Category: Global

Trans-Identified Male Rapist Housed In Women’s Prison Files Lawsuit Demanding To Be Released Into Women’s General Population | Reduxx

A trans-identified male inmate serving three life sentences for crimes against women has filed a discrimination lawsuit in an attempt to be transferred into the general population among female prisoners. Thomas Preston Lamb, also known as Michelle Renee Lamb, is currently detained in a women’s facility in Topeka, Kansas, but has been kept separate from the female inmates — an arrangement Lamb deems unacceptable.

Lamb wrote. “I’m being treated as if I’m public enemy number one here at TCF, being escorted by two officers all the time. I feel miserable and wake up crying at night. I’m denied the most basic need, especially for us females: the need to have close contact and relationships with other females.”

Prison officials also noted that Lamb had already been allowed multiple exceptions to housing rules, including permission to buy makeup and earrings. Since claiming a female identity in 2006, Lamb has been provided with “female undergarments” by the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) while incarcerated, with the intimate clothing described as “therapeutic for Lamb’s gender dysphoria.” He has also been provided with estrogen and testosterone-blocking drugs.

Leading up to his November lawsuit, Lamb had been threatening prison officials in an attempt to increase his access to the female prison population.

Lamb, who is described as “female” in the state Criminal Justice Information System and referred to as a “transgender female” in court records, was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Karen Sue Kemmerly, a 24 year-old student at the University of Kansas-Missouri, around December 5, 1969.

Lamb murdered Kemmerly after she commented he was a “handsome man,” and told him he was “very capable sexually,” which sent him into a violent rage as he saw himself as a woman. Lamb strangled the woman to death, and left her nude corpse in a cornfield. The young student’s body was found approximately five days after her death on December 7.

Source: (19) Trans-Identified Male Rapist Housed In Women’s Prison Files Lawsuit Demanding To Be Released Into Women’s General Population

Male Inmate Charged with Raping Woman Inside California Women’s Prison, CDCR Confirms Pregnancy

Natalie* had been housed with Tremaine Carroll in a prison cell in Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) for just a few days when she says he attacked her in the shower and raped her. According to charges filed by the Madera County District Attorney’s office – which includes enhancements because Tremaine has prior sex offenses – there was at least one other victim at the prison besides Natalie.

Before California passed SB 132, “The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act”, the law already allowed males who had surgery, and were deemed to not pose a “management and security risk”, to request housing in women’s facilities. However, the law did not allow men with penises, or those who were considered too dangerous, to be housed with women, regardless of gender identity. That all changed when California passed SB 132, which went into effect in 2021.

After serving nearly two decades of his sentence, Tremaine began identifying as a woman and seeking transfer to a women’s facility shortly before SB 132 went into effect. The law was intended to facilitate the transfer of male inmates like Tremaine, who had penises and did not meet security standards for “gender identity” based housing in the women’s prison.

SB 132 is being challenged by four women who have already experienced harm from this policy: Janine Chandler, Krystal Gonzales, Tomiekia Johnson, and Nadia Romero, who are represented by the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF).

Tremaine is one of four intervenors in the lawsuit, represented by the ACLU of Southern California and other advocacy groups supporting the right of male prisoners to self-identify into women’s prisons. Even if they have ordinary male anatomy. Even if they are sex offenders. In a sworn declaration to the court, Tremaine stated, “I am not a threat” to the women at CCWF.  Now, he is charged with forcibly raping two of them and has been moved back to the men’s facility.

The Transgender Law Center and ACLU of Southern California, representing Carroll in the case, did not immediately reply to comment.

Tremaine is just one of the many dangerous men with whom the women in California prisons are now forced to live. One-third of the men requesting transfer into California women’s prisons are sex offenders. According to FOIA records, 50% of men in federal prison who identify as women are sex offenders. This is likely understating the problem – Tremaine himself is not considered “sex offenders” under this definition, despite his first- and second-strike offenses being for a kidnapping which included “forced oral copulation.”

Source: Male Inmate Charged with Raping Woman Inside California Women’s Prison, CDCR Confirms Pregnancy

UN throws out Stonewall’s bid to downgrade EHRC over trans row

Britain’s human rights watchdog has accused “activist” trans rights campaigners of attempting to “unduly influence” its legal independence after successfully resisting an attempt to strip it of its international status.

Stonewall and other LGBTQ+ organisations made a formal complaint against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last year. They claimed that the commission was “trans-hostile” and “not fit for purpose”, criticising its decision to back new legal protections for biological women.

In May last year Stonewall and other LGBTQ+ bodies claimed that the EHRC was “actively harming” trans people. They highlighted the commission’s support of plans by Kemi Badenoch, the women and equalities minister, to introduce legal protections for biological women.

The complaint by Stonewall prompted a “special review” of the ECHR’s status by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, a UN-affiliated body which accredits human rights watchdogs. The alliance concluded its review and confirmed that the EHRC remained “fully compliant” with its obligations and was operationally independent.

Source: UN throws out Stonewall’s bid to downgrade EHRC over trans row

Women in rich countries are having fewer kids, or none at all. What’s going on?

A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows US fertility rates dropped 2% in 2023. With the exception of a temporary increase in the fertility rate at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US fertility rate has been falling steadily since 1971.

