‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’ – BBC News

Is a lesbian transphobic if she does not want to have sex with trans women? Some lesbians say they are increasingly being pressured and coerced into accepting trans women as partners – then shunned and even threatened for speaking out. Several have spoken to the BBC, along with trans women who are concerned about the issue too.

I became aware of this particular issue after I wrote an article about sex, lies and legal consent.

Several people got in touch with me to say there was a “huge problem” for lesbians, who were being pressured to “accept the idea that a penis can be a female sex organ”.

One compared going on dates with trans women to so-called conversion therapy – the controversial practice of trying to change someone’s sexual orientation.

“I knew I wasn’t attracted to them but internalised the idea that it was because of my ‘transmisogyny’ and that if I dated them for long enough I could start to be attracted to them. It was DIY conversion therapy,” she wrote.

Another reported a trans woman physically forcing her to have sex after they went on a date.

“[They] threatened to out me as a terf and risk my job if I refused to sleep with [them],” she wrote. “I was too young to argue and had been brainwashed by queer theory so [they were] a ‘woman’ even if every fibre of my being was screaming throughout so I agreed to go home with [them]. [They] used physical force when I changed my mind upon seeing [their] penis and raped me.”

Source: ‘We’re being pressured into sex by some trans women’ – BBC News

UK Police Ordered to Stop Recording Male Offenders in Female Crime Statistics – Women Are Human

UK — . On October 23, 2021, The Daily Mail reported that the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has ordered police forces to record the sex of criminals, not their gender identity at the time of the crime.

According to the Daily Mail, “Home Office officials are working with police forces on a new procedure for officers to record the sex of criminals to ensure crime statistics are ‘more accurate’”. A number of concerned citizens and advocacy groups have been stressing the importance of having accurate data on sex. Recently in a submission to the Scottish Parliament, Professor Alice Sullivan highlighted how “small numbers of misallocated cases can have a large effect on research findings in any sub-group analysis where one sex is dominant”, using sexual offences as an example.
Clare Dimyon has also been undertaking detailed analyses of prison population data for England and Wales, using sentenced offender data provided by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ). Her analyses reveal that virtually all sexual offenders are male, while the vast majority of those offended against are female. Further, at least 79% of those defined as ‘transgender’ prisoners by the MOJ are male, and their criminality conforms to the male measure of criminality (96% of all prisoners are male).
The Home Office’s change in direction follows Ms Dimyon’s petition to the UK Government and Parliament, requesting that the law “require that all authorities throughout criminal justice system (police, courts, prisons & probation) record the biological sex of all individuals investigated, charged, convicted, imprisoned for the offence types i) VATP & ii) “sexual offences” including rape & attempted rape”. At the time of this writing, her petition had received over 12,000 signatures.

Source: UK Police Ordered to Stop Recording Male Offenders in Female Crime Statistics – Women Are Human

The way forward | Josephine Bartosch | The Critic Magazine

I want to talk about pride and about shame. I have never been what is crudely referred to as a “flag shagger”. I have never sat through the Queen’s Speech at Christmas, and I can’t name a single English football player.

But one thing that does make me genuinely proud to be British is that we are now known to trans activists across the world as “TERF Island”. And that’s important because the UK punches above its weight in terms of cultural exports.

What we are doing here is watched by the rest of the world. And what we are doing is standing firm against an ideology imported wholesale from the US; an ideology that has the backing of some of the world’s most powerful people.

And I’m not talking about elected politicians and peers who make the law in that building over there. I’m talking about the technocrats, those in Silicon Valley, with the power to shape minds. Social media has become a vector for body dysmorphia, and pornography has made the prospect of growing up female a sentence to sexual subservience.

Sex is not a human right | Tom Farr | The Critic Magazine

The Court of Appeal has ruled that there is no obligation on the State to allow the purchase of sex without criminal sanction.

To cut a long legal story short, the Court of Appeal overturned the original ruling of the Court of Protection, and stated that in this instance C’s care workers were categorically not permitted to facilitate the purchasing of sexual access on behalf of their learning-disabled client.

As Julie Bindel outlines in her book The Pimping of Prostitution: Abolishing the Sex Work Myth, many disability-rights activists find it extraordinarily distasteful to suggest that individuals who may have either a physical or mental impairment must rely on purchasing sexual access to lead a fulfilling and rich life — “If you have a disability, you are so undesirable that you must pay to have sex with somebody.” It is quite clear why many would, and should, find this grotesquely offensive.

As for the issue of an individual’s “rights” when it comes to prostitution, the reality is beginning to come out in the wash. For too long the discourse has focused on the rights of those purchasing sexual access — but what about the rights of the women to not be subjected to degrading and violent exploitation? It is those women who must be our concern and priority, and both the law and the Government must no longer tolerate their subjugation.

 

Source: Sex is not a human right | Tom Farr | The Critic Magazine

Covid, compassion, conscience and civil disagreement | The Spectator Australia

Frost shared that she hadn’t received a Covid vaccine, alluding to health reasons, saying that there are many different reasons people aren’t getting vaccinated. However, she said the “segregation” between those who are vaccinated and those who aren’t and the “harsh judgement” directed at the latter had caused her to feel “less of a human” and “too scared to talk”, making it “a really hard time to be in society right now”. 

