Dear colleagues,

I wanted to update you on our work.

As you know, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has made gender equality one of his priority issues, which will have a domino effect on the rest of the organizations of the UN system. Well, UN-GLOBE wants to make sure that in the UN system, when we speak of gender, we do not speak in the binary only, but also address the diverse range of gender identities and gender expressions that exist in the world.

To achieve this, UN-GLOBE has convened a Task Force on Gender, which over the past few months has come up with 52 draft recommendations on making the UN System a model workplace for trans, and gender non-conforming people. We also plan to issue recommendations for intersex people as well.

The draft recommendations cover a wide range of areas: from discrimination and harassment, to health care, to restroom facilities, to security and functional immunity.

We also wanted to make sure to address the needs of trans, gender non-conforming, and intersex visitors to the UN, as well as those who are UN contractors, beneficiaries, and clients.

At this stage, the draft recommendations are being shared with LGBTI rights groups, particularly trans rights groups, and intersex rights groups. We want to make sure we are getting the recommendations right, and if need be, go back to the drawing room for drastic changes depending on the inputs we receive.

Once the draft recommendations are finalized, we will begin meetings with heads of UN organizations, and other senior leaders in order to push for a more inclusive dialogue on gender.

On other fronts, please know that will continue working with UN for All to ensure there is a roster of trainers ready to be deployed to conduct workshops on sexual orientation and gender identity.

We have already e-mailed you on train the trainers sessions in Geneva and New York. More are in the works. I am aware that the need is particularly acute in duty stations in Africa and the Middle East, without neglecting Asia and Latin America, in order to ensure we are not just preaching to the choir.

And we continue establishing a growing number of representatives in both UN agencies and in duty stations. With over 40+ organizations of the UN system serving in over 140 countries, it is crucial that we establish UN-GLOBE representatives in as many organizations and duty stations as we can in order to ensure the voices of peoples of all sexual or gender identities are heard.

The latest to join us are:

• Paul Morejon, ITC, morejon@intracen.org
• Jochen Luther, WMO, jluther@wmo.int
• Ilija todorovic, UNHCR, todorivi@unhcr.org
• David Clark, UNICEF, dclark@unicef.org

I would strongly encourage trans, intersex, gender non-conforming, and persons of color to consider volunteering as UN-GLOBE Coordinator in other organizations and duty stations. Please reach out to me at nam@un.org to speak.

More exciting developments are in the works, including a great dialogue between UN-GLOBE and the newly-appointed UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on SOGI, Vitit Muntarbhorn. I will share them with you in the coming months!

Moving onwards!

Best,

Hyung Hak Nam (Alfonso)

President, UN-GLOBE