Introduction

A bill is pending in the U.S. Congress called the Global Respect Act. The U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI USA) is gravely concerned that this legislation, if enacted, will be used to bar feminists all over the world from entering the United States. The purpose of this paper is to explain the reasoning behind this concern.

In 2004, the United Kingdom adopted the Gender Recognition Act or, as it is commonly known, the GRA. This law permits “a person of either gender … [to] make an application for a gender recognition certificate on the basis of – (a) living in the other gender, or (b) having changed gender under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom.” It is generally understood that the purpose of this law was to enable same-sex couples to marry, as same-sex marriage was not legal in the U.K. at the time. 

There are, as of the time of writing, numerous campaigns to repeal the GRA on the ground that allowing men to be legally recognized as women has caused numerous harms to women and children. You can read about some of these efforts here and here and here. For now, the U.K.’s GRA remains the law.

Stateside, the Global Respect Act passed in the House of Representatives in February 2022 and is now before the Senate. The American GRA is not the same as the U.K. GRA – it does not, for example, create a “gender recognition certificate” – but we believe that it is not a coincidence that its acronym is GRA.

The American GRA was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on May 25, 2021 by David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island. Representative Cicilline was also responsible for introducing the so-called Equality Act in the U.S. House in 2021. This bill would eradicate the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls by redefining the word sex to include “gender identity” throughout U.S. civil rights law. This is a video of Julia Beck’s 2019 testimony concerning the Violence Against Women Act, where she defends the right of women to access female only spaces. Starting at around 3:28 of the video, Representative Cicilline speaks about her with blatant contempt and disdain, and accuses her of “deciding the sexual orientation and gender identity of every person in our country.” This man’s hatred of women, and of lesbians in particular, is fully on display. 

The American GRA, which will be addressed in detail below, contains some great provisions that would materially benefit the rights of same-sex attracted people of both sexes, which are under threat globally. It would, for example, bar entry to the United States of people who engage in the torture, prolonged detention, or disappearance of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. There are far too many harrowing stories, for example, of lesbian individuals and couples being tortured and murdered because of their sexual orientation. This is a story from earlier this year about a lesbian couple from Texas being tortured, dismembered, and killed in Mexico. This story about a young woman in Cameroon discusses the fact that “[f]rom South Africa to India and Ecuador, gay people are subjected to ‘corrective rape’ by their families, strangers and vigilantes who believe that homosexuality is a mental illness that needs to be ‘cured.’” This attack on a lesbian couple took place on a bus in London in 2019. 

The U.S. is not immune to anti-lesbian and anti-gay violence, of course. This attack took place on the New York City subway in 2018. The point here, though, is that homophobic and lesbophobic violence and torture are rampant all over the world, and that barring entry into the United States of people who engage in it is a good thing.

If the bill were limited to barring entry into the U.S. of people who engage in homophobic and lesbophobic torture, prolonged detention, or disappearance, it would have our support. The problem with this particular bill, however, is that it goes further. In addition to barring entry into the U.S. of people who engage in actual human rights abuses, the bill would also bar entry into the U.S. of anyone who “is responsible for or complicit in … other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of [LGBTQI] persons.”

In the U.K., the Green Party was presented with a motion to suspend or expel signatories to the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights from the party. That motion was ruled out of order on March 5, during the party’s spring conference. However, only 57.3 percent of voting members voted not to have the motion be heard, meaning that a full 42.7 percent of voting members voted in favor of the motion proceeding. WDI USA is gravely concerned that the American GRA could easily be used to justify barring entry into the U.S. of signatories to the Declaration. In fact, that may have been its original intent.

Bill Text and Analysis

The stated purpose of the American GRA is “[t]o impose sanctions on foreign persons responsible for violations of internationally recognized human rights against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) individuals, and for other purposes.” 

The bill does not contain any definitions of the words lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex. Representative Cicilline appears to think that Americans simply know what these words mean, and that we all share the same understandings of their definitions. When the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the bill in February 2022, 221 Democratic representatives and six Republican representatives appear to have made the same assumption.

Of course, everyone knows what the words lesbian, gay, and bisexual mean – they relate to people who are attracted to members of the same sex or to both sexes. Most Americans are probably not familiar with the term “intersex.” According to the Intersex Society of North America, this is “a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.” All members of each of these groups (lesbians, gay males, bisexuals, and persons with intersex conditions) deserve protection from human rights abuses. The fact that neither “transgender” nor “queer” is defined in this bill is extremely alarming. These words are never defined with any clarity and most Americans have no idea what they mean. Enshrining the acronym “LGBTQI” in law, and treating it as a monolith, harms all of the acronym’s constituent groups other than the T and the Q which again, are not defined.