You’d think with our culture’s current focus on the importance of mental health, empowering women, individual autonomy, and values like tolerance, acceptance and inclusivity, a raw and vulnerable Frost would have been shown support and extended the very compassion, kindness and empathy she was pleading for. Instead, the same people who preach mental health awareness, feminism, ‘my body, my choice’, and ‘progressive values’, jumped on her like a virtual pack of wolves. Why? Because she dared to share a view that was different. 

Unfortunately, women tearing down other women is an ugly phenomenon that continues to persist despite feminist notions of equality, freedom, empowerment and the so-called “sisterhood”. 

A friend of mine publicly posted her decision not to get vaccinated on social media.  She had people swarm her business accounts telling her they wished she would die from Covid or to kill herself (this friend had been suicidal in the past). She is not alone in the vicious sentiments she received.

Source: Covid, compassion, conscience and civil disagreement | The Spectator Australia

I get abuse and threats online – why can’t it be stopped? – BBC News

Online abuse against women is on the rise, but why aren’t the police, government and social media sites doing more to stop it?

Social media companies say they take online hate against women seriously – and they have rules to protect users from abuse. These include suspending, restricting or even shutting down accounts sending hate.

But my experience suggests they often don’t. I reported some of the worst messages I’ve ever received – including threats to come to my house to rape me and commit horrific sexual acts – to Facebook when I received them. But months later, the account remained on Facebook, along with dozens of other Instagram and Twitter accounts sending me abuse.

It turns out my experience is part of a pattern. New research for this programme by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, shows how 97% of 330 accounts sending misogynistic abuse on Twitter and Instagram remained on the site after being reported.

Social media sites have come under increasing pressure not to promote misleading information about vaccines and the pandemic. But why hasn’t that happened with misogynistic content on Facebook and Instagram?

Source: I get abuse and threats online – why can’t it be stopped? – BBC News

Intersex people undergo surgery when too young to give consent, inquiry told | Health | The Guardian

Intersex people have endured controversial surgeries and treatments, often when they were too young to provide consent, an inquiry by the Australian Human Rights Commission found in a report that recommends new legislative protections for children.

The commission heard about people undergoing surgeries to reduce the size of the clitoris [known as clitoridectomy or clitorectomy]; other surgeries to modify female genitalia such as reducing the size or modifying the shape of the labia minora [labiaplasty]; surgery on external female genitals, generally reducing the size or addressing the asymmetry of the labia minora [vulvoplasty], and surgery on an infant born with smaller than usual male genitalia [micropenis] to create the appearance of a female child by the construction of a vagina [vaginoplasty].

The commission was also told people were put on hormone treatment to facilitate typical male or female sex development.

The report recommends new legislation so that medical interventions take place only with the prior, informed, personal consent of the person concerned, except in the case where the treatment is a medical necessity.

The executive director of Intersex Human Rights Australia, Morgan Carpenter, said people with innate variations of sex characteristics had been subject to ongoing human rights abuses.

“Today we’re calling on state, territory and commonwealth governments to act to end these abuses. We need new laws that recognise our right to decide what happens to our own bodies.”

Source: Intersex people undergo surgery when too young to give consent, inquiry told | Health | The Guardian

New research shows parents are major producers of child sexual abuse material

Child sexual abuse material — images and videos of kids being sexually abused — is a growing international problem. Almost 70 million reports of this material were made to US authorities in 2019. That figure rose still further in 2020, as the COVID pandemic drove children and adults to spend more time online.

Parents are being called on to be especially vigilant.

However, the sad fact is that online exploitation begins at home for many kids, and in those cases their parent is the last person who can be trusted to keep them safe.

Parental production of child sexual abuse material is a gendered form of abuse. Men were offenders in 90% of cases, and girls were victims in 84% of cases. Boys were victimised in one-fifth of cases, with multiple children abused in some cases.

The victim’s biological father (58%) or stepfather (41%) were most likely to be the offender. However, the victim’s biological mother was involved in 28% of cases, most often as a co-offender.

In eight of the 82 cases, the mother was the sole perpetrator. In these cases, the woman appeared to be producing this material of her children at the request of male acquaintances. In 22% of cases, there were multiple perpetrators involved in the face-to-face abuse, such as both parental figures, other relatives or acquaintances.

  1. the biological paternal offender who forms adult relationships and has children of his own to exploit
  2. the step- or de facto parental offender who forms a relationship with a woman and exploits her children or seeks to obtain children by some other means (such as surrogacy)
  3. the biological mother who produces sexual abuse material of her children at the behest of her partner or men with whom she is acquainted.

Source: New research shows parents are major producers of child sexual abuse material

Anatomy of a Scandal – Opinion on the use of puberty blockers in America is turning | The Economist

WORRIES ABOUT the use of puberty blockers, which are prescribed to some children to prevent the development of secondary sex characteristics (like breasts and facial hair) have been mounting in much of the rich world. Some countries have scaled back their use. Not America. Doctors who work in transgender clinics routinely claim that prescribing such drugs is conservative, because their effects are largely reversible, and compassionate, because they save children with gender dysphoria (the feeling of being in the wrong body) from enormous distress.

That may be beginning to change. Last week Abigail Shrier, a writer, published interviews in “Common Sense With Bari Weiss”, a newsletter, with two transgender health-care professionals who suggested that some doctors were irresponsible in the way they treated children. The women, both trans, are on the board of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which endorses the use of blockers early in puberty in some cases. Though blockers are often described as operating like a pause button, most children prescribed them go on to cross-sex hormones. This combination can have irreversible consequences, including sterility and the inability to orgasm.

Source: Opinion on the use of puberty blockers in America is turning | The Economist