Introduction
For several decades now, March has been the month during which women’s rights are celebrated. The original intent of this newsletter was to draw attention to the mixed and disturbing signals we observed in the troubled landscapes of March 2026.
However, as it was being finalized, the endless war in the Middle East worsened, and scenes of brutal destruction were witnessed in Lebanon. Meanwhile, as described by various analysts, the American empire was paralyzed and humiliated on the Iranian front. With a precarious ceasefire in place, Trump, whose popularity had hit rock bottom — equivalent to Nixon’s in the 1970s — decided to openly attack Pope Leo IV. Then, in a delusional gesture, he posted an AI-generated image of himself portrayed as Jesus, sparking condemnation from various quarters.
Amid this turmoil, Viktor Orbán suffered a resounding defeat in the Hungarian elections on Sunday, April 12. While the political implications of this outcome are still being debated, as El País correctly pointed out, it will, inevitably, negatively impact the ecosystem that propels anti-gender and anti-abortion politics in Europe and beyond. Later in the year, we will explore more in depth the antecedents and more recent factors explaining the defeat and its possible implications. For now, we offer a comprehensive compilation of articles and analyses of the electoral process and its results.
Above all, however, it is important to recall that the massive LGBTIQ+ Pride March of June 2025, which brought 200,000 people onto the streets of Budapest, is a key factor in better understanding the victory of Péter Magyar’s Tisza Party. In August, at the Regional Forum on Pending and Emerging Dialogues, we analyzed the lessons learned from this wide and successful protest. Now we share an excellent interview with Hungarian sociologist Judit Takács, published in October in which she examines why the June march was a significant turning point in the dynamics of resistance to the Orbán regime.
The “Women’s Month” in 2026
Numerous mixed signals were flagrant during the March 2026 celebrations because, as never before, this symbolic moment of feminist emancipation struggles was quite extensively appropriated by images, discourses, and figures from the far right.
On March 2, a few days after 150 girls were killed in the bombing of a school in Iran, Melania Trump presided over a UN Security Council session aimed at discussing the topic of “Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict”. In doing so, she shamelessly requested Council members “…to build a future generation of leaders who embrace peace through education.”
This troubling event could have been a sort of prelude to the Global Technology Summit she also presided over in late March, which brought together more than 40 first ladies to the White House, a list including Sara Netanyahu, Brigitte Macron, and Olena Zelenska, amongst others. At the event, Melania returned to the topic of childhood, urging participants to engage “in the mission of empowering children through technology and education. […]Making technology accessible to those who need assistance, and drafting innovative legislation to protect our children.”
In Argentina, the same blatant logic of co-optation was at play, as official statements made clear that the date is now the subject of fierce dispute. Milei´s official message praised “women’s freedom and efforts in building the nation”, criticizing what, in the past, had been “a noble cause used to prop up millionaire political structures, impose absurd ideological agendas, and divide Argentines.”
Similar content was posted on social media by figures and organizations from the ultra-conservative camp. The Spanish platform Citizen Go circulated a soft-focus image of women of various ages, accompanied by the following text: “Sisters, daughters, mothers who everywhere nurture life and change the world with truth and beauty. Only you can do what you do: XX.”
In Kenya, Charles Kanjama, president of the Christian Lawyers Association, an anti-gender and anti-abortion activist and frequent partner of Citizen Go, has also celebrated: “The women who keep our families together, the women whose social genius is the glue that binds our relationships, the women who bring harmony and elegance to our workplaces—our mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, relatives, and friends, colleagues and coworkers, neighbors and acquaintances.”
This flagrant disfigurement of 8M was, however, not exclusive to the far right. In Mexico, President Claudia Scheinbaum invoked women’s rights to link them to the role women now play in the Mexican Armed Forces. Her speech underlined that military women are the “weavers of the nation,” using a patriotic and militaristic tone that clashes with the emancipatory spirit imbued in the 8M celebration through decades of feminist struggles.
These signs of distortion and co-optation do not, however, mean that the date was not, once again, widely celebrated as a key remembrance of feminist uprisings and a commitment to gender justice. Among other assessments of these celebrations and protests, El País published a special supplement on 8M that illustrates the heterogeneity and vigor of feminist struggles—not only as a demand for rights and equality, but also as crucial bastions of resistance in neo-fascist times.
