At the high-profile United Nations Commission on the Status of Women this week, the United States was the only nation in the world to vote against a woke document that failed to define what a woman is and promoted gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion principles, The Daily Wire can first report.
Thirty-six nations are members of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and every single year during the commission, there is an agreed-upon document that focuses on topics affecting women around the world, including injustices.
This year’s document was a disappointment to Bethany Kozma, Director of Global Affairs (OGA) at the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the other members of President Donald Trump’s administration who had traveled to the commission in New York.
The document was filled with mentions of DEI, gender ideology, and ambiguous language about “reproductive rights,” but was bereft of language unique to womanhood, according to Kozma. “No mention of motherhood or unique female experiences,” she said, adding, “and it failed to define what a woman is.”
In short, The Daily Wire has learned, it was not aligned with the Trump administration’s policies and views on these issues. Since the president took office again in 2025, the United States has clearly defined what a woman is, banned boys from girls’ spaces and sports, fought back against transgenderism in the medical world, and shut down many DEI projects in corporations and academia.
“The UN Commission on Women is supposed to be for women, yet for years, it’s been co-opted to include men pretending to be women,” she explained. “Many countries claim to support and empower women, yet some of them cannot even answer the simple question: ‘What is a woman?'”
“Thanks to the moral leadership of President Trump, the tide is changing and we’re standing up for women and girls,” she emphasized. “And I really was hopeful that we could come to an agreement.”
Kozma and her delegation from the United States worked hard to participate in good faith, offering amendments to the document that they knew some countries might sign onto. Natalie Dodson, senior advisor to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., shared that their delegation worked aggressively to negotiate with the other countries in order to include language defending the integrity of women.
“The text was not something that the U.S. liked at all,” Kozma explained. “It would not have been something that we would have ever put out on behalf of the United States government, but we had offered several amendments that were just very common sense.”
One amendment that they had been asking for, over and over, was an amendment that essentially defined men and women so that there would be no ambiguity.
Members of the United States Delegation at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
The Commission on the Status of Women wasn’t interested in the American amendments, Kozma and Dodson explained to The Daily Wire. Minutes before midnight on Sunday night, the council sent the final draft to the United States without acknowledging any of the American red lines that Kozma’s team had outlined.
And when it came time to vote on the amendments, which were intended to be voted on separately, the council bundled all the amendments together. Some nations might have voted for one amendment but not another, and bundled together, the amendments failed.
During Monday’s vote, the United States was the only nation in the world to vote against the document. Six nations abstained: Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania, and Saudi Arabia.
Kozma believes it was a deliberate attempt at “isolation” by the council to make the United States look like “we won’t don’t defend women and girls.”
“I’m really proud of us,” she told The Daily Wire over the phone. “We were the only country that was voting to protect women and girls.”
