19 Facts About Reem Alsalem

Reem Alsalem was born on 1976 and is a Jordanian independent consultant and former civil servant.

Reem Alsalem is gender-critical, and has been accused of being anti-trans.

Reem Alsalem was educated at The American University in Cairo where she completed a master's degree in International Relations in 2001.

Reem Alsalem subsequently graduated from the University of Oxford in 2003 with a Masters in Human Rights Law.

Reem Alsalem was employed for 17 years as an international civil servant by the UNHCR where she worked with refugees in 13 countries.

Reem Alsalem left in 2016 to work as an independent consultant on humanitarian and gender issues.

The Scottish Government responded to Reem Alsalem by issuing a detailed rebuttal, stating that the arguments against the bill lacked concrete evidence and were not supported by real-world examples.

In 2023 Reem Alsalem attended the gender-critical FiLiA conference, amid protests against the conference.

Legal scholar Jens Theilen said that Reem Alsalem "is using women's rights as a tool to undermine trans rights" and considered her actions "a stark example of individual politics furthering rather than contesting oppression," citing the AWID letter.

In 2024 website 4W reported that Reem Alsalem's visit to Brazil had been effectively cancelled by Brazil's Minister of Women Cida Goncalves due to her gender-critical views and what Maria Aquino, an adviser to the Brazilian Women's Ministry on LGBT affairs, referred to as her "anti-trans" position.

Reem Alsalem has supported gender-critical views, opposing President Biden's Title IX policies for transgender youth in the US and the World Health Organization's support for self-determined gender identity.

In 2024 Reem Alsalem addressed a panel organized by Alliance Defending Freedom, an SPLC-designated anti-LGBT hate group, that called for "female-only" sports and the exclusion of transgender women.

In 2024 Reem Alsalem criticized the Gender Self-Determination Act that entered into force in Germany.

In 2024, Reem Alsalem said that "grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law" had been committed in Gaza by Israeli troops.

In January 2024, Reem Alsalem criticised the composition of a World Health Organization committee, saying that most committee members had "strong, one-sided views in favour of promoting hormonal gender transition and legal recognition of self-asserted gender" and that none of them was an expert in adolescent development.

Author Helen Joyce supported Reem Alsalem, emphasising from her letter "the short time-frame given for comments, the unbalanced group developing the guidelines and the uncritical endorsement of gender self-ID".

In February 2024, Reem Alsalem criticised the UK's strategies for combatting violence against women and girls.

Reem Alsalem said: "Entrenched patriarchy at almost every level of society, combined with a rise in misogyny that permeates the physical and online world, is denying thousands of women and girls across the UK the right to live in safety, free from fear and violence".

Reem Alsalem was one of the many UN experts who spoke out against the sale of arms to Israel in June 2024 as a result of the conflict in Gaza.