A petition urging top U.S. diplomats to ensure that a clarification that the term “gender” refers to the two biological sexes is not removed from international law has garnered over 130,000 signatures amid concerns that a pending U.N. convention will be used to “criminalize legitimate pro-life and pro-family beliefs, speech, or public policy.” Last week, the pro-life advocacy organization CitizenGO launched a petition addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S.
Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz and U.S. delegates to the U.N. highlighting concerns about the inclusion of gender ideology as part of the ongoing development of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity. As of Tuesday, as the UN General Assembly meets in New York City, the petition has garnered over 130,000 signatures.
The petition requests that U.S. diplomats “defend legal certainty in this text; specifically, to restore the definition of ‘gender’ that States have already agreed to, and to oppose the introduction of terms that lack strict guidelines to safeguard pro-life and pro-family citizens.” According to the petition, “In 1998, the Rome Statute settled this question.
Article 7(3) states that ‘the term ‘gender’ refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society.’ Article 7(1)(h) criminalizes persecution on gender grounds and refers back to that definition explicitly. This is not contested language — it is binding treaty law, ratified by the U.S. and by 120 other States.” “The draft articles for this Convention removed that definition,” the petition noted.
The draft articles, originally formulated in 2019, acknowledge that “the Commission decided not to include the definition of ‘gender’ found in article 7, paragraph 3, of the 1998 Rome Statute, thereby allowing the term to be applied for the purposes of the present draft articles based on an evolving understanding