The bill goes on to make the following findings:

(1) The dignity, freedom, and equality of all human beings are fundamental to a thriving global community.

(2) The rights to life, liberty, and security of the person, the right to privacy, and the right to freedom of expression and association are fundamental human rights.

(3) An alarming trend of violence directed at LGBTQI individuals around the world continues.

(4) Approximately one-third of all countries have laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relations, and many have enacted policies or laws that would further target LGBTQI individuals.

(5) Every year thousands of individuals around the world are targeted for harassment, attack, arrest, and murder on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

(6) Those who commit crimes against LGBTQI individuals often do so with impunity, and are not held accountable for their crimes.

(7) In many instances police, prison, military, and civilian government authorities have been directly complicit in abuses aimed at LGBTQI citizens, including arbitrary arrest, torture, and sexual abuse.

(8) Celebrations of LGBTQI individuals and communities, such as film festivals, Pride events, and demonstrations are often forced underground due to inaction on the part of, or harassment by, local law enforcement and government officials, in violation of freedoms of assembly and expression.

(9) Laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relations severely hinder access to HIV/AIDS treatment, information, and preventive measures for LGBTQI individuals and families.

(10) Many countries are making positive developments in the protection of the basic human rights of LGBTQI individuals.

We agree with all of the bill’s findings to the extent that they apply to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and to people with intersex conditions. Without knowing what the words “transgender” and “queer” mean, we cannot take a position on whether we agree with the bill’s findings with respect to people who claim to identify as falling within those categories.

Section 3 of the bill is titled “Sanctions on Individuals Responsible for Violations of Human Rights Against LGBTQI People.” It would obligate the President to transmit a list of “foreign people” to the “appropriate congressional committees” (which include the House Committee on Armed Services, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Homeland Security, and Committee on the Judiciary, as well as the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Committee on Foreign Relations, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, and Committee on the Judiciary). 

The phrase “foreign people” is not defined with reference to any particular geographic location or citizenship status. Does it include lawful permanent residents of the U.S. who are not U.S. citizens? Could it include people who were born overseas and have become naturalized U.S. citizens? Individuals with dual citizenship? What about Americans living abroad? The fact that this bill is aimed at so-called “foreign people” without defining that term further fuels our speculation that it is aimed at signatories to the Declaration (setting aside the fact that the phrase “foreign people,” without explanation, comes off as uncomfortably xenophobic). 

The people on the list must, “based on credible information, including information obtained by other countries or by nongovernmental organizations that monitor violations of human rights,” have engaged in a specified list of activities with respect to so-called “LGBTQI” people. In order to be placed on the list, a person must be “responsible for or complicit in, with respect to persons based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics,” one or more of the following:

  • Torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment;
  • Prolonged detention without charges and trial; or 
  • Causing the disappearance of such persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of such persons.

The bill does not say what constitutes “credible information,” or how the President might demonstrate that the information used to justify placement on the list is credible. Must the President make public the information on which he or she is relying, or is it sufficient for the President simply to state that he or she is in possession of “credible information?” Because the information can  be provided by nongovernmental organizations, presumably, the President could consider information coming from organizations like the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, or Stonewall in making these determinations.

The same section inexplicably lumps sexual orientation and “gender identity” with “sex characteristics,” again, without defining any of these terms. We have already discussed the fact that the bill does not define “gender identity.” What does “sex characteristics” refer to?

A person can also be placed on the list if he or she is involved in “[an]other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of such persons.” Finally, a person can earn a spot on the list if he or she “acted as an agent of or on behalf of a foreign person in a matter relating to any of the above activities.” The bill does not define the word “agent.”

These are the two provisions that we find to be the most chilling, and the strongest evidence that this bill is targeted at Declaration signatories and, if it is not targeted at Declaration signatories, that it could easily be used to bar entry to the U.S. of Declaration signatories based on our commitment to the sex-based rights of women and girls because a commitment to the sex-based rights of women and girls is routinely characterized as a denial of the rights of people who claim to “identify as” “trans” or “queer.” We are also gravely concerned that a U.S. signatory could be placed on the list on the basis of the “agent” provision. U.S. signatories cannot be placed on the list on the basis of any other provision of the bill because presumably, we are not “foreign people” as far as the U.S. government is concerned. But if we can be characterized as acting “as an agent of or on behalf of a foreign person,” that could easily provide a rationale for placing U.S. signatories on the list.

The list would be made public via the Federal Register, but the President may also maintain a classified list upon making the following determinations:

  • It is vital for the national security interests of the U.S. to do so and
  • The use of such a classified list would not undermine the overall purpose of the bill to publicly identify foreign persons who engaged in the conduct listed above in order to increase accountability for such conduct.

