Sex-based rights

Sex-based rights is a neologism used in transphobic discourse, primarily by trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs). It was popularized by the “declaration on women’s sex-based rights,” a transphobic manifesto published by the far-right anti-trans hate group, Women's Declaration International (WDI; formerly Women's Human Rights Campaign or WHRC). Human rights expert Sandra Duffy has described the declaration’s concept of “sex-based rights” as “a fiction with the pretense of legality,” noting that “international human rights law is not static or originalist.”

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development said that the “‘sex-based’ rhetoric misuses concepts of sex and gender to push a deeply discriminatory agenda,” while Emma Ritch, executive director of the feminist policy organisation Engender, noted that “when [the declaration] talks about violence against women, freedom of expression, and children’s rights it does so entirely through the warped lens of antipathy towards trans people.”