The Democratic Women's Declaration

“No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex.”

- Susan B. Anthony

“I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.”

- Audre Lorde

“Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights.”

- Hillary Clinton

The Democratic Women’s Declaration was launched on November 6, 2024.¹ It stands firm on protecting sex-based rights. Key areas include maternal services, single-sex spaces, and freedom of expression. If you are a Democrat who wants to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls and to stop the abolition of sex, please read it and sign if you agree.

Introduction

Until 1920, it was legally permissible for U.S. states to restrict the franchise to men, i.e., adult human members of the male sex. Democratic president Woodrow Wilson opposed a Constitutional amendment to give U.S. women the vote until 1918, when he changed his position to one of support. On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed such an amendment; the Senate followed two weeks later. On August 18, 1920, when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify it, the amendment passed its final hurdle. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification as the 19th Amendment to the Constitution on August 26, 1920. The amendment reads, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” No one at the time was confused about what was meant by the word “sex,” and at no point in the history of the United States has anyone ever been denied the right to vote on account of her or his so-called “gender identity.”

In 1967, a woman (i.e., an adult human member of the female sex) named Sally Reed filed a petition in an Idaho probate court to administer the estate of her son, who had died without a will. The young man’s father, Cecil, filed a competing petition. Because a state law contained an express provision that “males must be preferred to females” in the administration of estates, the probate court granted Cecil’s petition. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1971 that the state law in question constituted unlawful sex discrimination, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. It was the first time the Supreme Court ruled that women are persons entitled to equal protection of the laws. The Court stated, “By providing dissimilar treatment for men and women who are thus similarly situated, the challenged section violates the Equal Protection Clause.” No one at the time was confused about what was meant by the words “male,” “female,” “men,” and “women,” and at no point in the history of the United States has anyone ever been denied the right to administer an estate on the basis of her or his so-called “gender identity.”

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” After passing in both chambers of Congress, Republican President Nixon signed it into law in 1972. It was renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in 2002, in memory of one of the law’s fiercest champions. No one at the time, including the bill’s author Birch Bayh, Patsy Mink, or President Nixon, was confused about what was meant by the word “sex” in the Act, and at no point in the history of the United States has anyone ever been denied the right to an education on the basis of her or his so-called “gender identity.”

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, feminism is “the belief in social, economic, and political equality of the sexes.” It continues: “Throughout most of Western history, women were confined to the domestic sphere, while public life was reserved for men. In medieval Europe, women were denied the right to own property, to study, or to participate in public life. At the end of the 19th century in France, they were still compelled to cover their heads in public, and, in parts of Germany, a husband still had the right to sell his wife. Even as late as the early 20th century, women could neither vote nor hold elective office in Europe and in most of the United States (where several territories and states granted women’s suffrage long before the federal government did so). Women were prevented from conducting business without a male representative, be it father, brother, husband, legal agent, or even son. Married women could not exercise control over their own children without the permission of their husbands. Moreover, women had little or no access to education and were barred from most professions. In some parts of the world, such restrictions on women continue today.” No one reading any of this is confused by what is meant by the words “women,” “husband,” “wife,” “male,” “father,” “brother,” or “son.” 

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence: 

• One in 4 women experience severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking with impacts such as injury, fearfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and death.

• One in 7 women have been seriously injured by a male intimate partner.

• One in 10 women have been raped by a male intimate partner.

• One in 4 women have been victims of severe physical violence, for example, beating, burning, or strangling, by a male intimate partner.

These are averages, and the situation is far worse for black women than for white women. No one reading these statistics is confused about what is meant by the word women.

Nonetheless, throughout the first quarter of the twenty-first century, women and girls as a sex class have been facing an existential threat to our very existence: the enshrinement of so-called “gender identity” throughout law and society. This is true globally, including in the U.S. We Democrats stand united against this misogynist threat to women and girls (i.e., human female individuals).

Article I - The Centrality of Sex

Women and girls are subject to discrimination, violence, and oppression on the basis of our sex, not on the basis of anyone’s so-called “gender identity.”

