[22] Mauro Cabral Grinspan, Ilana Eloit, David Paternotte and Mieke Verloo described WDI as "one of the key players of anti-trans feminism at a global scale".
[5] In March 2019, the WHRC launched the Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights in New York,[1] co-authored by Maureen O'Hara, Jeffreys and Brunskell-Evans.
[1] Emma Ritch, executive director of the feminist policy organisation Engender said that "this so-called ‘declaration on women’s sex-based rights’ [...] doesn’t include women’s rights to housing, pay equality, access to justice, social security, education, or political representation.
[29] In 2021, the group called for the repeal of the Gender Recognition Act in a submission to the Women and Equalities Select Committee for an inquiry chaired by Tory MP Caroline Nokes.
[11] Kathleen Stock, who resigned from her position at the University of Sussex in 2021 following accusations of transphobia,[31] had been criticised by student protesters for signing WHRC's declaration.
[34] In June 2022 several groups opposing trans rights, including WDI USA, Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council and Women's Liberation Front, organized a rally called "Our Bodies, Our Sports" in Washington D.C.
The American Independent noted that some of the organizers, but not WDI, are designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Lindsay Schubiner, an expert on extremism, said: "There has been a clear increase in organizing to promote anti-LGBTQ and specifically anti-trans bigotry and I think that we can see that trend line moving up.
This event in particular looks like an attempt to legitimize and elevate and spread their transphobia and especially to build political power around specific anti-trans policy goals".
[35] In September 2023, WDI USA organized their annual convention in San Francisco, drawing protests from local feminists and LGBT+ rights activists.
[40] A 2023 report by Transgender Europe described WDI as one of the main anti-gender actors targeting trans people in Germany, and stated that WDI's tactics include fostering open hostility towards individual trans people, encouraging conspiracy thinking, building connections with the far right and promoting "shitstorms" against selected targets.
[43] In 2022, WDI USA president Kara Dansky, who has served as a WoLF board member[44] and co-chair,[45] issued a statement of support on behalf of WDI USA for the Women's Bill of Rights developed by the Republican Study Committee group of Republican Party members in the United States House of Representatives, stating it "would enshrine into law many of the principles outlined in the global Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights, which we work to advance throughout U.S.