- In short: Homelessness support services in Perth are seeing a spike in demand, with shelters at capacity.
- Statistics show 45 per cent of Australian women seeking homelessness support services cite domestic violence as the key reason.
- In the past decade, the number of women and children sleeping rough or in a car in WA has more than doubled.
Author: FLC Admin
Indigenous women ‘invisible’ in family violence data | The Canberra Times | Canberra, ACT
A fear of being criminalised means Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women often do not report domestic and family violence, a Senate inquiry has been told.
Antoinette Gentile, the acting chief executive of Indigenous-run service Djirra which supports women affected by family violence, said 90 per cent of family violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women went unreported in Victoria.
Women are often reluctant to report violence for fear of being criminalised themselves, Ms Gentile told the Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women.
She said almost a quarter of women Djirra worked with in 2023 were mistaken by police as perpetrators of family violence.
Ms Gentile called for a royal commission into the issue of missing and murdered First Nations women and said a complete system overhaul was needed.
Source: Indigenous women ‘invisible’ in family violence data | The Canberra Times | Canberra, ACT
A Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children wrapped up this week. Here’s what you need to know – ABC News
- In short: A two-year Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children has concluded.
- Eighty-seven submissions were submitted to the inquiry and hearings were held across NSW, VIC, ACT, NT and WA.
- What’s next? A final report with findings and recommendations will be released on June 30.
After 87 submissions and many traumatic stories shared by First Nations advocates and families across five states and territories, the last hearing has been held in Melbourne. But there are concerns it will not lead to effective action.
Australia’s tax system is an unwitting ‘weapon’ family violence offenders use against their victims. These people want to stop it. – ABC News
- In short: Family violence perpetrators are burdening their partners with tax debts they cannot shake, sometimes leading to bankruptcy.
- A change in the federal budget means the tax office can defer chasing debts in certain circumstances.
- What’s next? Advocates want the ATO to adopt a model used overseas, in which debts are reassigned to perpetrators.
The nature of coercive control, a combination of behaviours that restrict the lives and choices of people in abusive relationships, means some victim-survivors are unaware their personal details have been used to make them responsible for debts or appointed as company directors.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the tax office did not pursue debts.
But as restrictions ended and the economy took off, the ATO said it was owed more than $15 billion from 1.8 million entities and it set about chasing them up.
Research by Dr Kayis-Kumar and her project team reveals that approximately 14 per cent of women facing financial hardship due to tax debts have incurred them through situations involving intimate partner violence.
“We call it sexually transmitted debt,” she said.
“That person has used your name and business structures to put debts in your name and financially benefit.”
Dr Kayis-Kumar says our annual tax deadline of June 30 is the time to make that change in Australia.
“Economic abuse is something that we know is really problematic across our whole community, and we have an opportunity here for the ATO to turn things around,” she said.
WGEA Commonwealth Public Sector Gender Equality Scorecard | WGEA
The Commonwealth Public Sector Gender Scorecard: Key Employer Results From 2022 provides a unique record of workplace gender equality in the Commonwealth Public Sector.
It features the results from WGEA’s Employer Census of Commonwealth public sector employers with 100 or more employees.
In late 2023, Commonwealth public sector employers reported to WGEA for the first time. WGEA received reports (covering the period 1 January to 31 December 2022) from a total of 116 employers, covering 338,951 employees. This Australian-first report examines the composition, pay and actions these employers are taking to drive gender equality.
The big picture
- of 339,951 employees, 43.5% are women and 56.3% are men
- the gender pay gap is 13.5% and 50% of employer gender pay gaps are above 6.9%
- on average, women earn 86 cents for ever dollar earned by men
- this adds up to women earning $19,007 less than men per year
- men are 2.5 times likely to be in the highest earning quartile than women
- only 11% of universal parental leave is taken by men
- 55% of employers have a gender-balanced board
- 42% of Chairs are women
Source: WGEA Commonwealth Public Sector Gender Equality Scorecard | WGEA
Unsealed Court Documents Show That Admiral Rachel Levine Pressured WPATH To Remove Age Guidelines From The Latest Standards Of Care
When the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s Standards of Care Version 8 was released in September 2022, a very strange thing happened: WPATH removed references to minimum age requirements for various medical interventions, describing the change as a “correction” in a notice that now reads, weirdly: “This correction notice has been removed as it referred to a previous version of the article, which was published in error.” Whatever happened, exactly, it’s clear that until late in the game the document did have age minimums until, suddenly, it did not.
