Medicare investigation indicates female genital mutilation in Australia – Michael West Media

Medicare data indicates doctors are performing circumcisions on females, many under the age of five. Health authorities are claiming a computer error but an investigation by Tasha May has found alarm among community groups.

Data publicly available on Services Australia’s website records that between July 2013 to July 2021 there were 1,836 claims made under the Medicare code for the circumcision of the penis but recorded for female patients. Over half of these claims were for girls under 15 years of age.

All states and territories have enacted criminal legislation prohibiting female circumcision, known more commonly as female genital mutilation (FGM). However, Khadija Gbla, a survivor of FGM and Director of Ending FGM Australia, says it’s a fact that FGM does still occur in Australia and that a conservative estimate suggests that 11 girls a day are at risk.

Gbla said she would not be surprised if some are subsidising the practice under Medicare as “we know Medicare fraud occurs” and the high numbers of occurrence appear “too much for it to be a coincidence.”

Betul Tuna, Project Officer for the Ethnic Council of Shepparton, said that their investigation found several male circumcision clinics entertained the idea of performing the circumcision on females while other clinics directed them to home circumcision avenues.

Source: Medicare investigation indicates female genital mutilation in Australia – Michael West Media

What it’s like for Indigenous women giving birth in jail.

According to the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) the number of women held in NSW prisons increased by 50 per cent (from 682 to 1,021) between 2011 and 2017.

Source: What it’s like for Indigenous women giving birth in jail.

Rising Abuse, Sexual Violence Against Incarcerated Women by Male ‘Transgender’ Inmates | Women Are Human

Shocking incidents of sexual violence against incarcerated women are alarmingly on the rise as laws are increasingly passed to allow male inmates who self-identify as women to be placed in women’s prisons. Here are examples of some of the worst reported incidents of sexual brutality by transgender-identifying, male prisoners against incarcerated women to have come […]

Source: Rising Abuse, Sexual Violence Against Incarcerated Women by Male ‘Transgender’ Inmates | Women Are Human

Why single-sex spaces are a battleground for transgender rights

Debate over the inclusion of trans women in female-only spaces has continued to spark across Australia this year. Jewel Topsfield and Karl Quinn report.

It’s a debate that has pitted trans rights activists against “gender-critical” (or, as their opponents would have it, “trans-exclusionary radical”) feminists, split the LGBTQ community, and seen Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling accused of transphobia for siding with those who insist trans women are men and thus have no right to be admitted to women-only spaces.

Research from the University of Melbourne has found about 18 per cent of trans women surveyed had undergone genital reconfiguration surgery – colloquially known as “bottom surgery” – and about 2 per cent of trans men had.

Controversy erupted in Sydney in January when McIver’s Ladies Baths – a women- and children-only pool – decreed that only transgender women who had undergone gender confirmation surgery would be allowed entry (the venue’s website now states transgender women are welcome).

In May, Jessica Hoyle applied for an exemption to exclude “biological men” from lesbian-only events in Launceston, with the exception of a male DJ.

“It’s important we keep our single-sex spaces,” Hoyle, a spokesperson for LGB Tasmania, told this masthead. “If you are born a male, you are not a lesbian. I’m wanting to meet Cinderella, I’m wanting to meet Ms Right.”

Hoyle is appealing against a decision by Tasmania’s anti-discrimination commissioner, Sarah Bolt, to refuse the exemption.

In July, a “gender-critical” feminist legal service that refused to remove from its website material that was deemed offensive to trans people had its tenancy grant terminated by the City of Sydney. The Feminist Legal Clinic’s principal solicitor, Anna Kerr, said she believed the conflict was representative of broader efforts to undermine women’s sex-based rights.

Source: Why single-sex spaces are a battleground for transgender rights

#ThisNeverHappens happens again – by ripx4nutmeg – The Glinner Update

In 2018, before BBC’s Woman’s Hour turned into People’s Hour, it interviewed trans activist, and Jolyon Maugham teacher, Alex Sharpe, who spent much of the interview saying that predictions that self ID could lead to dangerous men saying that they’re women for nefarious reasons were “utterly bogus and massively concocted. It’s a campaign of fear, it’s a moral panic that’s been generated by gender critical feminists.”

This led to the #ThisNeverHappens hashtag, which gets an airing every time a story breaks of a man who said he’s a woman in order to commit a crime or as a defence after being caught committing a crime.

#ThisNeverHappens has happened again.

Michael Hari is a far-right terrorist with a history of violent behaviour.

He was convicted of child abduction in 2006 and in 2017, when a neighbour complained about his loose dogs, Hari allegedly attacked him and put a gun to his head. However, the trial has been postponed because of more pressing court matters, such as his alleged attempts to bomb an abortion clinic, and his role in the bombing of an Islamic Centre in Minnesota. Prosecutors have requested that he be sentenced to a full life term.

