This week, The Advocate published an article that I’d say is frankly terrifying. The headline? “U.N. draft report uses pseudoscience to claim gender dysphoria is ‘socially contagious’.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
The report in question comes from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights – the very body many of us believed would defend the rights of marginalised groups, not undermine them. Yet here it is, in black and white: a draft report that recycles long-debunked pseudoscience and reframes trans existence as a threat to women and girls.
As a trans woman, I can’t describe how chilling this is. This is more betrayal. This is more being ‘thrown under the bus’ for our already marginalised section of society.
What the Report Claims
The report:
- Repeats the junk theory that gender dysphoria is “socially contagious”
- Equates the advancement of trans rights with violence against women and girls
- Praises the UK Supreme Court decision that excludes trans women from the legal definition of “woman”
- Recommends banning gender-affirming care for all minors
- Implies that recognising trans people legally and socially erodes the category of women
It folds trans people into a narrative of danger, as if our very existence is harmful to others, or society as a whole.
Fighting a War on Multiple Fronts
Most of us already knew we were in a political fight: in the courts, in Parliament, in medicine, even in classrooms. But we believed some institutions still stood on the side of truth and dignity. The UN, we thought, would have our backs. This report shows that we can’t take even that for granted.
Trans people are being dehumanised through both direct attacks and creeping institutional erosion & propaganda.
And now, we’re watching those attacks echo through the highest levels of international policy-making , through a body that should know better.
The Science Is Clear; This Is Not About Evidence
Every major medical association worldwide (from the WHO to the American Academy of Paediatrics) supports gender-affirming care as medically necessary, evidence-based, and life-saving. The theory that trans identity is a social trend has been thoroughly discredited. The data doesn’t lie… but this report does.
So why is this happening?
Because trans people are politically useful scapegoats.
Because reactionary movements need enemies.
And because even supposedly neutral institutions are not immune to pressure, lobbying, and moral panic.
The Wrong Groups Are Being Harmed
It’s not exaggerating to say that reports like this one feed violence.
They justify bans on healthcare, exclusion from sport, denial of identity documents, and abuse in everyday life. They fuel a narrative in which trans people – especially trans women and girls – are seen as threats rather than people.
And worst of all, they let the real culprits of violence off the hook: patriarchy, misogyny, and systems of power that treat all marginalised bodies as disposable.
We Must Name This Moment
We are not just experiencing a slight wave of anti-trans sentiment, we are living through a coordinated, international effort to erase trans people from legal, medical, and social recognition. And this report is evidence that those efforts are being taken seriously in places that should be on our side.
We need to name this what it is:
This is genocide*.
Under international law, genocide isn’t just about mass killing. It’s also about policies and actions that aim to eliminate a group from public life; to erase their ability to live freely, access healthcare, be recognised by law, or even exist visibly.
This UN draft report, by echoing pseudoscience and aligning with anti-trans legal rulings, normalises and legitimises that erasure. It lays the groundwork for a world where trans people, especially trans youth, are denied care, dignity, and ultimately, survival.
We must be brave enough to name what is happening.
Because naming it is the first act of resistance.
Summary
The institutions tasked with protecting human rights continue to fail us, and history is repeating itself on a huge, worldwide scale.
We are not a threat.
We are not contagious.
We are not disposable.
We are people.
We are loved.
We are fighting to live when we should be thriving.
*What Counts as Genocide?
Under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention, genocide includes acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, including:
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
- Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
While often associated with mass killing, genocide also includes systematic efforts to erase a group’s ability to exist – medically, legally, culturally, or socially.
In this context, policies and rhetoric that:
- ban gender-affirming healthcare
- deny legal recognition
- isolate trans people from education, sport, or public life
- and normalise social stigma or surveillance
…all contribute to the conditions that meet the definition of genocide.
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