Thanks to a rather remarkable document just unsealed as part of Boe v. Marshall, one of the many American lawsuits over youth gender medicine, we now have a potential explanation for why the age guidelines were removed: direct pressure from assistant secretary for health of the Department of Health and Human Services Admiral Rachel Levine (who is a trans woman herself) and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The document is titled “Appendix A To Supplemental Expert Report Of James Cantor, Ph.D. In it Cantor, a Canadian sex researcher, critic of youth gender medicine, and frequent expert witness on behalf of those attempting to ban or or restrict it (including in this case), claims that “Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine strongly pressured WPATH leadership to rush the development and issuance of SOC-8, in order to assist with Administration political strategy.”
More worryingly, Cantor charges that “Assistant Secretary Levine also attempted to and did influence the substantive content of SOC-8, based on political goals rather than science. Specifically, Assistant Secretary Levine, though [sic] a staff member, pressured WPATH to remove recommended minimum ages for medical transition treatments from SOC-8.”
Here, too, he has evidence from anonymized emails written by those involved in the SoC 8:
Sarah Boateng, who is Adm. Levine’s chief of staff [said the] biggest concern is the section below in the Adolescent Chapter that lists specific minimum ages for treatment, she is confident, based on the rhetoric she is hearing in DC, and from what we have already seen, that these specific listings of ages, under 18, will result in devastating legislation for trans care. She wonders if the specific ages can be taken out and perhaps an adjunct document could be created that is published or distributed in a way that is less visible than the SOC8, is the way to go.
[T]he Levine angle is important and alarming. It demonstrates an indisputable conflict between how WPATH has portrayed the SoC 8 — as a document steeped in evidence and careful deliberation on the part of experts — and how the guidelines were actually formulated.
Consultation open: All-gender sanitary facilities | ABCB
We are consulting on the potential inclusion of all-gender bathroom provisions in the National Construction Code (NCC). We want to hear if, and how, the suggested changes will impact your work.
Source: Consultation open: All-gender sanitary facilities | ABCB
Dawn of the Detransitioner Lawsuits, with Josh Payne | Stella O’Maley
In this episode, Sasha and I welcome lawyer, Josh Payne, co-founder of Campbell Miller Payne, a law firm dedicated to representing individuals who were misled and abused – many as children – into psychological and physical harm through a false promise of “gender-affirming care.” Campbell Miller Payne is committed to its mission to speak up for these victims, assert their rights, and pursue justice.
This conversation is about various legal challenges faced by detransitioners, such as issues with informed consent, systemic healthcare problems, and the experimental nature of many treatments. The discussion emphasizes the vulnerability of clients, the lack of comprehensive care addressing underlying mental health issues, and the need for cautious medical practices, underscoring the importance of seeking justice for those affected and advocating for more responsible treatment alternatives to gender-affirming care.
Source: Dawn of the Detransitioner Lawsuits, with Josh Payne
The Context, BBC News Channel, 19 February 2024 | Contact the BBC
Complaint
Prompted by a leaked letter from the medical director of an NHS Trust which claimed milk produced by trans women with the help of drugs was nutritionally comparable to that produced by a mother following the birth of a baby, the programme included an interview with Kate Luxion, described as “a research fellow in creative global health at the University College, London and a lactation consultant trainee”. A viewer complained that (1) “the science cited in the letter was accepted without question” and “the science was undoubtedly misrepresented”; (2) that the item’s reference to advice from the World Health Organisation was inaccurate and misleading; (3) that it was also misleading to show “pictures of women (females) feeding babies” at the point where Ms Luxion was talking about a study of lactation induction in a trans woman; and (4) that Ms Luxion was presented as “a neutral ‘expert’” whereas she had “a vested interested in this debate”, and “as an authority on the issue without inviting on a medical expert to counter her argument”. A second viewer complained in similar terms. The ECU considered the complaints in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.
Outcome
On the first point, the ECU found limited evidence to support the claim, attributed to Dr James, that “a transgender woman’s milk is just as good for babies as breast milk”; of the five studies cited by Dr James in her letter as “informative resources” on “the composition of human milk after induced lactation (nonpuerperal lactation) versus lactation after birth” only one referred specifically to trans women, and was based on a single case (most referred to those whose sex was recorded as female at birth). The weight of relevant evidence was not, therefore, made sufficiently clear and in the ECU’s judgement viewers would have been left with a materially misleading impression.