Accordingly, all areas of law, policy, and practice should maintain the centrality of the category of sex, not “gender identity,” in relation to women’s and girls’ right to be free from such discrimination, violence, and oppression.

Article II - Maternal Rights and Services

Maternal rights and services are based on women’s unique capacity to gestate, give birth, and breastfeed (even though not all women do so). The physical and biological characteristics that distinguish female and male people mean that women’s reproductive capacity cannot be shared by men who claim to have a “female gender identity.” Similarly, adoptive mothers are considered mothers because they are female parents. Even though adoptive mothers have not necessarily gestated or breastfed a child, society gives them the title “mother” because they are parents of the sex class that has the capacity to do so.

Accordingly, all areas of law, policy, and practice should reflect that the inclusion of men who claim to have a “female gender identity” into the legal category of mother constitutes discrimination against women by seeking to eliminate women’s unique status and sex-based rights as mothers. All areas of law, policy, and practice should ensure that the word “mother,” and other words traditionally used to refer to women’s reproductive capacities on the basis of sex, continue to be used. The meaning of the word “mother” should not be changed to include men who claim to have “female gender identities.”

Article III - Lesbian Autonomy

Lesbians are, by definition, women who are sexually and romantically attracted exclusively to other women. The idea that some men can be lesbians because they claim to have a “female gender identity” is misogynistic and homophobic. 

Accordingly, all areas of law, policy, and practice designed to protect lesbians as the category of women who are exclusively attracted to other women should clarify that only women (i..e, adult human females) can be lesbians. 

Article IV - Women’s Reproductive Integrity

Only women are capable of becoming pregnant. Women must have access to medical care with respect to pregnancy, including during the  prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal periods.

Accordingly, all areas of law, policy, and practice should ensure that the full reproductive rights of women and girls, including access to comprehensive reproductive services including abortion, are upheld. All law, policy, and practice should recognize that harmful practices such as forced pregnancy and the commercial or altruistic exploitation of women’s reproductive capacity involved in “surrogate” motherhood, are violations of the physical and reproductive integrity of women and girls and must be eliminated as forms of sex-based oppression. All law, policy, and practice should reflect that only women can breastfeed and all mothers who wish to breastfeed their children should be given the medical and societal support they need to do so. All law, policy, and practice should reflect that medical research aimed at enabling men to gestate and give birth to children is a violation of the physical and reproductive integrity of women and girls and must be eliminated as a form of sex-based oppression.

Article V - Women’s Right to Single-Sex Spaces and Sports 

Women have worked hard for centuries to secure single-sex spaces such as female-only public restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, prisons, and sports. Women have the right to be in intimate spaces, including where nudity is expected, outside the presence of men, including men who claim to have “female gender identities.” In women’s public restrooms, women use the toilet, deal with menstruation, and often have to handle medical issues such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), sometimes requiring women to clean undergarments in the public sink. In locker rooms, women shower and change their clothes, often requiring nudity. The same is true for changing rooms in stores. 

In prisons, women (many of whom are already victims of male violence) are often required to sleep in locked cells. It is obscene to force such vulnerable women to share locked cells (or any prison spaces) with men, including men who have been convicted of sexual and/or violent crimes. 

It is undeniable that men have an athletic advantage over women in athletic competitions, and it is not sexist to say so. But even if that were not true, women and girls ought to have the right to compete exclusively with and against other women and girls. Title IX, in part by requiring educational institutions to provide equal opportunities for women and men in sports, has resulted in extraordinary advances for women and girls. Through athletics, women and girls develop confidence and assertiveness. 

All of this is a matter of fairness and privacy for women and girls, but it’s also a matter of safety. In restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, prisons, and sports, women are at extraordinary risk of male violence. It is well known that men are overwhelmingly more likely to commit acts of physical and sexual violence than women. Allowing men, including men who claim to have “female gender identities,” into spaces intended exclusively for women constitutes discrimination against and oppression of women and girls.

Accordingly, all intimate spaces (including public restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms) as well as prisons and sports that are intended exclusively for women and girls should remain single-sex.