This means that the list would be made publicly available to anyone, and also makes this bill’s purpose clear: to “publicly identify” persons who engaged in the conduct listed in order to “increase accountability” for such conduct. To be clear, we are perfectly comfortable holding accountable people who engage in actual human rights abuses. Our concern is that this is Representative Cicilline’s way of saying “TERFs, you WILL be held publicly accountable” for committing the crime of fighting for the sex-based rights of women and girls.

Notably, although the list itself is to be made publicly available, there are no provisions in this bill requiring that the people on the list THEMSELVES be notified. Anyone deemed worthy of being on the list could easily be on the list without knowing it. In order to know that one is on the list, one would have to first know about this law, then find the section of the Federal Register where the list is published, and then check it every day to see if you are on it. Very few people in the U.S., let alone anywhere else in the world, even know what the Federal Register is, let alone where to find it.

If the President chooses to maintain a classified list, he or she would be required to provide to the appropriate congressional committees notice of a justification for maintaining it.

Next, people can be removed from the list if the President finds any of the following:

  • New, credible information is discovered confirming that the person did not in fact engage in the activity for which the person was included in the list initially
  • The person has been prosecuted appropriately for the activity in which the person engaged
  • The person has credibly demonstrated a significant change in behavior, paid an appropriate consequence for the activities in which the person engaged, or has credibly committed to not engage in the activities listed above.

It is not at all clear what constitutes an “appropriate prosecution.” If, hypothetically, a Scottish signatory was charged with a hate crime for the crime of tweeting an image of a suffrage ribbon and the charges were subsequently dropped, would that constitute an “appropriate prosecution?” If, hypothetically, a Welsh signatory was detained for thirteen hours on suspicion of having committed a hate crime, while her home was searched and her feminist books seized, would that be enough to justify her removal from the list?

The section on demonstrating a significant change in behavior, paying appropriate consequences for activities engaged in, and credibly committing to not engage in the activities is perhaps even more chilling. How much penance, exactly, must women demonstrate in order to justify removal from the list? Would publicly renouncing the Declaration be sufficient? Must women grovel for forgiveness as well?

The bill contains some relatively innocuous provisions regarding the President’s handling of requests from Congressional leaders to include particular individuals in the list, and then gets to the heart of the matter. 

Under this bill, all individuals placed on the list and each immediate family member of said individuals are inadmissible to the U.S., ineligible to receive a visa or other documentation to enter the U.S., and otherwise ineligible to be admitted into the U.S. or receive any other benefit under the Immigration and Nationality Act (the law that governs immigration in the U.S.).

Any visa that had previously been granted to any person on the list or to any such person’s immediate family members is to be revoked, effectively immediately, regardless of when it was granted, and any other valid visa or entry documentation that the person possesses is to be automatically canceled.

The bill then states that it is the “sense of Congress that the President should impose additional targeted sanctions with respect to” people on the list in order to “push for accountability” for “flagrant” denials of the right to life, liberty, or the security of “LGBTQI” persons.

The bill does not enumerate any examples of such sanctions. We do not know, for example, if the President could freeze the U.S. bank accounts of people on the list or if the President could pressure people’s own governments to punish them. The President has authority over the U.S. Office of Customs and Border Protection. Could this agency, in addition to refusing people entry to the U.S., also detain them in immigration detention facilities? This is entirely plausible as a practical matter. A person attempting to enter the U.S. on a visa, without knowing that he or she (or his or her family member) had been placed on the list, could easily be stopped by customs officials at the airport and detained. 

There are certain exceptions to the general rule that people on the list be denied entry into the U.S.:

  • Exceptions for national security purposes, such as when a person is conducting intelligence or law enforcement activities on behalf of the U.S.
  • Exceptions to comply with international obligations, such as agreements that the U.S. has entered into with the United Nations
  • Exceptions for immediate family members who are determined to have a reasonable fear of persecution based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics; race, religion, or nationality; or political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

Under the bill, the President would have the authority to waive the application of sanctions if he or she finds that it is in the national security interests of the U.S. to do so, strongly suggesting that actual abusers of the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and intersex people, such as the Iranian regime that executed two gay men earlier this year, could be let off the hook. 

The President would be obligated to comply with various reporting requirements related to enforcement of the law.

Finally, the bill would obligate the State Department to track violence, criminalization and “restrictions on the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms in foreign countries based on actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics” and to submit a report to Congress “detailing past risks to LGBTQI individuals, with a summary on the differences between regions with respect to such risks.”