CSW 70: History Repeats Itself as Farce
Against this troubled backdrop, the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), held in New York from March 9 to 19, must be viewed as a relevant space for resistance, and its outcome as a cause for celebration. Since the mid-2000s, the annual CSW parallel sessions have been gradually taken over by ultra-conservative actors (“pro-family,” anti-gender, and opposed to abortion rights). Since 2024, C-FAM, the ultra-conservative U.S. NGO that monitors the UN, has organized the Conference on the State of Women and Family (or CSWF), a parallel event where these positions are advanced in high tones. And, since last year, CSW has become another stage for the showcasing of the ideology and coercive politics of Trump II. Both in 2025 and 2206, the US government has, in fact, funded some of these parallel events.
Under such conditions, this year, for the first time, the CSW’s Agreed Conclusions were not negotiated during the first week, but before and then adopted by a vote. As soon as the debates began, the United States delegation proposed numerous amendments to the text presented, mostly opposing the word “gender” and language on sexual and reproductive rights, but one aimed at eliminating a paragraph condemning unilateral measures, such as the imposition of tariffs. The approach adopted by the Plenary Chair, with the support of the board, was to vote the amendments en bloc. Under this rule, countries that might have voted with the U.S. on “gender matters” have abstained, because they strongly reject unilateral measures. Consequently, the text was adopted by a single vote against it, that of the U.S. itself.
However, a few days later, in a devious move, the United States presented a new draft resolution. The novel text, titled “Reaffirming the Language to Protect Women and Girls,” echoed the first Executive Order on “gender” issued by Trump´s second mandate on its inauguration day (January 20th, 2025).[1] The draft falsely claimed that Annex 4 of the Platform for Action of the Beijing Conference (1995) defined “gender” to mean “man and woman.”
Annex 4 is indeed an existing document, but it does not contain such a definition; it establishes that “gender” was to be used in the Platform of Action with the same ordinary meaning as it was used in other UN documents. The definition of gender as the male and female sexes was inscribed in the Beijing Platform of Action, but rather as a footnote requested by the Vatican to justify one of its reservations to the text. This new U.S. resolution draft was not, however, put to a vote because the Commission’s plenary approved a procedural motion against it, with only the U.S., Pakistan, and Chile voting against the decision, which meant a second defeat for Trump. The details of these convoluted dynamics can be checked in our compilation.
The vicious strategy used by the U.S. to undermine a previous UN-established consensus through fakery can be read as history repeating itself as farce. It bluntly evoked the very first attack on “gender” that took place on March 1995 in the last Preparatory Committee for Beijing, which has been the subject of quite extensive literature. [2] On the other hand, attacks on what was agreed upon in Vienna, Cairo, and Beijing, in the 1990s, was concurrently coming rom many other quarters in the parallel events. As, for example, in the session sponsored by the United States, Paraguay, and Argentina to revitalize the so-called Geneva Consensus.
Not least, these tensions have occurred against the backdrop of the deep crisis affecting the UN and multilateralism more broadly. As Argentine feminist lawyer Edurne Cardenas aptly analyzes in an exclusive article for SPW, what happened at the CSW should be understood as part of the broader disputes over the meanings of gender, rights, and democracy. These disputes call into question the normative and institutional foundations that, for decades, have underpinned the gains of feminist politics on the international stage. Precisely for this reason, she argues, despite the setbacks, the CSW remains a crucial space for the transnational coordination of feminisms.
Persistent Erosion of LGBTQIA+ Rights
Africa
In March 2026, new drastic setbacks in the area of LGBTQIA+ rights were registered amid an overall decline in democratic conditions. In Senegal, a law was enacted that doubles the prison sentence for same-sex relationships. As soon as it went into effect, the first arrests were recorded. To better understand what has happened, we share a very good article by Senegalese feminist Rama Sala Dieng, analyzing both domestic conditions and geopolitical factors that underlay the political appeal and popular support for this draconian law.
Last September, in Burkina Faso, another drastic criminal legislation targeting LGBTQIA+ people was adopted. In March 2026, Captain Traoré, who has ruled the country since the 2022 military coup, stated at a press conference that “people should forget about democracy, because democracy kills.” Then, in Ghana, a bill that also aims at criminalizing same-sex relations and punishing people identified as LGBTQIA+ was reintroduced in Parliament. Meanwhile, in Malawi, as reported by El País, the crisis of the healthcare system—triggered by the suspension of funding from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)— is severely impacting the lives of LGBTQIA+ people.
The persistent wave of extreme politics against LGBTQIA+ people in Africa was the subject of a Guardian article detailing how this is usually linked to the expansion and political actions of ultraconservative religious groups.
