[Comment] Gender and global health: going, going, but not gone
When we, as Commissioners or authors, set out to gather, analyse, interrogate, and consolidate diverse bodies of evidence for the report of the Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health,1 we were aware of the triggering power of the word gender. We knew that gender has been misunderstood (to mean sex), misinterpreted (to mean only identity), and manipulated (for profit and for ideological ends) by a range of actors since its introduction into the sphere of global health.2 What we had not envisioned in 2020, when our Commission began its work, was that by the time of publication in 2025 the administration of US President Donald Trump would have banished the word gender from the lexicon of federal departments and agencies in the USA.
When we, as Commissioners or authors, set out to gather, analyse, interrogate, and consolidate diverse bodies of evidence for the report of the Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health,1 we were aware of the triggering power of the word gender. We knew that gender has been misunderstood (to mean sex), misinterpreted (to mean only identity), and manipulated (for profit and for ideological ends) by a range of actors since its introduction into the sphere of global health.2 What we had not envisioned in 2020, when our Commission began its work, was that by the time of publication in 2025 the administration of US President Donald Trump would have banished the word gender from the lexicon of federal departments and agencies in the USA.