Article VI - Records and Data Regarding the Sex of Crime Perpetrators and Victims

Violence against women remains one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women as a sex are forced into a subordinate position compared with men as a sex. Accurate research and data collection relating to violence against women and girls requires that the identification of both the perpetrators and victims of such violence must be based on sex. In addition, women and girls must be able to accurately describe the sex of those who have perpetrated physical and/or sexual violence against them.

Accordingly, all state and local law enforcement agencies, as well as all agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice, must maintain accurate records regarding the sex of all crime perpetrators and victims. No member of law enforcement or the judiciary (including judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys) should require any woman or girl to refer to a male perpetrator as though he were female, including by the use of opposite-sex pronouns.

Article VII - Protection of the Rights of Children

Medical interventions aimed at the “gender reassignment” of children, i.e., “gender affirming care” by the use of puberty suppressing drugs, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries do not serve the best interests of children. Children are not developmentally competent to give full, free, and informed consent to such medical interventions, which carry a high risk of long-term adverse consequences to the physical and psychological health of children, including sterility, loss of sexual function, disease, and premature death.

Accordingly, all U.S. states should prohibit the use of such medical interventions on children.

Article VIII - Women’s Rights to Freedom of Opinion and Expression

Women have a right, grounded in international law and the First Amendment, to hold opinions without interference. This includes the right to hold and express opinions about “gender identity” without being subjected to harassment, prosecution, or punishment. 

Accordingly, all areas of law, policy, and practice should uphold women’s right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to communicate criticism of “gender identity.” They must uphold the right of everyone to describe others on the basis of their sex rather than on the basis of a claimed “gender identity.” No agencies or public bodies should be permitted to compel individuals to use terms related to “gender identity” rather than sex, because such compulsion constitutes an infringement on freedom of speech and discrimination against women. No agencies or public bodies should be permitted to sanction, prosecute, or punish women who reject attempts to compel them to identify others on the basis of “gender identity.”

Article IX - Women’s Rights to Freedom of Assembly and Association

Women must have the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of association with others. This should include the right of women and girls to assemble and associate as women and/or girls based on their sex, and the rights of lesbians to assemble and associate on the basis of their common sexual orientation, without including men who claim to have “female gender identities.”

Accordingly, all areas of law, policy, and practice must respect the right of women to assemble and associate exclusively with other women.

Article X - Defeat of the Sex-Denial Industry

The entire concept that people have something called a “gender identity” is grounded in the idea that sex isn’t real or that if sex is real it is less important than “gender identity.” This concept is being pushed all over the world, including in the U.S. It is nothing other than a total assault on the material reality of sex. Polling shows that the vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum understand that the statement “a woman is an adult human female” is true, even as this industry tries to persuade people otherwise through laws, academia, the media, and business. There is no credible scientific evidence to support the idea that sex is not real or immutable. Many Americans have been persuaded that “trans” is a civil rights movement. It is not. There is no coherent category of people called “transgender.” “Trans” is, instead, a business, a pseudo-religious and authoritarian belief system, and a pernicious misogynistic and homophobic movement. 

Accordingly, Americans must be educated about the truth of this industry and encouraged to reject it. Women and girls have the right to exist as a sex class. Lesbians and gay men have the right to be attracted exclusively to members of the same sex. “Trans” is not a civil rights movement like the women’s rights movement, the gay rights movement, or the Black liberation movement. All Americans must be made aware of the truth behind the lie of “gender identity.”

Conclusion

No men are women, including men who claim to “identify as” women and men who take hormones and have cosmetic surgeries to make them more resemble women. An entire industry that denies the material reality of sex is hard at work to erase women and girls as a sex class, exploit our bodies, and crush dissent. It must be resisted. We Democrats remain steadfast in our refusal to comply.

Kara Dansky

Author, The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls and The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls

Washington D.C., November 6, 2024

1. This document was inspired by and relies heavily on the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, which is advanced globally by Women’s Declaration International (WDI). Similar statements on women’s sex-based rights that are grounded in leftist radical feminist principles include the Labour Women’s Declaration and the Green Women’s Declaration.