On the second point, the terms in which the introduction to the item referred to Dr James’s letter (“The Trust referred to studies and the World Health Organisation guidance, including one case which found what it called no observable effects in babies fed by induced lactation”) would have led viewers to infer that the WHO guidance supported Dr James’s claim about “a transgender woman’s milk”. In fact, the WHO guidance does not refer to trans women, and so accepted that the audience would have been left with a misleading impression of the evidence to support Dr James’s claim.
On the third point, generic pictures of babies feeding were shown as Ms Luxion referred to “the research which has been done specifically about trans women”. The first complainant considered this potentially confusing to viewers because “a recent study showed that a third of people believe a ‘trans woman’ is someone whose birth sex is female”. The ECU considered that, although the term may not be universally understood, the concept of gender identity and the terms trans woman and trans man are widely used in public discourse and by relevant authorities such as the NHS when referring to people with gender dysphoria. The extent to which members of the audience would have been misled by the use of the term alongside images of babies being fed was, therefore, limited.
On the fourth point, Ms Luxion stated there was persuasive evidence to support the nutritional value of trans women’s milk and dismissed any health concerns about the potential presence of male hormones in milk produced by trans women. In light of the limited evidence to support the view she expressed and her lack of any specialist knowledge about the nutritional value of human milk, it should have been made clear to audiences that more research is needed before such conclusions can be drawn with confidence. The presenter did offer some challenge to the views expressed by Ms Luxion but the programme failed to give due weight to an appropriate range of views and perspectives on a controversial issue.
The ECU noted that the management of BBC News had already acknowledged to the complainant that some of the scripting of the item, such as the reference to the WHO, could have been clearer, and that it would have been better to interview another contributor alongside Ms Luxion to examine the issues raised by Dr James’s letter, and had made a posting to that effect on the significant complaints page of bbc.co.uk. These actions allowed the ECU to conclude that the issues of complaint in relation to the second and fourth points to have been resolved. The ECU upheld the first point of complaint in relation to accuracy, but found no breach of editorial standards in relation to the third point.
Source: The Context, BBC News Channel, 19 February 2024 | Contact the BBC
Alabama judge to weigh sanctioning LGBTQ lawyers for ‘judge shopping’ | Reuters
Eleven attorneys involved in LGBTQ rights litigation must appear before an Alabama federal judge beginning on Monday to determine if they should be punished for attempting to steer to other judges their challenge to the state’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.
The proceedings followed the unsealing in March of a report by a three-judge panel from each of Alabama’s district courts that said the 11 lawyers attempted to circumvent procedures designed to have cases randomly assigned a judge.
The report said they did so because they viewed Burke as a “bad draw” who likely would rule against them. He did not, though, and eventually enjoined the law’s enforcement, though the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later reinstated it.
Burke, in an order announcing the hearings, said the lawyers’ conduct implicated prohibitions against “attempts to manipulate or circumvent the random assignment of judges” and invoked the courts’ power to sanction lawyers for conduct that “abuses the judicial process.”
Most of the attorneys hail from civil rights and LGBTQ advocacy organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, while some worked at law firms working pro bono on the litigation.
Burke in a series of extraordinary earlier orders threatened some of the lawyers with jail if they did not turn over a document prepared during a probe of their conduct and found some may have committed fraud.
According to the judges’ report on April 8, 2022, plaintiffs represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, GLAD, and other groups sued in Alabama’s Northern District to challenge a ban on gender-affirming care that Republican Governor Kay Ivey signed into law that month.
A separate lawsuit was filed in Alabama’s Middle District on April 11 by lawyers at the ACLU and other groups. The ACLU sought to have its case assigned to U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, an appointee of Democratic former President Jimmy Carter, by marking it as “related” to a closed 2018 case in which he had ruled in favor of transgender rights.
The case was instead assigned to another judge who, with the eventual consent of the parties, transferred it to the Northern District, where the first case had been assigned to U.S. District Judge Annemarie Axon.
Both cases were then transferred to Burke, causing surprise and “panic” among the plaintiffs’ lawyers, according to the report, by U.S. District Judges W. Keith Watkins, R. David Proctor and Jeffrey Beaverstock, all appointees of Republican presidents.
Both legal teams voluntarily dismissed their cases. NCLR, GLAD and their co-counsel then filed a new one in the Middle District with new plaintiffs to avoid the appearance of judge shopping and to avoid Burke, the report said.
The case was instead, at the direction of U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker, reassigned to Burke.
The case is Boe v. Marshall, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, No. 22-cv-184.
Source: Alabama judge to weigh sanctioning LGBTQ lawyers for ‘judge shopping’ | Reuters