United for Resilience
A coordinated national response, built by the community it protects
United for Resilience is a national, trans-led advocacy and coalition-building project responding to the unprecedented escalation of anti-gender backlash in Bangladesh following the mass uprising of August 2024. Funded by Global Action for Trans Equality (GATE) under its Response to Anti-Gender Movements call, the project brings together national and local trans- and gender-diverse-led organisations across Bangladesh to build a coordinated, evidence-based, and collectively owned resistance to the rising tide of organised anti-gender mobilisation.
Since the political transition of August 2024, trans and gender-diverse communities in Bangladesh have faced one of the most severe rights crises in recent memory. Organised hostility has grown bolder and more visible. University campuses have become increasingly unwelcoming. Targeted violence, harassment, and forced displacement are rising — yet go largely unreported. Employment incentives that once encouraged hiring transgender people have been quietly rolled back, leading to dismissals without compensation. And organisations that once worked openly with gender-diverse communities have publicly distanced themselves from SOGIESC work — deepening the community’s isolation at the moment solidarity is needed most.
Yet despite this growing storm, trans- and gender-diverse-led organisations across Bangladesh continue to operate in isolation — without shared analysis of who is driving the backlash, without a coordinated national strategy for responding to it, and without the cross-movement alliances that give a movement its lasting strength. This isolation amplifies vulnerability. When a single organisation is threatened, it carries the weight alone. When advocacy is needed at the national or international level, no shared evidence base exists to support it.
United for Resilience exists to change that. The project shifts the response from isolated organisational survival to coordinated, multi-organisational resilience — distributing risk, sharing knowledge, building durable institutional structures, and forging political alliances that no individual organisation could build alone. It is not a service-delivery project. It is a movement-building project, led by the community it serves.
What the project sets out to do
Generate evidence. Produce a credible, community-grounded national research study on the anti-gender movement in post-uprising Bangladesh — mapping who is driving the backlash, through which channels, with what arguments, and with what impact on trans and gender-diverse communities.
Build shared strategy. Through a participatory national process, develop a National Action Plan owned and endorsed by trans- and gender-diverse-led organisations across Bangladesh — a shared strategic framework no single organisation could produce alone.
Institutionalise the response. Establish a National Task Force with formal governance and a mandate extending beyond the project period — so the response continues after the funding ends.
Build political solidarity. Break the political isolation of trans-led organisations by forging structured relationships with feminist, youth, disability rights, indigenous rights, and pro-democracy movements.
Strengthen collective learning. Create structured spaces for organisations, Task Force members, and activists to share what they know — building the movement’s capacity to learn from itself.
Who the project reaches
The project’s deeper reach is structural: the Task Force, Action Plan, and cross-movement coalition will continue to serve communities long after the project period ends.
How the work happens on the ground
National Research Study
A comprehensive study mapping the anti-gender movement in post-uprising Bangladesh — who is driving it, through which channels, with what arguments, and with what legal, social, economic, and psychological impacts. Published in English and Bangla, it is the evidence foundation for every other component.
National Action Plan
A participatory residential workshop brings together representatives of trans- and gender-diverse-led organisations from across Bangladesh to turn the research into shared strategy — a living plan with priorities, roles, sequencing, and a shared monitoring framework, owned by the organisations that will implement it.
National Task Force
A formally constituted, multi-organisation body with written Terms of Reference, defined governance, and a coordination plan extending beyond the project period — the movement’s continuing institutional infrastructure, not a project output that disappears when funding ends.
Cross-Movement Coalition Building
Structured political relationships with feminist, youth, disability rights, indigenous rights, and pro-democracy movements — joint positions, ongoing communication channels, and documented coalition infrastructure that make the movement harder to isolate and harder to break.
Peer Learning Exchange
Structured spaces where organisations, Task Force members, and activists share what they have learned under pressure and threat. The resulting learning note feeds directly into the Action Plan and Task Force practice — the movement learns from itself.
The change we expect to see
- ✓A credible, community-grounded research report on the anti-gender movement — a reference for national and international advocacy for years to come.
- ✓A National Action Plan — collectively developed, community-owned, and endorsed by trans- and gender-diverse-led organisations across Bangladesh.
- ✓A functioning National Task Force with written governance and the operational infrastructure to sustain the Action Plan beyond the project period.
- ✓A documented cross-movement coalition with feminist, youth, disability, indigenous, and democracy movements — political infrastructure that outlasts any single project.
- ✓A peer learning network and synthesised learning note that strengthen the movement’s collective strategic capacity.
- ✓Above all: a shift from isolated organisational survival to coordinated, multi-organisational resilience — a movement that is harder to break because its strength is distributed, its strategy is shared, and its structures are built to last.
A movement that is harder to break — because its strength is distributed, its strategy is shared, and its structures are built to last.