India
Shifting to Asia, the Indian Parliament has also passed a new law restricting the right to self-determined gender identity. This setback is particularly striking because gender identity diversity is inherent to Indian culture. Artistic depictions of androgynous bodies date back millennia, and hijra communities and persons are present throughout the subcontinent. Furthermore, the new regulations run counter to historic decisions by the Indian Constitutional Court, beginning in 2018 with the repeal of Section 377 of the Penal Code—a colonial-era provision that criminalized sodomy—following a nearly 20-year struggle.
The compilation prepared by SPW includes reports on the immediate protests triggered by the law’s approval, as well as in-depth analyses of the law’s many flaws. Among these, the critical assessment made by The Leaflet—a platform run by highly acknowledged human rights experts—, summarized in the citation below, is particularly insightful:
The 2026 law abolishes the legal right to self-perceived gender identity. It replaces the existing definition of a transgender person—which was broad, based on the Constitution, and explicitly inclusive of trans men, trans women, and non-binary people—with a restricted list of sociocultural identities and medicalized categories. It inserts a “retroactive clause” that goes back in time to erase the legal recognition already granted to thousands of people. It introduces a multi-step process before a medical commission as a prerequisite for obtaining a transgender person certificate. It requires hospitals that perform gender-affirming surgeries to report their patients’ data to state authorities. And it creates a new set of crimes punishable by sentences of up to life imprisonment, based on the premise that trans identities are forced, while leaving existing penalties for violence committed against trans people unchanged.
Brazilian anti-gender is becoming an aggressive anti-trans crusade
Also in Brazil, anti-gender policy took on new and troubling detours in March 2026. The 8M month began with an unofficial visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem. As is widely known, Alsalem advocates for the rights of women based on sex, thereby challenging “gender” and, most particularly, the right to self-defined gender identity. As reported by Azmina, during the week, the Rapporteur reiterated her transphobic and trans-excluding positions on several occasions.
At a Senate Hearing convened by Senator Damares Alves – who headed the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights during the Bolsonaro government – the convergence between her positions with those of the far-right became clear. The rapporteur shared the podium with the senator and her chief of staff (who served as Minister of Women, Family, and Human Rights when Damares stepped down in 2022); one of the directors of the main feminist anti-gender/anti-trans Brazilian organization (Mátria) and the president of Instituto Isabel, an institution associated with Opus Dei, which litigates partnership with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
Reem Alsalem’s visit, which widely sparked views and arguments opposing the right to self-identified gender identity, must be read as a precursor to the subsequent huge uproar triggered by Érika Hilton’s election to the National Congress’s Joint Committee on Women’s Rights. Opinion polls conducted during the uproar found that the majority of those surveyed opposed her election. These figures must be linked to the intense wave of anti-trans attacks that began during the rapporteur’s visit, which would be immediately followed by the transphobic comments by an ultra-right TV host, named Ratinho, who virulently targeted Hilton. On the other hand, as shown by the online survey conducted by the Democracy in Check Institute and the compilation organized by SPW, Erika also received significant support from a wide range of sectors.
Two new SPW publications provide additional analyses on the current conditions of the Brazilian anti-trans landscape. The first is the summary of a recent study on the composition and dynamics of the Brazilian essentialist feminist camp, published in October 2025; the second is a short briefing on how the anti-trans crusade propelled by these streams has escalated since early 2026.
Farewell
In March, the Brazilian HIV/AIDS movement lost Juan Carlos de La Concepcion Raxach, a physician and tenacious human rights activist in the fight against the epidemic. The passing of Juan, Project Coordinator at ABIA, was a personal loss for everyone who knew him. SPW has compiled the countless expressions of grief that have been published o honor him and to fill the void he left behind.
Sexuality & Art
Françoise Gilot leaves Picasso – Informatify
We Recommend
Articles
Democratization, Far Right, and Violence
The Americans Shaping Europe’s Far-Right Ecosystem – GPAHE
The Rapid and “Unprecedented” Collapse of American Democracy – The Nation
The Untimely Death of Civil Rights in America – Robert Reich
Anti-Gender Politics
Trump’s new budget turns the FBI into the gender police – Advocate
The Camps Promising to Turn You—or Your Son—Into an Alpha Male – New Yorker
Global Arenas
Feminisms
Resistance through feminist storytelling – Global Voices
Publications and Resources
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[1] The Isabel Institute worked in partnership with ADF International, headquartered in Vienna, on legal actions against transphobic speech brought by Érika Hilton (2020) and the National LGBTIQA Secretary Symmy Larrat (2025).[1] See https://sxpolitics.org/we-recommend/compilations/trumps-100-days-in-office-a-compilation-on-antigender-actions-and-fallout/34822/
[2] As, for example,https://sxpolitics.org/spw-library/articles/the-politics-of-gender-a-genealogical-commentary-2/33923/