However, with sentencing now just a couple of weeks away, Michael has asked a judge to legally acknowledge that he is a woman called Emily Claire Hari, that ‘gender dysphoria fueled her “inner conflict” when she was convicted in the bombing’, that he should therefore receive no more than 30 years in jail, and he has ‘asked for an amended prison placement [that is, to be housed in a women’s jail] based on her transgender identity’.

Source: #ThisNeverHappens happens again – by ripx4nutmeg – The Glinner Update

Male Rat Was Made Pregnant and Had Pups. Result: Outrage

Very recently, a team of scientists in China at the Naval Medical University in Shanghai tried to create a model to test the hypothesis that you could get a male rat to deliver babies. They published this paper and reported some success. It has created almost a predictable firestorm to the point where they’re thinking of retracting the paper.

What did they do? Something called heterosexual parabiosis. They took a male and a female rat and literally joined their blood circulation to get female hormones into the male bloodstream. Then they transplanted the uterus of the female rat into the male rat. They created a space, put it there, then they put in embryos transferred from the female that they had created in vitro. Lo and behold, the male with the transplanted uterus and the donated embryos gave birth to 10 rat cubs, and they seemed normal.

Whether we choose to do that and whether it’s right to let men reproduce are bigger issues that ought to go way beyond scientists. I think it’s time to form an international committee to start thinking about that kind of a question regarding limits on reproductive technology, giving advice, and guidelines. We need society to agree where we might go in terms of who can have a baby, under what circumstances, and with what medical assistance — not a review committee.

Source: Male Rat Was Made Pregnant and Had Pups. Result: Outrage

To Be, or Not to Be? More Counseling Needed for Gender Dysphoria

Clinicians should not blindly accept a person’s self-diagnosis as transgender and desire to medically transition without closer inspection; rather, they should make a distinction between ‘acceptance’ and conducting an in-depth, respectful, and collaborative exploration of an individual’s claims about what they believe will best promote their well-being.

These are the conclusions of two experts in ethics and clinical psychology in an extended essay published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Source: To Be, or Not to Be? More Counseling Needed for Gender Dysphoria

Australia’s gender pay gap has widened to 14.2 percent

Australia’s national gender pay gap has widened, seeing women working full-time taking home $265.50 a week less than their male counterparts.

The figure was released Thursday afternoon by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), revealing the change that has occurred over the past six months on comparing men and women working full-time.

They also announced that ‘Equal Pay Day 2021’ will fall on August 31 this year, marking the 61 extra days women have to work from the end of the financial year to achieve the same annual pay as men.

The difference was driven by a rise in men’s full-time wages that far outpaced a rise in women’s wages, 1.8% compared with 0.9%, with the ABS particularly highlighting earnings growth in construction — an industry that received considerable pandemic stimulus from the Federal Government — as largely supporting this growth.

Source: Australia’s gender pay gap has widened to 14.2 percent

Two sexual assault survivors spur Airbnb arbitration turnaround | Australasian Lawyer

The women decided to speak publicly for the first time to call on the company to remove a longstanding forced-arbitration clause in its 10,000-word terms of service that neither of them said they were aware of when they used the platform. They said arbitration would silence their voices and keep the issue of sexual assault at Airbnb listings hidden.

Airbnb said on Friday, after being informed of the women’s statements, that it would change its terms of service this fall to no longer require arbitration in cases involving the sexual assault or sexual harassment of guests and hosts. It also said it hasn’t enforced the policy since January 2019, although it didn’t make any announcement at the time or change the terms of service that its 150 million users must accept to register on the site.

Arbitration is “one of the ways large corporations exert power and control over survivors,” said Latifa Lyles, vice president for advocacy and survivor initiatives at the anti-harassment organisation Time’s Up.

Some companies distanced themselves from mandatory arbitration during the #MeToo movement. Starting in 2017, Microsoft Corp., Google, Facebook Inc. – and Airbnb – removed binding arbitration requirements for sexual assault and sexual harassment claims filed by employees. Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. went even further, changing their terms of service to allow passengers and drivers to file such cases in court.

Source: Two sexual assault survivors spur Airbnb arbitration turnaround | Australasian Lawyer

Female-only swimming sessions in Ellenbrook denied despite multicultural community’s calls – ABC News

A local council in Perth’s east rejects a bid for female-only swimming sessions, despite support from the mayor and multicultural groups who say the proposal could save lives.

Source: Female-only swimming sessions in Ellenbrook denied despite multicultural community’s calls – ABC News