UN Expert: Vilification of Parents Protecting Children From Gender Transition is “Disturbing” 

Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls
  • Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women & Girls, speaks up for parents who have been left “vilified, ostracised or even separated from their children” because of their concerns about child “transition”
     
  • UN Expert joined by detransitioner Chloe Cole, urging governments to empower parents to protect children from life-altering medical interventions

GENEVA (8 September 2025) – The UN Expert on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, has issued a moving appeal to governments to end the vilification of parents who protect their children from “gender transition” procedures. 

Speaking via video, Alsalem warned against the “dangerous narrative” that children can make fully informed adult-level decisions about their health. “Parents and legal guardians must be part of these processes from the very beginning. Yet, in many countries, parents who do not want to endorse a ‘gender-affirmative’ approach to their children’s distress have too often been left unsupported at best, or vilified, ostracized, or even separated from their children. This is very disturbing…” she said.  

"...parents who do not want to endorse a ‘gender-affirmative’ approach to their children’s distress have too often been... vilified, ostracized, or even separated from their children."

- Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women & Girls

Addressing a panel coordinated by ADF International at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Alsalem was joined by detransitioner and campaigner Chloe Cole, who urged global leaders to strengthen the role of parents and shield children from harmful medical interventions and ideological pressures. 

“I appeal to you: we must ensure these failures are never again repeated and that childhood is truly protected as the fragile and yet beautiful part of life that it is,” said Cole, who underwent gender transition procedures as a teenager before detransitioning. 

An Appeal to Empower Parents

Cole, a detransitioner and youth activist from California, described undergoing medical interventions – including puberty blockers and testosterone starting at age 13, and a double mastectomy at 15 – before her body and brain were fully developed. 

“My mom and dad have always advocated fiercely for my safety and health, but were not empowered to fulfill their irreplaceable role as guardians of my well-being. On the contrary, their protective instincts were undermined by systems and professionals who claimed expertise but withheld the truth. They stood no chance when doctors gave them the false ultimatum of choosing between losing a daughter to suicide or having a living ‘son’,” Cole told State and UN representatives gathered at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. 

Cole’s testimony was featured as part of a UN Human Rights Council side event titled “Empowering Parents to Protect Children’s Health and Well-being,” co-hosted by the Permanent Mission of Hungary to the UN in Geneva and ADF International, with sponsorship from the Permanent Missions of The Gambia, Algeria, Argentina, Qatar, Vaunatu, and Uzbekistan; as well as Non-Governmental Organisations including Juristes pour l’Enfance, Asociacion la Familia Importa, Latter Day Saints Charities, the Center for Fundamental Rights, and The Heritage Foundation. 

Adding to the call, Giorgio Mazzoli, Director of UN Advocacy at ADF International, reminded participants that international law recognizes the family as the “fundamental group unit of society”:

“The family must not be viewed as a competitor to the State, nor parents as obstacles to children’s rights. They are the children’s first and best guardians—entrusted by nature and recognized by law.”

Mazzoli called on governments to implement policies that respect parental guidance in education, healthcare, and identity-related decisions, ensuring that children receive care in the context of loving, informed families. 

The panel also included Dr. Fanni Lajkó of Hungary’s Center for Fundamental Rights, who highlighted Hungary’s best practices for strengthening families, including reduced household costs, subsidized home loans, and generous child-raising allowances.  

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Pictured: Reem Alsalem; Chloe Cole; Giorgio Mazzoli

UN Expert Report Calls on Governments to Prohibit “Gender Transition” for Children  

UN undermines parents' rights by pushing gender ideology.
  • UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls calls on states to ensure the terms “women” and “girls” refer exclusively to biological females, and to enshrine this definition in law.
  • Report further calls for a prohibition on the social, legal, and medical “transition” of children who claim to experience gender dysphoria, among other safeguards
UN undermines parents' rights by pushing gender ideology.

GENEVA (25 June 2025) – A new report presented today by Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, warns that states are failing to address both persistent and newly emerging forms of sex-based violence, including in relation to gender ideology.

The report, entitled “Sex-based violence against women and girls: new frontiers and emerging issues,” urges governments to reaffirm legal protections for women and girls based on their female biological sex, in accordance with their international human rights obligations. 

In response to an “international push to delink the definition of men and women from their biological sex,” the report outlines concerns around the removal of sex-specific language and its negative impact on the legal recognition and protection of women’s rights. Bringing together submissions from 180 stakeholders, including ADF International, the report holds that these developments result in violations of women and girls’ human rights. 

The report calls for states to “ensure that the terms ‘women’ and ‘girls’ are only used to describe biological females and that such a meaning is recognized in law.” Further, it urges the prohibition of the prohibition of legal and social transitioning of children who claim to experience gender dysphoria, “as well as their subjugation to experimental, irreversible medical interventions related to gender reassignment.”  

“This report delivers a timely and urgent message as international awareness solidifies around the dangerous human rights implications of gender ideology, especially its impact on the well-being and healthy development of children. The report underscores how the erosion of legal clarity around sex, an objective and immutable biological reality, has had devastating implications for the dignity, safety and rights of women and girls."

- Giorgio Mazzoli, Director of UN Advocacy at ADF International

 

“This report delivers a timely and urgent message as international awareness solidifies around the dangerous human rights implications of gender ideology, especially its impact on the well-being and healthy development of children,” responded Giorgio Mazzoli, Director of UN Advocacy at ADF International. “The report underscores how the erosion of legal clarity around sex, an objective and immutable biological reality, has had devastating implications for the dignity, safety and rights of women and girls. As the Special Rapporteur told governments at the UN Human Rights Council today, ‘you cannot protect what you cannot define’. We urge all States to act without delay to implement the report’s recommendations”. 

Risks of puberty blockers to children highlighted by UN Expert

The report states: “The long-lasting and harmful consequences of social and medical transitioning of children, including girls, are being increasingly documented. They include: persistence or intensification of psychological distress; persistence of body dissatisfaction; infertility, early onset of the menopause and an increase in the risk of osteoporosis; sexual dysfunction; and loss of the ability to breastfeed in cases of breast mastectomy (to mention a few).” 

It further notes: “That has rightly led several countries, such as Brazil, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to change course and restrict children’s access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery on sexual and reproductive organs. Allowing children access to such procedures not only violates their right to safety, security and freedom from violence, but also disregards their human right to the highest standards of health and goes against their best interests.”  

The Special Rapporteur also explicitly calls for the protection of single-sex spaces for the protection of women, including in prisons and healthcare settings. 

Submitted under Human Rights Council resolution 50/7, the report draws from state submissions, recent case law, and existing human rights frameworks, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).  

A global push against harmful gender ideology

This publication follows a recent decision by the US Supreme Court in United States of America v. Skrmetti to uphold a Tennessee law protecting children from gender-ideology experiments, demonstrating a global shift toward dismantling gender ideology. 

In the United Kingdom, the closure of London’s Tavistock Clinic and the publication of the Cass Review signaled a clear rejection of gender ideology experimentation on young people. 

As highlighted in a recent amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court from 17 international parental rights organisations, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Hungary, and Slovakia are among the list of European countries that have taken legislative, judicial, or administrative steps to protect minors from gender ideology.

In Latin America, Chile moved to ban gender “transition” for children in May, following bans in Argentina and Brazil.

“Governments have an obligation under international law to eliminate all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls. This requires urgent and concerted action to reverse the harms caused by the ongoing erasure of their sex-based rights under the pervasive influence of gender ideology. Practices of so-called ‘gender transition’ for minors must be prohibited under the law, and every effort made to uphold the dignity, integrity, and future for every woman and child,” Mazzoli added.

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