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Inside CSWF: Pro-Family Conference Offers Alternative to UN’s Women’s Agenda 

Paula Scanlan shares her story as a swimmer at UPenn competing against teammate Lia Thomas, the first transgender D-1 athlete to win a title. (Aimee DilgerGetty Images)

Reagan Campbell is an intern for The Daily Signal.

The 70th session of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) opened in New York on March 9. However, a parallel event, the Conference on the State of Women and Family (CSWF) is being hosted this week by a coalition of pro-family organizations urging a return to the fundamentals the UN commission seems to have forgotten.   

CSWF was founded by pro-family non-governmental organizations seeking to change the culture of the Commission on the Status of Women. They’re advocating a shift to a focus on marriage, family, children, the unborn, and faith. 

Grace Melton, senior associate for international social issues at The Heritage Foundation’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing, told The Daily Signal of her aims for CSWF. 

“I would like for attendees who come to the CSWF from CSW to realize that the dominant narratives from CSW—that women need unlimited abortion and sexual rights to achieve gender equality; that “transwomen” are women; that conservatives and people who hold traditional religious beliefs are against women’s rights—are false,” she said. 

What is UN Commission on the Status of Women? 

The UN Women website states that the priority theme for CSW70 is: “Ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls, including by promoting inclusive and equitable legal systems, eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices, and addressing structural barriers.” 

Their Political Declaration is an annual document in which CSW member states detail their shared commitments. 

In 2025, the United States informed the UN that it was withdrawing from CSW membership. In its statement, the U.S. said that while the Trump administration appreciated the declaration’s focus on protecting human rights and preventing violence against women and girls, the lack of “precise terminology” prompted the decision.  

The administration said it “will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.” 

Gender Ideology Panel 

This year’s CSWF event is a two-day program featuring networking opportunities, expert presentations, and themes centered on pro-life and pro-family issues, in contrast to the UN gathering. 

Melton said, “The UN Commission on the Status of Women is organizing itself this year around the theme of access to justice for women and girls. But gender ideology pervades the UN system, and it causes significant harm to women and girls.” 

Indeed, the website for CSW70 puts “gender equity” front and center, ahead of women’s rights.

Melton served as moderator for the CSFW panel “Gender Ideology: Injustice for Women,” which featured speakers Camille Kiefel, Amie Ichikawa, Paula Scanlan, and “Billboard Chris” Elston. 

Elston is a Canadian activist known for his work against gender-transition medical interventions for minors. He said he works to raise attention to what he considers the “greatest child abuse scandal in the history of modern medicine,” and argued that society does not have “gender identity,” but two sexes. 

Scanlan, a former University of Pennsylvania swimmer, shared her experience competing on the same team as Lia Thomas, a male who identifies as female. She said her and her teammates were pressured by the administration to stay silent about their concerns. Officials compared their discomfort with sharing a locker room to segregation in the 1960s. 

“We have gotten so far away from protecting the people we are actually supposed to protect in this world,” Scanlan said. 

Ichikawa is a formerly incarcerated advocate who described the injustices she witnessed within the prison system. She noted that men were able to transfer into women’s prison if they identified as transgender.  

She said, “I saw this as a female human rights crisis from day one.” 

Kiefel, a detransitioner, shared her personal experience being drawn into gender-identity ideologies. She described the psychological and physical harms she endured and said, “other women and girls who have been harmed by transition deserve the same,” after reporting about the result of her case against the doctors who assisted in her gender transition.   

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