Category: Global

Josephine Butler: the forgotten feminist who fought the UK police – and their genital inspections | Women | The Guardian

In her memoir, Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade, Butler described her deliberations as filled with angst. She and her husband, a headteacher in Liverpool, knew it would harm his career. But neither was in doubt that the acts had to be fought. They gave the police the power to carry out compulsory genital examinations of women they believed to be prostitutes – but not their male customers. If the women refused to be checked, they were sentenced to jail with hard labour. If found to have a venereal disease, they were forcibly detained in a “lock hospital”.

In 1870, the LNA seized the chance of a byelection in Colchester. Sir Henry Storks was the Liberal candidate and a former governor of Malta, where he had introduced similar laws. He was also on record as arguing that the acts should be applied to soldiers’ wives – a suggestion which appalled Butler, who took it as proof that the acts were an insult to all women and potentially the start of something even more broadly threatening.

Convinced that MPs had deliberately avoided publicity when the laws were passed, Butler and her supporters organised prayer meetings and gave out thousands of leaflets. This provoked a furious response and repealers were repeatedly attacked. Butler was forced to hide from an angry crowd in a grocer’s cellar, and to leave a hotel in which she had booked under a false name in the middle of the night. But when the votes were counted, it was clear that the bold tactics had succeeded. Storks lost.

When the “first wave” of feminism is referred to, it is usually suffragettes that people have in mind. Less often remembered is that this was not the first time the British women’s movement rejected the reformers’ tactics of petitions, letters and lobbies in favour of a much more direct challenge.

At the root of her determination to overthrow the laws lay her conviction that they violated women’s civil rights. In speeches and writing, she cited the principle of habeas corpus – the prohibition of unlawful imprisonment – that she saw as fundamental to the British constitution. While advocates of women’s rights had long recognised the myriad ways in which women were disadvantaged, the repeal campaign was the first time that the forceful and legal operation of a sexual double standard was publicly challenged by women themselves. The coalition of police, military and courts that promoted the CD Acts, Butler told supporters, was “a diabolical triple power”; the forcible inspection of genitals was itself an assault.

Evidence heard by a Royal Commission pointed to the different way of doing things in Sweden. There, free advice and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases were offered in clinics to all who sought them. This, rather than unrealistic demands for total abstinence, was the model proposed by the reformers – and one far closer to a modern public health approach.

But such progressive notions were ignored, as was a recommendation that the age of protection (consent) be increased from 12 to 14. Instead, MPs chose to retain the status quo whereby men could legally have sex with children (which we would now call rape; the age was raised to 13 in 1875). It took more than a decade of campaigning by more than 100 local groups, and many years’ worth of evidence showing that the acts had failed to curb disease, before parliament backed a motion to suspend them in 1883. Butler was in the Ladies’ Gallery of the House of Commons, where women were allowed to watch from behind a screen, when the cheer went up.

Source: Josephine Butler: the forgotten feminist who fought the UK police – and their genital inspections | Women | The Guardian

Zoraya was physically healthy. Doctors helped her die.

Zoraya ter Beek struggled with her mental health ever since she was a little girl.

Chronic depression, anxiety and trauma were constants in her childhood and adolescent years. She endured extreme bullying,and eventually began dressing in goth clothing in an attempt to scare her tormentors into leaving her alone.

At 21, she was diagnosed with autism, a diagnosis she struggled with. So much so, that by the time she was 22, she wore a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ tag around her neck.

Although ter Beek was physically healthy, she told The Free Press that she’d been hoping her life would end long before she wore the tag.

When she turned 18, ter Beek moved in with her boyfriend, Stein, who was ten years older than her. Her parents disapproved, prompting an estrangement that included her three sisters, as well as her parents.

Ter Beek’s partner urged her to seek help to regain control of her mental health, and she did. Ter Beek said she tried everything. She regularly saw a psychiatrist and even tried electroconvulsive therapy that involves electric currents jolting the brain. She endured this process 33 times.

But, nothing changed. And after her last treatment in 2020, ter Beek says her psychiatrist told her there was nothing more they could do. “It’s never going to get any better,” her psychiatrist reportedly said.

By December that year, ter Beek had applied to the Netherlands’ Euthanasia Expertise Centre (ECT).

In May, ter Beek was approved for physician-assisted dying on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering. The decision came three and a half years after she first applied, and was approved under a law passed in the Netherlands in 2022 that granted eligibility to people experiencing “unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement”.

Because ter Beek is physically healthy, her case caused global controversy, and debate raged around whether or not people with psychiatric illnesses should be eligible.

For ter Beek though, her decision was final, and made with the support of her partner, who she requested be by her side at the time, though she reportedly told him it was okay if he needed to leave the room before the moment of death.

