The UN has praised trans activist Katie Neeves as an ‘inspiration’ for women’s rights talks in New York, despite her confessions about stealing and wearing her sister’s panties when she was a boy.
The world body told DailyMail.com that Neeves, a British male-to-female activist, could take ‘practical ideas’ from its Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which runs from March 11-22.
Neeves has revealed her trans backstory, and how as a boy he would ‘secretly dress in my sister’s clothes’ because it ‘felt so right’ even as he felt ‘shame and self-loathing’ because ‘it was dirty.’
Whether trans women get treated the same as biological women is hotly disputed.
Katie Neevesused to be called Martin, and, as a boy, wore his sister’s underwear because he wanted to be more like a girl
Neeves announced that she was representing Britain at the UN women’s rights meet on X/Twitter
Some feminists say they’re really men who should not be allowed into spaces reserved for women — especially women’s bathrooms, prisons, sports teams and coveted leadership roles.
Neeves will take part in this month’s Commission on the Status of Women
The UN told DailyMail.com that Neeves was a ‘guest attendee’ of the 68th annual event and did not represent the world body.
‘Katie is one of over 6,000 guest attendees from the UK virtually attending CSW68, where they will listen to and learn with guests from around the world,’ said the email.
‘They will bring practical ideas and inspiration back to their organizations and communities in the UK.’
The commission is the UN’s biggest annual gabfest on gender equality, and seeks to tackle why women still get paid less than men and the 10.3 percent of women who languish in extreme poverty globally.
Neeves, who used to be known as Martin, announced last month that she would be one of the UK delegates to the event, saying she was happy to promote ‘gender equality and the empowerment of women.’
She advocates for transgender rights in the UK as a self-styled ‘ambassador’ for her charity Cool2BTrans while continuing her male-to-female hormone therapy, which she started on in 2018.
As a boy, Neeves said he would ‘secretly dress in my sister’s clothes’ because it ‘felt so right’ even as he felt ‘shame and self-loathing’ because ‘it was dirty’
Some of Neeves’ social media followers congratulated her for her UN spot, but others reacted angrily.
One user, Melindi Scott, said Neeves ‘should be utterly ashamed for taking a woman’s position just so you can mansplain.’
Another bashed the UN as a ‘corrupt, lying, misogynistic organization.’
‘If you want trans people in the UN let them represent themselves but stop gaslighting women!’ the user posted.
‘Of the millions of women in UK you couldn’t find a single one qualified to stand up for women’s rights!’
Neeves has come under fire in the past for her accounts of her childhood confusion about her sex identity, which she says started when she was just three or four years old.
In a video of a diversity training workshop that emerged in 2022, Neeves revealed how he used to steal his sister’s ‘knickers’ — a British term for women’s underwear — and wear them.
Katie, pictured two days before her transition, is now taking male-to-female hormones
‘In my childhood, I used to secretly dress in my sister’s clothes whenever I had the opportunity,’ Neeves says in the video.
‘And whenever I did it, it felt so right. But then those feelings of being right were very quickly overtaken by feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing. Because what I was doing was wrong, it was dirty, it was naughty, and not what respectable people did.’
The UN has struggled with how to accommodate trans people into a 193-nation organization that includes modern Western nations as well as more conservative and traditional regions, such as Africa and the Middle East with very different attitudes to LGBTQ+ issues.
A UN panel tasked with writing global guidelines on transgender health met for the first time last month amid a controversy over being one-sided, and only featuring experts from one side of a heated debate.
It also included trans campaigners Teddy Cook, Florence Ashley, and Cianán Russell — who faced criticism for everything from racy social media posts to hard-line views about giving puberty blockers to children.