misinformation or exaggerated claims.

The term ‘gender ideology’ emerged in the context of debates within international institutions, particularly the United Nations, about gender equality and sexual and reproductive rights.

In 1964, the Holy See became a Permanent Observer at the UN General Assembly, the only religious body with this status. As a permanent observer the Holy See can participate in processes at the General Assembly as well as other UN bodies. It cannot vote but it has the possibility to co-sponsor resolutions if a member state requests a vote. Although it cannot vote, the Holy See can participate in UN discussions and processes and has played an influential role in debates on women's rights and LGBT+ rights.

The term ‘gender ideology’ gained prominence in response to progress on gender equality and Cairo in 1994. These conference were a landmark moment for the global women's rights movement. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is widely regarded as a key international framework for advancing women's rights and gender equality, and states continue to report on its implementation through the Commission on the Status of Women.

While opposition to sexual and reproductive rights predates the Beijing conference, the term ‘gender ideology’ became a particularly important response to the advances achieved there. The phrase was coined to explain the growing influence of gender equality agendas and to mobilise opposition to them.

Although the term originated in debates at the international level, it has since become a broad political narrative used by a wide range of anti-rights actors. Today, it is often used to connect campaigns against gender equality, sexual and reproductive rights, and LGBT+ rights across different countries and contexts.

From intro to report at
https://media.amnesty.org.uk/documents/Report_-_A_growing_threat__the_anti-rights_movement_in_the_UK_July_2026.pdf

See images of the list of 51 groups Amnesty is claiming are right wing.

Whereas believing that TWAW requires positively not believing in the concrete evidence of your own eyes and ears, at least some of the time.

It's not quite that simple. I'll be honest: when you're around trans people for too long, you end up re-adjusting your sex calibration, whether you want to or not.

That's how we learn: we get into a situation and we're told, "This is X," so we learn to associate the situation with X. Well, if you keep meeting transwomen, and being told that they are women like any others, and you want to believe it, then your brain starts to re-calibrate itself to accept them as women. It learns to discard the old evidence (which points to "male") and accept the new one. Same with transmen.

So I guess it's not so much a matter of "not believing in the concrete evidence of your own eyes and ears"; it's more a matter of reclassifying that evidence. You still see everything, but you don't give the same weight to different pieces of evidence anymore. "Oh, they have a square jaw and some stubble, but they wear make-up and a dress, so they are a woman." Do it consciously enough times, and you'll end up doing it unconsciously sooner or later.

(And then you leave the group, and some time later you come across some old pics, and you go, "WTH was I thinking??" because your brain recalibrated itself to "normal" in the meantime. Ask me how I know 😅)

Interesting.

I'll be honest: when you're around trans people for too long, you end up re-adjusting your sex calibration, whether you want to or not.

Yes, I've had a bit of that experience myself. Back in the nineties after I spent time with some TW friends I'd find myself double-taking every woman I saw above average height. I would re-adjust back to the usual after a day or two.

I am not one of those women who can "always tell" on first sight. Instead I have a three-way categorisation for strangers "defo male / defo female / who knows". Third category is much smaller. Being around TW temporarily put more women into the "who knows" category. (I've never really spent time around TM)

I think it is worth remembering that why this has taken root is because basically it is a men's rights movement.

This is about, as much as anything, the backlash against women's liberation which said that women as a sex class are oppressed by the male sex class.

What better way to say that women aren't oppressed because of their sex, if in fact sex isn't real, or is a choice.

And also explains why the trans rights group has been so alarmingly successful. Because it gives old fashioned male sexist as contemporary and acceptable form of oppressing women. After all it is a Stonewall campaign, how more "right on" can you be?

ie TRAs have a very firm base to grow from. The much longer and more widely established MRAs.

Quite.

And as often noted:

The massive majority of the loudest, most powerful voices in all this are men who are straight, white, affluent, able bodied, middle class and well educated.

It's quite amazing how fast and powerful a civil rights movement can be when it's driven by this particular group.

I saw this post on facebook from the European Network of Migrant women (who I sort of assumed would be part of trans inclusive European feminism. So surprised to see them being critical of AI (UK).
https://www.facebook.com/migrantwomeneurope/posts/pfbid037x2N6yKbAWC9R3JkvW3eQKm72uUEaQv32uDwLP9THQqGG9WBCfmAUGjDzzYEr81Xl

It is a very long post and no time to copy and appreciate not everyone is on facebook.**

But what is interesting (slight derail) is in their post they say this:

This is one of the dynamics MOTERIS project is monitoring and documenting: women's rights organisations across Europe losing funding access through reputational attacks and loss of institutional support.

The MOTERIS Project: An EU-funded initiative supporting 28 civil society organizations across 14 member states to protect the civic space and safety of women and girls. See https://www.eacea.ec.europa.eu/moteris-protecting-civic-space-women-and-girls_en

Quite interesting to find a group like this exists, and recognises reputational attacks as a method of contributing to women groups losing funding.

** Many of the comments in response are quite "terfy", but some, mainly men, saying it must be a mistake, report not properly scrutinised, blah, blah, and some men just saying single sex women's groups are transphobic.

There may be a few who are genuinely confused, but if the majority of supporters were genuine in their belief that TWAW, the TW would not be prioritised over women - and TM would be prioritised over both. And we wouldn't have tribunal after tribunal after tribunal where the TW or non-binary person involved is repeatedly misgendered by their own side.

European Network of Migrant Women are wonderfully clear about who/what women are - and why that really matters. They are gloriously straight-talking - on the trans issue but also on surrogacy, prostitution, male violence, institutional racism etc. And radical in their proposed solutions (not quite chop off their balls but you can hear the subtext). I imagine their work with migrant women keeps them very aware of the real meaning of intersectional vulnerabilities.

