On 28 October 2025, GATE submitted a report to the Call for Inputs from the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls on Gender Equality, the Digital Space, and the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Below you’ll find GATE’s recommendations to promote better gender inclusive AI and digital spaces governance.
Summary
The submission examines how artificial intelligence, particularly facial recognition, biometric surveillance, and generative AI, systematically discriminates against trans and gender diverse people by enforcing rigid binary gender assumptions. It documents how these technologies misidentify, exclude, and expose trans communities to heightened surveillance, denial of services, and violence, while also being weaponized to spread disinformation and fuel anti-trans moral panics.
The submission argues that these harms are not accidental technical flaws but structural outcomes of exclusionary design, biased data, and political misuse, and it underscores the need for gender-inclusive Artificial Intelligence governance and regulation to prevent further human rights violations.
What are the challenges?
From facial recognition systems that force binary classification to AI-powered disinformation campaigns that fuel violence, AI systems can be the instruments of systemic discrimination against trans and gender diverse communities worldwide. This submission demonstrates how the deployment of AI by various actors, including States, corporations, and anti-gender groups, poses a risk to increase gender-based violence and discrimination against trans and gender diverse communities.
The systematic use of digital platforms by anti-gender actors to spread disinformation about trans and gender diverse communities worldwide was one of the most common challenges faced by the LGBTQI movement in recent years. Other challenges are:
- Anti-gender actors deliberately disseminate misleading information targeting trans communities.
- Anti-gender movements deploy narratives about “family values,” “protecting children,” or “preserving women’s spaces,” as rhetorical weapons aimed directly at trans people’s existence
- Anti-gender movements reach broad audiences and facilitate both incitement to and violence against vulnerable communities
- Despite having community guidelines, social media platforms consistently fail to enforce their content moderation policies sufficiently
- Reports to the social media platforms done by activists are often overlooked, with the content remaining online
What are the real impacts of anti-gender opposition on trans communities?
GATE’s Global report on the impact of anti-gender opposition on trans and gender diverse and LGBTQI movements showed that the top three impacts identified by trans and gender diverse respondents include:
1. psycho-emotional stress among trans activists, which leads to widespread burnout;
2. advocacy opportunities become limited, as activists lose access to decision-makers influenced by anti-gender narratives, subsequently resulting in restricted funding for trans programs;
3. temporary pause or closure of trans and gender diverse-led organizations, events, or vital services for trans and gender diverse individuals, such a healthcare, psychological support, and legal assistance
What other AI issues exist?
AI can be used by anti-gender movements in several ways, which can cause serious threats to our communities. The following are some of the issues we found and the proof that AI needs better gender-inclusive systems:
- AI systems inherit human prejudices’ binary gender assumptions
- AI systems create algorithmic discrimination by design
- Digital footprints of LGBTQIA+ individuals can also be utilized for surveillance and profiling, which increases the likelihood of sensitive information being leaked or misused, which can result in severe repercussions, such as harassment, violence, or outings.
- The weaponization of AI for politics, with AI-generated disinformation attacking trans rights
- The phenomenon of “transvestigations,” which demonstrates how AI tools are weaponized to spread trans hate speech
How to promote Gender-Inclusive AI and Digital Space Governance?
GATE has compiled a list of recommendations for Member-States, AI Companies and Social Media Platforms and for the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls. The recommendations range from regulations on AI to protect human rights, to designing inclusive tools and systems, ensuring algorithmic transparency, to combating AI disinformation.