Knowledge & Narratives

Anti-gender policies do not protect us: Reflecting as feminists on the recent UK Supreme Court ruling on who is a “woman”

(Published in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters blog, 24 April 2025)

Introduction

On 16 April 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the term “women” in the 2010 Equality Act is limited to those who are “born as women.”[2] The court claims that it does not seek to define the term in general, and asserts that its interpretation is limited to the use of the Equality Act.[3] They claim that they sought to find a meaning for the term “woman” that is “constant and predictable”.

However, it is evident from press coverage and public reaction, that this so-called “limited” definition of who is a “woman” will have much wider currency. It is hard to conceive of this ruling being of “limited” consequence when the court’s ruling was made in a highly polarized context, with large groups of women’s rights activists cheering, weeping tears of joy, embracing each other triumphantly, and celebrating with champagne.[4]

In reality, this recent UK court decision is unfortunately quite likely to reinforce harmful biological essentialist conceptions of “sex,” and a limited understanding of “gender,” both of which can be easily reinterpreted to work against gender justice – if the pretext of safeguarding groups based on their “sex” is translated into laws and policies that limit bodily autonomy in the name of protection. It can also be utilized to do harm through stigma and discrimination.

Read the full article online here (English) here!

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Just Futures Collaborative Dispatch (February 2025)

Introduction: Why should we care?

Just Futures Collaborative is a global endeavour to build bridges between movements and movement-actors, across regions, who are challenging criminalization and imagining just futures. Our work intentionally defies and disrupts false binaries and borders. It is with this lens that we have observed that international human rights instruments and the international gender justice and human rights funding landscape - with dire consequences to activism globally - are being dismantled by the new government in the United States, as it joins Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands and others with a diminished commitment to official development assistance. We are also alarmed as our families, friends, colleagues and communities on-the-ground in the United States are devastatingly affected and pushed to even further precarity through new US national policies that could exacerbate the impact of criminalization.

The impact of the current direction of US policies on the entire world and on already marginalized communities everywhere - be it through promoting anti “gender ideology" action, eliminating a commitment to promoting diversity, retracting commitments to public health, the rapid reshaping of the global economic order, or divestment from urgent climate action - cannot be understated.

There is no greater reminder to us than this moment that our problems cannot be solved in a real way as long as we are working solely within false nation-state borders, issue-based silos, or fractured movement domains.

This article has been prepared in conversation with our Steering Committee.

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When Justice Backfires: Criminalization, Gender and Human Rights in the Digital Era

Introduction
We've seen it over and over—feminist and human rights movements, often unintentionally, turn to criminalization in the pursuit of justice and rights protection. Yet punitive approaches can backfire, harming the very communities they aim to support. Laws around digital technologies are no exception—often wielded as tools of control, censorship, and surveillance, they shape and restrict rights in ways that both reinforce and reshape power inequalities.

This paper examines two case studies—Malaysia and Sri Lanka—where legal crackdowns, framed as protecting social order, have instead deepened harm and failed to address underlying injustices. Our analysis highlights how criminalization is often weaponized against marginalized communities, including in the digital realm, where governments use laws to suppress dissent and control expression.

By sharing these case studies, we hope to encourage critical reflection among feminist, human rights and digital rights practitioners—across disciplines and regions—on the unintended consequences of punitive approaches and the need to build more just, collaborative strategies for just futures.

Download the full article (English) here!

“Safe” Prisons? Challenging Violence Narratives and Anti-Gender Feminist Agendas

Introduction
Anti-trans rhetoric has increasingly infiltrated legal, policy, and public debates, becoming a powerful narrative trend and a set of legal proscriptions, including within feminist movements. At Just Futures Collaborative, we have observed that some feminists align with powerful actors and carceral institutions to push harmful agendas against trans and gender-diverse communities (among others). The campaigns by self-named “gender critical” feminists sometimes weaponize narratives of violence and women’s safety to vilify and punish those already pushed to the margins by the state and by dominant social groups, with a particular focus on trans women.

Our new article pushes back against the systematic campaign by anti-gender feminists to weaponize narratives about women’s safety and spread disinformation about prison settings to push a carceral agenda, and endanger the lives of trans, gender-diverse and non-conforming persons. They do so in alliance with powerful, unjust systems and actors, and cannot be relied on to advance a meaningful agenda of safety and rights for all.

Download the full article (English) here!