A groundbreaking shift is happening at the 70th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70). The two-week United Nations summit, held annually to tackle global gender inequality, has officially become the site of a historic, lesbian-led movement to fix a massive, broken system and how the world defines and delivers “Access to Justice.”
What the Heck is CSW70, Anyway?
Before we get to the groundbreaking part, let’s do a quick primer.
The Commission on the Status of Women is essentially the UN’s massive annual check-up on the state of women’s rights globally. Think of it as a huge, global brainstorm where governments, activists, and nonprofits gather to set standards and create policies that are supposed to make life safer, fairer, and better for all women and girls.
This year, the official theme is “Access to Justice.” And it’s about time. UN Women recently released a staggering statistic that women hold only 64 percent of the legal rights that men enjoy. No country – none! – has reached full legal equality.
But here is where our community steps in. For a long time, in these massive international spaces, the word “woman” was treated as a monolith. But as we know from just, well, living, “all women” includes lesbians, trans women, bisexual women, queer women, intersex people, and gender-diverse folks. Our needs aren’t always covered by general “women’s rights.”
In fact, sometimes those general frameworks completely miss us.
The LBTI Caucus
This is the part that makes my heart swell. Leading the push for inclusivity is the LBTI Caucus (Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex). It’s a coalition of activists from around the world who are making sure we are not just at the table, but that we are actually setting the agenda.
Historically, many of the most tireless champions in the gender justice movement have been lesbians. We have often been the ones doing the unglamorous organizing, the loud protesting, and the subtle diplomacy that creates massive change. And now, that expertise is being used to dismantle the structures that continue to fail us.
But the caucus is being strategic. They know that “justice” can’t exist without bodily autonomy. Your ability to make decisions about your own body, health, and life is the cornerstone of any fair legal system. If the law doesn’t protect your body, it cannot protect your life.
Why Do Lesbians Need Specific Reforms?
You might ask, “If we fix justice for women, won’t we fix it for lesbians, too?”
In a perfect world, yes. In this world? No.
Lesbians and queer women face unique barriers to justice that stem from a double-whammy: misogyny combined with homophobia. Our legal systems are often actively used to erase or criminalize our lives.
Think about it:
- The Justice Gap: Lesbians are often targeted for violence, including sexual violence and “honor crimes,” as a punishment for disobeying traditional gender roles.
- Criminalization by Stealth: In many countries where consensual same-sex relations are technically legal, vague laws targeting “public morality” or “vagrancy” are used by police to harass, surveillance, and arrest lesbians just for being in public together.
- Administrative Discrimination: If you are a lesbian, trying to get legal status for your non-heteronormative family, adopt children, or access healthcare can feel like a maze designed to keep you out.
This is what the lesbian human rights defenders at CSW70 are fighting to change. They are demanding that the final UN documents explicitly recognize us, protect us, and repeal the discriminatory laws that keep us in the shadows.
What Does Justice Actually Look Like?
The movement isn’t just about protesting what’s wrong. It’s about dreaming up what’s right. When you sit in on the workshops, panels, and side events happening around CSW70—like those co-hosted by ILGA you hear a new vision of justice being built.
Justice, for this lesbian-led movement, looks like:
- Repealing all laws that criminalize consensual same-sex intimacy and non-heteronormative families.
- Explicitly including LBTI women in all legal gender equality frameworks and statistics.
- Adopting legal gender recognition laws based solely on self-determination, without invasive medical requirements.
Creating ethical data systems that actually count us, instead of erasing us.
Why This Matters to You
I know, it can feel like some big, formal thing happening far away. But what happens at the UN filters down.
The “Agreed Conclusions” reached at CSW70 will influence national legal systems, provide a roadmap for activists worldwide, and monitor progress. When the UN says lesbian rights are human rights, it gives our grassroots champions a powerful tool to demand change at home.
It means that one day, when a lesbian goes to report a crime or goes to a court to protect her family, she won’t have to fight the system itself to be seen. This lesbian-led movement is making sure that “all women” finally, truly, means all of us. And that, my friend, is how you fix a system.