Context and History

In this section, we explain exactly why we are concerned that the bill will be used to justify banning entry to the U.S. of signatories to the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. 

As has already been explained, the U.K. Green Party recently considered a motion that would have explicitly suspended or expelled Declaration signatories from the party. After signing the Declaration, philosophy professor Kathleen Stock was subjected to what she has referred to as a “medieval experience of campus ostracism and protests.” Stock eventually felt compelled to leave her job at Sussex University because of the severity of the harassment.

So the idea that signing the Declaration ought to be grounds for punishment is not novel.

In the Introduction, we linked to Julia Beck’s testimony regarding the Violence Against Women Act and the importance of women-only spaces. That was in March of 2019. Here she is again, testifying against the Equality Act, which Representative Cicilline strongly supports, in April of that same year. Both hearings were before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, on which David Cicilline serves. He listened to her testimony on both occasions. Both times, she was introduced as a member of the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) and a registered Democrat. So we know that Representative Cicilline knew about WoLF, and therefore about the feminist critique of “gender identity,” at least as early as the spring of 2019.

Also in 2019, the Declaration was launched in the U.K. and what was then called the Women’s Human Rights Campaign, now Women’s Declaration International, was born. The U.S. chapter of that organization was launched in August of 2020 and has been actively promoting the Declaration in the U.S. ever since. 

In February 2021, Representative Cicilline tweeted: “In 2021, every American should be treated with dignity and respect. After so many years of waiting for full LGBTQ equality, the time has come. #EqualityAct.” Feminists in Struggle (FIST) responded: “The Equality Act needs to be amended to protect women & girls’ sex-based rights! It redefines “sex” as “gender identity,” thereby removing legal protections on the basis of sex. Ask your U.S. Representative & Senators to support FIST’s Feminist Amendments to Equality Act.” 

WDI USA does not support the FIST proposed amendments to the Equality Act. Nonetheless, we are including this information because we appreciate FIST’s contributions to the movement to protect women’s sex-based rights, and we think that this exchange provides additional evidence that Representative Cicilline has known about the feminist critique of “gender identity” for some time.

On March 12, 2021, the U.S. chapter sent a letter to Senate Majority Charles Schumer, signed by thousands of Declaration signatories all over the world, explaining how devastating the Equality Act would be to women and girls globally. We sent that letter directly to the email address of one of his staffers, who confirmed that she had received it and told us that she would make sure that he saw it. On March 16, 2021, we submitted written testimony opposing the Equality Act to every member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and received written confirmation that our testimony had been received. 

We did not share either our letter to Majority Leader Schumer or our Senate Judiciary Committee testimony directly with Representative Cicilline. However, Majority Leader Schumer is the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, and he supports the Equality Act. A majority of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are Democrats, and they all voted to pass the Equality Act in March 2021. We have no evidence that Representative Cicilline saw either our letter to Majority Leader Schumer or our Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. But it is very difficult for us to believe that he did not. Both our letter and our testimony quoted the Declaration at length. Two months later, Representative Cicilline introduced the American GRA in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Finally, Representative Cicilline has been endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign at least since his initial bid for Congress in 2010. 

For all of these reasons, we highly suspect that Representative Cicilline’s intention in introducing the American GRA was to target Declaration signatories and their families globally and bar them from entry into the United States. Even if that was not the intention of the bill, we are confident that this law, if enacted, could easily be used to accomplish that objective.

Conclusion

The American GRA has gotten almost no media attention. The Human Rights Campaign loves it, as do the President and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but most media outlets simply aren’t covering it.

A thorough analysis of how this bill might impinge on the Bill of Rights, other Constitutional provisions, and the rest of U.S. existing law would be a worthy endeavor. For example, the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association might be implicated, as well as the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The bill also arguably gives the President unchecked power, which could invoke the Separation of Powers doctrine. The purpose of this paper is simply to call attention to the bill itself and to WDI USA’s concerns with it, and to make it known to Declaration signatories all over the world that Representative David Cicilline does not want us here.

WDI USA thinks that this is without question one of the most anti-woman and authoritarian pieces of legislation that we have seen in our lifetimes. We speculate that it is intended to target Declaration signatories all over the world, and their families, and to bar them from entering the United States, and possibly worse. Even if that is not its intention, it will almost certainly be used to target Declaration signatories if it becomes law. We speculate that U.S. signatories could be targeted as well, by alleging that we are operating as “agents” of Declaration signatories outside the United States. We are proud to stand with our sisters all over the world and we refuse to bow down to this blatantly authoritarian, patriarchal attempt to silence and punish women for fighting for the sex-based rights of women and girls.

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