An open letter to dr. rebecca sanders on “reasserting rights” and “anti-gender campaigns”

What follows is an open letter to Dr. Rebecca Sanders, who spoke during a conference titled “Reasserting Rights: Countering Transnational Anti-Gender Campaigns” on April 20, 2021, held in connection with the publication of “Power Over Rights: Understanding and Countering the Transnational Anti-Gender Movement,” which paints all critique of gender as coming from the political right. A video recording of the conference can be found here. Dr. Sanders’s professional work is presented here. You can email her with a link to this post at rebecca.sanders@uc.edu (her email address is posted publicly on her website).

Dear Dr. Sanders,

I am a feminist and an attorney. I am active in the fight to promote the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, which you can read here. The Declaration re-affirms women and girls' sex-based rights, and challenges the discrimination we experience from the replacement of the category of sex with that of ‘gender identity.’ Like you, I have a background in political science (unlike you, I do not have a Ph.D. in the field, but I do have a Bachelor’s degree in political science from Johns Hopkins). I serve on the steering committee of the U.S. chapter of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign, which works to promote the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. I am writing to inquire if you would be interested in having a public conversation with me about “gender.”

I participated in this conference via Zoom, at which you spoke. Video viewers can’t see the chat window, but I recall distinctly that several people raised numerous unanswered questions in the chat window, and that it was disabled just a few short minutes into the presentation.

The discussion during the conference piqued my interest and generated a few questions for me. Because the chat function had been disabled, I put my questions into the Q&A box. My first question was this:

That question went unanswered.

I was a bit puzzled by the panelists’ collective insistence that all opposition to “gender” is coming from what you characterized as the “far right.” The reason that I was puzzled about this is that I know that your characterization is inaccurate. In fact, the best critiques of “gender” come from feminists and gay rights activists, most of whom tend to lean left, politically. So, I posed my question again in the Q&A box, phrased slightly differently:

This question, too, went unanswered.

Your presentation begins at approximately 47:40 in the video linked to above. I was astonished to hear you make the following statements regarding critiques of “gender:”

“The anti-gender movement internationally seeks to build hierarchical and homogenous societies that reject pluralism, difference, inclusion, and equity, and therefore democracy, rights, and the rule of law.”

“This is a movement that has long been animated by the Christian right in the United States.”

“And this far right movement in the United States has focused historically on capturing Republican party policy. There is unfortunately an unmistakable partisan dimension to this in the U.S.”

The reason that I found all of this so astonishing is that I know from personal experience, from my own political perspective in fact, that you are simply wrong about the push-back on “gender” in the U.S. as coming from “far right” abortion opponents. So, I posed this question during your presentation:

Again, no response.

So I decided to address you directly. I entered the following question into the Q&A box:

Nothing.

Really, this does not need to be a discussion about political orientation at all. At its essence, this is a conversation about biology. In the words of evolutionary biologist Colin Wright:

Dr. Sanders, I know that I am not the only person who submitted questions during the presentation. I find it very strange that the moderator, as well as yourself, would choose not to address the questions that I posed, which were presented in a spirit of polite and professional engagement.

I realize that it is entirely possible that you and the moderator simply did not see all of questions in the Q&A box. It is also entirely possible that there simply was not enough time to get to all of the questions that were asked.

Therefore, I would like to offer you another opportunity to address my questions. I would genuinely like to hear your responses.

Please reach out to me at info@karadansky.com at any time to propose some days, times, and venues to have a public discussion about these matters.

Sincerely,

Kara Dansky