On Saturday 4 December 2021, Dr Leticia Bonifaz Alfonzo’s article 'Esta lucha es mía' (‘This Struggle Is Mine’) [1] was published in the ‘El Universal’, a Mexican newspaper of nation-wide circulation. The article concludes:

Is there room in the feminist movement for recognition of trans women? Yes. Why don’t they stay within the struggle of the LGBTTTI+ population? Because the discrimination they suffer is intersectional. It is this minority, within another minority, that has been seen as a threat to the feminist movement, a threat which might even imply the erasure of the category ‘woman’. I do not share this point of view.

This, after insinuating that we are exclusionary and unwilling to ‘share the experiences and outcomes’ of our struggle because we defend women’s sex-based rights and oppose the conversion of feminism into a ragbag for all social struggles that ever were or will be.

We know that many people refuse to see how the gradual replacement, in legislative regimes all over the world, of the material category of ‘sex’ with the subjective category of ‘gender identity’ leads to a legal erasure of women [2]. And not just legal erasure: linguistic as well, as is evidenced by the fact that in certain circles ‘woman’ and ‘mother’ are now dirty words, and the preferred terms for us are crude expressions such as ‘vulva-owners’ or ‘gestating persons’. Leticia Bonifaz belongs to the group of people who do not see any of this.

Such a difference of opinion would be of little consequence were it not that Bonifaz was elected, on 9 November 2020 [3], to the committee of independent experts who monitor the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) [4].

This international treaty, adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly and binding for the States party to it, represents the first declaration of specific rights for women. It was adopted because ‘extensive discrimination against women’ continues to exist, despite various instruments promoting equality of rights of men and women.

In its very first article, CEDAW states:

'For the purposes of the present Convention, the term "discrimination against women" shall mean any distinction, exclusion or restriction made ON THE BASIS OF SEX [our emphasis] which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field'.

And in Article 5(a), it states:

'States Parties shall take all appropriate measures: (a) To modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes OR ON STEREOTYPED ROLES FOR MEN AND WOMEN' [our emphasis].

Finally, it is relevant to call to mind that in Article 10 CEDAW declares:

'States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in order to ensure to them equal rights with men in the field of education and in particular to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women:

(c) The elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women at all levels and in all forms of education […]

(g) The same opportunities to participate actively in sports and physical education.'

The Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights [5] is an international document drawn up in response to efforts, by pressure groups financed by multimillionaire capital [6], to open up the categories of ‘woman’, ‘lesbian’, and ‘mother’ to men who say they have a female gender identity. It is not gratuitous that this Declaration is expressly based on CEDAW (among other international human rights instruments) in order to re-affirm that women’s rights are based on the category of sex; to re-affirm the nature of motherhood as an exclusively female status; and to re-affirm women’s rights to political participation on the basis of sex and to the same opportunities as men to participate actively in sports and physical education, among other rights.

If Dr Bonifaz wishes to celebrate that every individual has his or her own personality, this is not a matter of concern: we too defend the right to free development of personality, and accordingly we fervently oppose the imposition of sexist stereotypes (which, incidentally, both CEDAW and the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights also seek to combat).

If Dr Bonifaz, as the Mexican member of the CEDAW Committee, wishes us to appreciate ‘the non-binary, the non-dichotomous, that which flows, that which crosses boundaries’: so far so good. The Declaration, the signatories to the Declaration, and we abolitionist feminists all recognise that sex-role stereotypes are prejudicial, and we know that the right of persons to dress however they like, and present themselves however they wish, is compatible with women’s sex-based rights.

If Dr Bonifaz’s concern is for ‘the LGBTTTI+ population’, she may be interested to know that the Declaration states as follows:

'Sexual orientation rights are necessary in eliminating discrimination against those who are sexually attracted to persons of the same sex. Rights relating to sexual orientation are compatible with women’s sex-based rights, and are necessary to enable lesbians, whose sexual orientation is towards other women, to fully exercise their sex-based rights'.

However:

'the concept of ‘gender identity’ makes socially constructed stereotypes, which organize and maintain women’s inequality, into essential and innate conditions, thereby undermining women’s sex-based rights'.

If Dr Bonifaz would like us to once again present the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights to her, and explain to her, point by point, how the rights upheld by CEDAW are at odds with transgenderism, we will be very happy to do so. We will be delighted to be able to show her how the demands of gender-identity advocates place at risk several articles of the convention which it is her responsibility to watch over. As well as Article 1, which we have already mentioned, (discrimination ON THE BASIS OF SEX, ON THE BASIS OF BEING WOMEN), we can point to Article 4.2 (the social function of maternity and the interest of the children as the primordial consideration); Article 10(d) (opportunities to benefit from scholarships and other study grants); Articles 7 and 8 (right to vote and be elected in domestic and international public, private, and non-governmental organisations); Article 10(g) (measures to ensure women have the same opportunities as men to participate actively in sports and physical education); Article 11(c) (the right to free choice of profession and employment and job security); Article 11(d) (the right to equal remuneration and treatment as men); Article 6 (women’s right to a life without sex-trafficking or exploitation of prostitution); and Article 16(b) (the right to freely choose a spouse).

Likewise, we abolitionist feminists can demonstrate to Dr Bonifaz how the transgenderist agenda undermines several of the general recommendations [7] of the CEDAW Committee itself, such as Recommendations 19 and 35 (different forms of men’s violence against women); Recommendation 14 (protection against female genital mutilation); Recommendation 24 (right to better physical and mental health); or Recommendation 36 (the right of girls and women to education).

Transgendersim and gender-identity ideology are not only a very obvious form of discrimination against women, they also make a mess of the temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between men and women (referred to in Article 4 of the Convention) and are completely contrary to substantive equality for women, given that they impede women’s access to the same opportunities and benefits men have both in law and in practice.

‘Experiences and outcomes are shared,’ says Bonifaz. Yes; but how do we leap from that to the notion that now all women and girls must share their exclusive spaces (changing rooms, prisons, sports categories, political movement, domestic violence refuges, lesbian groups …) with men who make stereotyped roles their identity? Why does intersectionality mean that now feminism has to be centred in the supposed rights of men who claim a female gender identity? And that lesbians have to regard such men as part of their political struggle and love life? Is Dr Bonifaz in agreement with these implications of her position, so postmodern and so inclusive?

It is truly surprising that Dr Bonifaz, the CEDAW expert, should publicly endorse opinions so completely incompatible with the international convention she is tasked with defending. The undersigned, abolitionist feminist women and groups in Mexico, other Latin American countries, and the rest of the world, question why Leticia Bonifaz a year ago accepted the important responsibility of overseeing compliance with CEDAW when, as is evident from ‘This Struggle Is Mine’, she is in profound disagreement with its principles and reason for existing. Are there not other channels available for the promotion of ‘all rights for all persons’?

REFERENCES:

1. https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/opinion/leticia-bonifaz-alfonzo/esta-lucha-es-mia
2. https://contraelborradodelasmujeres.org
3. https://www.gob.mx/sre/prensa/la-dra-leticia-bonifaz-alfonzo-fue-electa-como-experta-en-el-comite-para-la-eliminacion-de-la-discriminacion-contra-la-mujer-comite-cedaw?idiom=es
4. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CEDAW.aspx
5. https://www.womensdeclaration.com/en/declaration-womens-sex-based-rights-full-text/
6. https://www.the11thhourblog.com
7. https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/recommendations/recomm.htm