# Kvinneaktivistene

Kvinneaktivistene (lit. 'Women Activists') is a Norwegian gender-critical feminist group that states that it campaigns for "sex-based rights." It opposes transgender rights and has been described as transphobic. It is considered part of the broader anti-gender movement in Norway, and is closely associated with the Norwegian chapter of Women's Declaration International. In 2024, the group had a presentation cancelled by an Oslo events venue, citing the group's bylaws explicit exclusion of transgender women.

## History

It is a breakaway group from the Women's Group Ottar, itself with roots in the Women's Front. The Women's Front had roots in the Maoist Workers' Communist Party. Historically, the name Kvinneaktivistene was used for a 1991 breakaway group from the Women's Front which then became the Bergen chapter of the Women's Group Ottar. In the 2000s, transgender people became a significant point of contention within Ottar, who at times have promoted some gender-critical beliefs, but more hardline anti-trans activists were disappointed that Ottar refused to campaign against gender self-identification or make the struggle against transgender people a priority, accusing Ottar of being complicit in what they refer to as gender ideology. As a result, multiple splinter groups from Ottar and partially from the Women's Front were formed, including overlapping groups Women's Declaration International (WDI) and Kvinneaktivistene. Kvinneaktivistene adopted the former name of the Bergen branch of Ottar.
Kvinneaktivistene and the Norwegian branch of Women's Declaration International—which is regarded as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center—share many of the same positions and members, and both have their origins in Ottar and the Women's Front. For example, Kvinneaktivistene member/spokesperson and former WDI Norway chair (2023–2024) Benedicte Alnæs, has written that trans women are "men" and "pervos". On behalf of Kvinneaktivistene, Benedicte Alnæs, Tina Skotnes and Cathrine Ude wrote an article in Klassekampen that complained that they had faced backlash for expressing such views. Skotnes and Ude have also signed the WDI anti-trans manifesto. According to the letter, Kvinneaktivistene exclusively consists of women who have faced what they described as a "witch-hunt" over their views.
In 2023 cultural events venue Kulturhuset cancelled a planned event at the venue planned by Kvinneaktivistene; the venue described the group's bylaws as transphobic for deliberately excluding transgender women. Section 1 in Kvinneaktivistene's bylaws states that "by women we mean women". The event was focused on the detransition narrative, but Kulturhuset criticized the event for being onesided. The detransition narrative has been noted as being weaponized by anti-trans groups. Kvinneaktivistene has stated that "we are women, not transphobic".
Kvinneaktivistene has participated in the gender-critical FiLiA conference, which is closely linked to Women's Declaration International and is described as one of "the most important 'gender critical' groups" alongside WDI. In 2023 Kvinneaktivistene signed a statement published by anti-trans group Sex Matters in support of Reem Alsalem, after Alsalem had been accused of being anti-trans by 550 feminist organizations. On Twitter the group has promoted content from anonymous anti-trans accounts that have been analyzed in academic literature as key actors in the Norwegian anti-gender movement. Referring to the closely related group WDI, the leader of the Women's Front called them "transphobes, racists and sexists" and said that "we strongly condemn them".
The Extremism Commission's report cited sources that pointed to "the connections between radical feminism and Christian conservatism" in relation to anti-trans activism, noting that "these are groups and individuals who use violent and dehumanizing language and are also threatening and extremely active." Feminist scholars have described these anti-gender movements operating in the name of radical feminism in the Norwegian context as part of a "complex threat to democracy." In 2023 the University of Bergen's Centre for Women's and Gender Research hosted its annual debate on international women's day, that focused on the anti-gender movements in Norway, where panelists highlighted how anti-gender actors had managed to get a foothold in the radical feminist milieu in Oslo. Gender studies scholar Janne Bromseth [no] argued that "the anti-gender movement has (...) shifted boundaries in the public debate in Norway in recent years," resulting in "a harsher climate of debate where primarily organized TERFs have been given space to set the agenda for the 'debate on gender' and the alleged threat of 'gender ideology' to the natural order." In 2023, 2611 feminists, including Norway's minister of equality, called for a reckoning with transphobia, stating that "for a long time, trans women who speak out publicly have been subjected to harassment and abuse, often by those who misuse lesbian identity and feminism to justify their transphobia." The leader of the Workers' Youth League, Astrid Hoem, emphasized that the left must take responsibility and confront transphobia within their ranks, while Alberte Bekkhus, the leader of the Red Youth, said "if the women's movement allows transphobes in disguise as feminists, at the expense of trans women, it is working against its own cause." The Norwegian Humanist Association has highlighted the "alarming unifying force of the increasing hatred and radicalization directed at transgender people" and promoted by self-identified radical feminists associated with groups such as WDI and Kvinneaktivistene.
In 2024 Kvinneaktivistene activist Benedicte Alnæs reported the leader (until 2024) of the Women's Group Ottar in Oslo to the police for hate speech after the Ottar representative had called her a "Zionist pig" in a dispute over their views on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.