Rebecca Oas
(ZENIT News – Center for Family and Human Rights / New York, 11.22.2025).- A member of the Australian government is trying to get a UN expert fired because the expert is an ongoing critic of leftist gender ideology.
Anna Cody, Australia’s sex discrimination commissioner, attempted to engineer the firing of Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls.
According to private emails obtained by The Australian, Cody asked the head of the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) if the extension of Reem Alsalem’s mandate could be blocked.
Alsalem has been ruffling left-wing feathers at the UN for the past few years.
She published a report on violence against women and girls in the context of sport, which included criticism of trans-identified male athletes competing in women’s competitions.
She has called for the abolition of prostitution and pornography and advocated for a ban on surrogacy.
Most recently, she has defended her mandate to protect women and girls from violence by insisting that they be defined by sex rather than a socially-constructed version of “gender.”
Alsalem came to the attention of Anna Cody in 2024, when Alsalem sought to intervene in an Australian court case in which a man claiming to be a woman sued the creator of an app intended for women only because she blocked him from membership on the app.
The Australian Human Rights Commission asked Alsalem to provide guidance on the definition of a “woman” in the context of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Alsalem told them that womanhood cannot be separated from biological sex.
In the resulting court case, the lawyer arguing the case in favor of the app creator attempted to read from Alsalem’s brief. The Australian Spectator wrote they had “never seen a group of lawyers jump out of their seats as fast” as the opposing counsel did to stop Alsalem’s words from being read on the record.
In her emails, Cody complained about Alsalem’s “intervention on issues of trans women and their rights and her interpretation of CEDAW to exclude trans women.” Cody criticized Alsalem for not focusing sufficiently on “the important work of violence against women and children.”
Alsalem told The Australian that Cody’s plot was “disappointing but not surprising” and pointed out that at least she is “able to clearly define the subject of [her] mandate – women and girls – and their sex as biologically female.”
Cody herself has come under fire for her transgender advocacy, including arguing that male convicts who identify as women should be housed in women’s prisons. While Cody has claimed to be the target of hate and threats and blamed conservatives for the opposition she faces, Rachael Wong of Women’s Forum Australia pointed out that “it is women from across the political spectrum who are appalled by Cody’s relentless campaign to erase sex-based rights.”
Ultimately, the effort to block Alsalem’s reappointment failed, and the Australian court case has been appealed following the judge’s decision in favor of the transgender plaintiff. The proceedings began in August and no decision has been reached yet.
Alsalem told the Friday Fax, “Irrespective of what the positions of any State or NGO is or what was attempted, the reality is I am still the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls. I am almost half way in my second term as a rapporteur. I am still here. That is all that matters.”
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