By Shobha Shukla
“Anti-rights and anti-gender pushes are driven by political, patriarchal, conservative, and religious bodies that frame wrong understandings of gender as a ‘threat to the social good’. They make it (wrongly) seem that any progressive position on justice- whether it is social, racial, gender, sexual, economic, disability, climate, or ecological- is threatening and destructive to the so-called ‘dominant global order.’ But we, particularly those of us in the Global South, have to understand very clearly that this global order is white supremacist, capitalist, and patriarchal, that sustains itself through division, fear mongering, and the wrong beliefs that ‘a market will fix anything and will fix everything.’ And we know that it does not”, said Dr Angelique V Nixon.
“Anti-gender and anti-rights pushes are attacking social justice movements and fuelling a backlash against progressive social and environmental justice movements. Such anti-rights and anti-gender pushes are perpetuating false and misleading narratives about gender, sex, sexuality, human rights, and climate change. They are promoting transphobia, anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiments, homophobic and transphobic attitudes and discourses globally. This has negatively impacted public understandings of gender and sexuality, LGBTQIA+ identities, and sexual and reproductive health and rights and justice,” added Dr Angelique Nixon, who serves as the Director, CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice, Trinidad and Tobago, and Senior Lecturer and researcher, Institute for Gender and Development Studies, University of West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.
Progress on SDGs is off the track: It is time for accountability
Only 5 years are left to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But progress on the right to health, gender equality and human rights is off the track by miles – in fact it is receding in certain aspects. Gender disparities significantly impact health outcomes and evidence shows that SDG-3 goal of ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all – at all ages – cannot be realised without addressing SDG-5 on gender equality.
Essential health services must include sexual and reproductive health services – including safe abortion and post-abortion care, menstrual health hygiene, and mental health services, with particular attention to women, adolescent girls, persons with disability, indigenous peoples, gender diverse communities, older people, young people, migrant workers, refugees, people living with HIV, sex workers, people who use drugs, among others. They must also include all health and social support services for survivors of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence.
However, the rise of anti-rights and anti-gender ideologies, including threat posed by the regressive Geneva Consensus Declaration, and poor domestic resource allocation on health and gender, are contributing to reversal in progress.
Angelique Nixon was speaking in a SHE & Rights (Sexual Health with Equity & Rights) session co-hosted by Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI), International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP 2025), Family Planning News Network (FPNN), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR), Asia Pacific Media Alliance for Health and Development (APCAT Media) and CNS.
Connecting the dots
Dr Angelique Nixon rightly remarked that these anti-rights and anti-gender pushes have influenced public discourse and legislation and restricted human rights and spread fear-based narratives. This anti-rights push is being escalated by the government actions in the United States that have global impacts. We are seeing more of far-right leaning politics that is anti-rights, anti-migrants, anti-gender, and in climate change denial. These anti-rights and anti-gender forces maintain social and political power and obstruct any attempts that challenge their stance. It is important to connect these dots because they have direct impacts on health systems.
Perpetuating dangerous trends globally
Dr Nixon gives the example of the Caribbean and Latin American region where these anti-rights and anti-gender pushes are “fuelling conservative religious perspectives that emerge from colonial-era gender and sexual norms and laws. They also oppose the movements to decriminalise them. LGBTQIA+ discrimination and stigma have been exacerbated by US-based catholic and evangelical organisations who have poured resources into the Caribbean and Latin America to promote anti-LGBTQIA+ ideologies and prevent gender equity advancements.”
“Global North conservative organisations, such as ‘Agenda Europe’ and the so-called ‘World Congress of Families’ have funded anti-gender movements and laws internationally and held (regressive) conferences in the Caribbean, namely in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. Their agendas include opposition to divorce, birth control, same-sex marriage and abortion. In the Caribbean, anti-gender pushes have blocked the provision of comprehensive sexuality education and intensified violence against LGBTQIA+ people and limited access to sexual and reproductive healthcare,” said Dr Nixon.
CNS Editor’s Note: “The ‘World Congress of Families’ is one of the key driving forces behind the U.S. Religious Right’s global export of homophobia and sexism. It pursues an international anti-choice, anti-LGBTQIA+ agenda, seeking to promote conservative ideologies and codify them in regressive laws and policies. Likewise ‘Agenda Europe’ is a pan-European, Christian-extremist network that seeks to promote conservative extremist ideas, which include limiting the right to abortion and restricting same-sex marriages.
Dr Nixon shared that over the last few years there have been various successes in advancing decriminalisation of same sex sexual practices across the Eastern Caribbean region- like in Barbados in particular, where there has even been protection in the workplace based on sexual orientation.
“However, the latest court ruling in Trinidad and Tobago to recriminalise same sex sexual practices and make them illegal is a grave, disappointing, and devastating blow to human rights. In 2018, the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago had decriminalised same sex sexual practices saying that same sex sexual practices which are consensual were not against the law and were a constitutional right. However, in March 2025, the Court of Appeal overturned this landmark decision, making same sex marriages illegal. It has far-reaching impacts on how we protect rights, citizenship, and people who are marginalised, especially in the context of these anti-gender and anti-rights pushes,” she added.
Do not leave transgender persons behind
For Abhina Aher, a noted transgender rights activist and Managing Director, TWEET Foundation (India), when we refer to gender equality and human rights, we have to speak for all gender diverse communities, and not leave anyone behind. This becomes all the more important for those who are being left behind due to their sexual or gender expressions or identities, socio-economic status, and the separation they face from the broader society. They face multiple stigma and discrimination that impacts their health and social welfare at multiple levels. Their mental health issues, including self stigma, are undermined in discourses around HIV and sexual and reproductive health, says Abhina.
And as Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane of Johannesburg Society of Advocates succinctly puts it: sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice (SRHRJ) is about more than access to contraception or maternal care. It is about the right of every individual to make informed decisions about their bodies, free from violence, coercion, or discrimination. When people—especially women and girls—are denied these rights, they become more vulnerable to HIV and other health risks.
We need to unite and collectively demand bold structural changes for a socially just and ecologically sustainable feminist world order. The call is clear: We want development justice now.
(The writer is a feminist, health and development justice advocate, and an award-winning founding Managing Editor and Executive Director of Citizen News Service)