But the point they are making about funding is really significant to the Amnesty discussion. There is no doubt that this appalling report will frighten away the very few funders who focus on women's rights, or on LGBwithout-the-T rights. At a time when funding is being severely cut back, why would you take a risk with an organisation that Amnesty have branded right-wing and anti-rights. Not worth the hassle. I'm genuinely worried about the impact this will have on UK organisations.

@Seethlaw thank you for your posts, I often learn new things from you.

Regulator escalates engagement with Amnesty International UK over removed report

The Charity Commission has escalated its engagement with Amnesty International UK to a compliance case, after it published a report describing the author JK Rowling’s sexual violence charity as “anti-rights”.

Full article https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/regulator-escalates-engagement-amnesty-international-uk-removed-report/governance/article/1965374

I hadn't realised until today that nearly half of the other groups (along with Beira's place) that were listed on Amnesty's anti-rights report were women's groups.

I hope the Charity Commission will be highlighting this in their escalation.

But no Muslim groups, is that correct?

Yes AFAIK it’s correct.

Didn't you read the tittle of this thread??!!

My point was that they're groups supporting women.

Not that they're GC groups.

I've been hearing more on the grapevine about Amnesty UK - some strong suggestions that they have been working with major funders to undermine actual women's groups in the UK for a long time. Would be an extraordinary win for the misogynists if, after us getting clear M/F definitions from the Supreme Court, a reassertion of sex-based rights in the Equality Act, and winning a ton of related court cases, they destroy all those listed in their evidence-free report by ensuring that they don't get any money. The only ones left standing would be the handmaidens. Please can someone tell me I'm panicking unnecessarily and all will be well?😥😫😳

Yep - any group supporting original bio women are by definition GC. Based on Yougov polls a
more than 90% of the UK population are sex realists who mostly have no idea that they’re considered bigots as a result

You are panicking.

It will be fine.

They are more likely to destroy themselves in the process.

There's been a lot in the last ten years about the processes and practices of big charities. There's already political attention by some quarters to increase accountability in the sector as it's seen not as working for those it's supposed to help but as a lobbying vehicle for the left wing.

The right wing want much closer scrutiny as a result and the left will have to enable this or risk losing ground to the right.

In other words these charities also sit on the edge of the tectonic plates of the culture war.

This has been going on a while and I think this is one of the reasons they've aggressively gone after smaller charities too - because they see them as competition.

There's also a huge grassroots reaction to all these big charity scandals too. There's a reluctance to continue to support them.

If you do a straw poll on MN about 'do you donate to big charities still?' I bet you'll get a lot of people saying yes but a lot actively and deliberately saying they are boycotting and they often have for a while.

Having a look around the subject you'll quickly find articles on this theme from about 2016 onwards. (Note the timeline is parallel to the rise of trans activism and omni-cause thinking).

Also note the biggest donors to charity are not the lefties in their teens and twenties. Not by a long long shot. The charities currently pushing all this crap have cash flow issues in common. Amnesty's recent push for male subscribers will be about money. The affluent single male in his 20s and 30s is the advertiser's cash cow.

This is why women suddenly are further down the agenda. It's all about self preservation and revenue generated not stated aims.

Really don't just take my word on this - there's criticism coming from the left grassroots and the more conservative but charity supporting centre right (so by definition definitely not far right). Go and read up on it. It's mirroring all the other crap going on.

Interesting. I thought I was in a tiny minority in having lost faith in the large charities because of so many things so many of them had done wrong, starting with the amount they spent on trying to get me to take out standing orders in their favour (which I won't do because I am not rich enough to risk running out of money in the bank at the end of the month) and which I always felt could have been better spent on whatever their charitable objectives were. I do still support local charities: care homes, shelters, food banks.... So yes, I suppose those small charities are competition as far as the large ones are concerned.

For the record, Amnesty was one of the first to lose my support, with Oxfam a close second (reluctantly, because my mother was there when it started), and then Shelter.

Amnesty’s annual report for the business/operations arm said that last quarter recruitment of new members was lower than the amount of lapsed memberships, and they had to get a loan from the charitable trust side.

Exactly.

I would not now, and do not, support any of the big charities like Oxfam, Amnesty, etc. But that is entirely owing to having heard about them via MN. I'm not sure about the wider population, but I guess it depends partly on how big a story this becomes. I don't suppose it's going to push "Andy Burnham is terrible" off the headlines.

All [proper] women's groups are GC, but not all GC groups are women's groups.

And rightly so.

You are panicking.
It will be fine.

Good enough for me! Thanks @RedToothBrush

I am hopeful. These things have been going on quietly and under the radar for a long time and now they're being painfully hauled out into the light of day.

I don't know if it will all be fine. It's not good news if big reputable charities have been misusing their reputations to further social or political goals that conflict with their stated aims. It's not good news when big reputable charities stop being trustworthy, and it's not good news when people lose their trust in these big reputable charities. And it's not going to be effortless or painless - there will be some failures and bad news as well as successes and good news.

But the sooner it's out in the open and cleaned up the better.

The affluent single male in his 20s and 30s is the advertiser's cash cow.

Advertisers, yes. Charities, no. OK, at one time gay men poured vast quantities of money and effort into AIDS. But that's long past and "trans" doesn't have the same urgency, most gay men aren't GC and many are sexist but they don't think "trans" has anything to do with them either. The big charities' cash cow from individuals is the same as always. It's us older women. Oxfam's loss will be a donkey sanctuary's gain. And Amnesty's loss will be a GC crowdfunder's gain.

Though having said that - the real cash cow for big charities is government initiatives and international funds and the huge foundations (like Bill Gates or George Soros). That's where the biggest fight for influence - and cash! - will be. And that's why Amnesty matters.