On February 19, 2025, the one-party parliament initiated a package of anti-gender legislative amendments aimed at completely removing the terms "gender" and "gender identity" from Georgian legislation. The initiative to eliminate gender-sensitive terminology from the legal framework involves a complete revision of terminology in 16 existing laws. In each of these laws, the term "gender" will be replaced with "woman and man" or "sex." Additionally, the phrase "gender issues" will be replaced with "issues of equality between women and men." The term "intolerance based on gender" will be changed to "intolerance toward equality between women and men." The term "gender-sensitive" in legal texts will be revised as "sex-based” sensitivity[1].

Notably, the legislative amendments will effectively strip the Law on Gender Equality of its substantive content and legally defined purpose. Following the adoption of these changes, the law will be renamed the Law on Equality Between Women and Men.[2]

Additionally, the legal definition of gender will be removed from the law. Previously, this definition conceptualized gender as the social aspect of relations between sexes, describing it as a perspective shaped by socialization and reflected across all areas of public life[3].

Rights provided under the law - covering labor and family relations, electoral, social, scientific, educational, and healthcare sectors - will be revised to remove references to gender markers.[4]

It is also alarming that the legislative initiative proposes an amendment to the Criminal Code, under which committing a hate-motivated crime based on gender identity will no longer be considered an aggravating circumstance. Instead, it will be replaced with the following wording: hatred based on biological marker of "woman and man."

The concept of gender and the legal guarantees related to gender identity will also be removed from several other legislative acts.[5]

Notably, the explanatory note accompanying the proposed amendments states that gender-related terms were artificially introduced into Georgian legislation through foreign influence and lobbying efforts by their representatives. It further states that it is necessary to remove the artificially created term "gender" from Georgian legislation and, instead, to reinforce at the legislative level the principle of equality between women and men, as recognized by the Constitution of Georgia.

According to the explanatory note, the concepts of woman, man, and sex will be defined exclusively by a person’s inherited genetic characteristics in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Family Values and the Protection of Minors. [6]

To understand the severe social, legal, and political consequences of eliminating the concepts and principles of gender and gender equality from the legal system, it is essential to properly analyze the fundamental framework of gender equality.

Gender equality is a broad concept that recognizes that inequality is not limited to biological differences but also encompasses social roles, expectations, and power structures that contribute to the discrimination, oppression, and marginalization of women. This definition of gender is based on the recognition of women's historical and multifaceted oppression, and it asserts that policies protecting women's rights and promoting gender equality must address the patriarchal social roles, expectations, and historically established political, economic, and cultural power hierarchies.

In recent years, gender-sensitive approaches have made it possible to identify systemic inequality faced by women in various sectors (education, healthcare, employment, etc.) and respond accordingly. Rather than a binary understanding of gender, a more complex and intersectional approach is prioritized, analyzing the interconnectedness of various social categories/markers. In terms of developing just policies and achieving gender equality, the adoption of gender-sensitive approaches is crucial for demanding fair distribution of resources and critically assessing existing social hierarchies.

 In Georgia, the integration of the concept of gender into official policy documents and legislative language was a significant step toward ensuring the protection of human rights and equal access to resources.

Today, the state's focus on only biological sex undermines the foundation of equality policies, as it inherently disregards the structural, historical, and complex causes of social inequality faced by women.

Such legislative changes also weaken the policies aimed at combating gender-based violence. Gender-based violence (e.g., domestic violence, sexual harassment) is often linked to women's social roles within a patriarchal system, rather than just biological differences. When the concept of gender disappears from legislation, responding to gender-based violence becomes more challenging, as there are no longer legal mechanisms to counter the practices of social inequality and hierarchies in the fight against such violence.

Furthermore, the removal of gender from legal language means that transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals become legally invisible. With such a change, they lose protection from discrimination, violence, and social marginalization. Currently, LGBTQI individuals in Georgia are an extremely vulnerable group and often become targets of violence, with transgender women particularly facing hate-motivated violence.

We believe that these legislative changes are in conflict with several universal human rights documents, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Istanbul Convention, which Georgia has ratified and thereby committed to developing and protecting policies for gender equality and against gender-based violence. Furthermore, the Georgian Dream's adoption of these legislative changes presents a challenge in implementing European Court of Justice rulings and fulfilling obligations under European conventions, creating a greater normative issue in terms of international law. It is also evident that the adoption of these laws contradicts the objectives of European integration, the fundamental principle of which is the prohibition of discrimination and the protection of equality.

It is noteworthy that anti-gender politics serve as an important tool for authoritarian regimes, used to strengthen social control and weaken critical social movements and groups. Authoritarian governments often attack gender equality because it is associated with democratic values, human rights, and the principles of social justice. By limiting gender rights, autocracies aim to weaken civil society, feminist, and LGBTQI movements, which often serve as initiators of democratic change in transitional democracies. These processes are closely linked to the interests of authoritarian regimes in creating an "internal enemy" and strengthening power through the mobilization of conservative and nationalist sentiments, thus increasing public polarization.

It is no coincidence that, with the growing process of consolidating authoritarianism, Georgian Dream has been politically instrumentalizing homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia, and signs of anti-gender politics have already emerged, which will impact the legal status of broader groups of women.

Given the above, it is clear that the removal of the legal concept of gender weakens the policy for the protection of women's rights and equality in Georgia, as it inherently destroys the foundation of gender equality-based policies, which aim to recognize and challenge structural inequalities, socially constructed patriarchal roles, and hierarchies. As a result, it denies broader groups of women the legal protections they had previously gained. It is evident that such legislative changes will have a particularly severe impact on various vulnerable groups of women, primarily transgender women.

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