On May 22, ter Beek’s friend, Martin, announced her death via social media. A medical team came to her home, gave her a sedative, and waited until she was in a coma before administering drugs to stop her heart.

She was 29 years old.

Source: Zoraya was physically healthy. Doctors helped her die.

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.

Source: Unsealed Court Documents Show That Admiral Rachel Levine Pressured WPATH To Remove Age Guidelines From The Latest Standards Of Care

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

Supreme Court Will Hear Challenge to Tennessee Law Banning Transition Care for Minors | New York Times

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider a Tennessee law that bans certain medical treatments for transgender minors, the first time the justices will decide on the constitutionality of such statewide bans.

The move could have broad ramifications for about 25 states that have enacted similar measures. Republican-led state legislatures have pushed to curtail transgender rights in recent years, with laws that target gender-transition care and that regulate other parts of life, including which bathrooms students and others can use and which sports teams they can play on.

The case, United States v. Skrmetti, will be heard in the court’s next term, which typically begins on the first Monday in October, though no date has been set yet for oral argument. The justices had considered whether to hear two challenges to transition care, including the Tennessee appeal and one centered on a Kentucky law, at their private conference each week. But they had repeatedly postponed making a decision, suggesting there might have been debate over whether to do so.

The court’s decision to take up the case signals a willingness by at least some of the justices to delve into yet another polarizing social issue, even as they have yet to rule on some of the biggest cases for this term, involving emergency abortion care, disinformation on social media and the scope of presidential power.

Source: 12ft

Woman who sued therapist for sexual assault wins £217,000 damages | London | The Guardian

A woman who claimed she was raped by a therapist who said penetration could help ease her trauma has been awarded more than £200,000 in damages in a high court ruling after she sued him over the alleged assaults.

Ella Janneh, 37, a victim of childhood sexual abuse who waived her right to anonymity, brought a claim against Michael Lousada, described as a “self-styled psychosexual Somatics practitioner”, over a therapy session involving sexual penetration at his clinic in Belsize Park, north London, in August 2016.

Lousada, who had been an internationally renowned sex therapist and had appeared as a guest on the TV show This Morning, denied the allegations, claiming that the sexual activity was consensual and part of “legitimate” therapeutic activity.

Janneh reported the alleged rape to police after it happened and told a friend “I think I just got raped” but, in 2018, the CPS decided not to proceed with a criminal prosecution. So Janneh launched a civil claim against Lousada for personal injury and negligence.

In court documents, she said that Lousada told her: “His penis was, ‘like a laser beam’ and that it could ‘burn up trauma’, and that he should use his penis to absorb the trauma.” The court heard he did not wear a condom.

She claimed the incident caused her to suffer a panic attack, leaving her unable to communicate and “incapable of providing valid and informed consent”.

In his evidence, Lousada admitted penetration occurred but said he repeatedly received “clear verbal consent” for his actions. The court heard that when challenged by his ex-wife Louise Mazanti about his use of sexual penetration with clients he said his sexual work comprised his “spiritual gifts” and was an “expression of his soul”.

“I am satisfied that the scale of his confidence in his own abilities was such that his perception of reality became clouded by his sense of self-worth,” the judge said in his ruling.

“I am feeling everything all at once,” Ella Janneh said after the judgment. “I’m incredibly proud of myself, first and foremost that I got here. I have put in so much work.”

But, she added: “I’m also in grief for what it means to have given up the best part of a decade to hold a man accountable.”

“I was left wanting to die,” she said. “I was left suicidal. I was left with the harm that I’ve still never recovered from, so there’s grief also about an eight-year fight, and that’s eight years that I’ll never back.”

Janneh said that although her fight for justice had been long, she hoped that the judgment “can be meaningful for other victims”.

Source: Woman who sued therapist for sexual assault wins £217,000 damages | London | The Guardian

School’s equality drive ‘backfires’ as head girl replaced by…a BOY!

One of Scotland’s top state schools has prompted an angry backlash after its head girl was replaced with a boy in what was supposed to be an ‘inclusivity’ drive.

Williamwood High School scrapped its traditional positions of head boy and head girl and replaced them with two gender neutral ‘captains’ elected by other pupils.

However, the move ‘backfired’ after both posts were secured by male candidates, while none of four girls who put themselves forward were chosen.

One of Scotland’s top state schools has prompted an angry backlash after its head girl was replaced with a boy in what was supposed to be an ‘inclusivity’ drive.

Williamwood High School scrapped its traditional positions of head boy and head girl and replaced them with two gender neutral ‘captains’ elected by other pupils.

However, the move ‘backfired’ after both posts were secured by male candidates, while none of four girls who put themselves forward were chosen.

Source: School’s equality drive ‘backfires’ as head girl replaced by…a BOY!