Australia exhibits a similar pattern. Fertility has declined since 2007 despite government attempts to invest in a “baby bonus” to encourage Australian women to have more children.

Taking a more global perspective, we can see similar patterns across other industrial nations: Japan, South Korea and Italy have some of the lowest global fertility rates.

Because the reasons behind declining fertility are not simple, the solutions can’t be simple either. Offering baby bonuses, as Australia and other nations have done, is pretty ineffective, because they don’t address the complexity of these interlocking issues.

If we are serious about supporting care, we need better career and housing pathways for young people, more investment in child and aged care infrastructure, technological innovations to support an ageing population, and workplaces that are designed with care at the core. This will create a culture of care to support mothers, fathers, children and families alike.

Source: Women in rich countries are having fewer kids, or none at all. What’s going on?

Women’s Health – Blood Clots

Men may actually have a higher overall risk of thrombosis than women, but women have risks due to pregnancy, birth control and postmenopausal hormone therapy that men do not. These risks are generally attributed to estrogen, a key ingredient in birth control pills, patches, and rings, and in postmenopausal hormone therapy.

Estrogen does not cause blood clots, but it does increase the risk by several-fold.

Estrogen and progesterone have many effects on a woman’s body. They are the hormones that sustain pregnancy and, when given in the form of birth control pills, imitate, and, therefore, prevent pregnancy. Estrogen also increases the levels of clotting factors and is assumed to be responsible for the increased risk of blood clots during pregnancy.

For the average woman taking birth control pills, the absolute risk of a blood clot is still small. Only one in 3000 women per year who are taking birth control pills will develop a blood clot; but for the woman with thrombophilia or a history of thrombosis, the risk becomes substantial.

The new patches (such as Ortho Evra) may increase the risk slightly more, since the amount of estrogen absorbed is higher than is absorbed with the pill. There is little information about the risk of blood clots with the birth control ring NuvaRing®), but, like patches and most birth control pills, they also contain an estrogen and a progestin, and, therefore, probably carry a risk of thrombosis similar to that of birth control pills or patches.

Postmenopausal hormone therapy with estrogen, or with estrogen and a progestin, increases the risk of breast cancer, stroke, deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Postmenopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, sleeplessness, vaginal dryness and bone loss can be managed without estrogen. For women who are not taking anticoagulants, but who have had a blood clot or have thrombophilia, the circumstances that would justify taking postmenopausal hormone therapy are rare or nonexistent.

Source: Women’s Health – Blood Clots

Council adopts first-ever EU law combating violence against women

The law that was adopted today criminalises the following offences across the EU: female genital mutilation, forced marriage, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, cyber stalking, cyber harassment and cyber incitement to hatred or violence.

Committing these crimes will be punishable by prison sentences ranging from at least one to five years. The directive also comes with an extensive list of aggravating circumstances, such as committing the offence against a child, a former or current spouse or partner or a public representative, a journalist or a human rights defender, which carry more severe penalties.

The directive also contains detailed rules on the measures of assistance and protection that member states should provide to victims.

Source: Council adopts first-ever EU law combating violence against women

La Leche League International is “a great enemy of the truth” |Lucy Leader

There is no such thing as a “lactating family”

I don’t know about you, but when I was breastfeeding my children, I was the only one doing any lactating in our family.

But of course, this is what you get when, instead of following your own Mission Statement, you choose to go down the dead-end road of gender ideology. Despite the twin facts that every person on the planet now and in the past emerged from the body of a natal woman and the only bodies who automatically morph physiologically into lactation are those same women who gave birth, LLL has joined the legions of others who bend the knee to those who believe that synthetic sex identities are just as valid as reality. (How one can only live their “authentic life” is after they endure mutilating medical procedures remains a mystery to me.)

Everyone who lives in the real world and not some fantasy island knows that only the female sex has the ability to have babies and to feed them from their breasts and that identity is irrelevant in biological processes. But as is the LLLI Board modus operandi, they chose to ignore this because when the six newly elected Leaders failed to collapse in acquiescence and fall into line, they were immediately suspended and removed from all LLLGB social media outlets.

How is it “inclusive” to deliberately exclude Leaders who all signed up to the Mission Statement, but who are not willing to violate their strongly held beliefs that only natal women should be breastfeeding? Why is this not considered to be a disrespectful slap in the face, not only for them, but for every woman who has ever been a mother?

If you think that those brave Leaders who are endeavoring to hold LLLGB to its stated purpose should be celebrated, rather than persecuted, feel free to email the LLLI Board at board@llli.org

Source: (19) La Leche League International is “a great enemy of the truth”

A Thriving Industry of Surrogacy in the Global South Demonstrates its Harms for Women Everywhere — FiLiA

[I]n order to believe that renting a woman can be essential to have a baby it first needs to be established that there is indeed such a thing as the right to have a baby. But there is no piece of international law which says that an individual has the right to a child. Still, the surrogacy industry churns a yearly revenue of 14 Billion USD every year through its use of women as raw material.

India is not the only developing country or country of the Global South where the renting of women takes place to feed a global market. Nepal was a market for surrogacy for buyers (a more accurate term for individuals who intend to buy babies through surrogacy) from richer countries like Israel and Australia. However, the Nepalese government banned surrogacy in toto in the year 2015 following a devastating earthquake in the Country. Since then, Indian surrogacy clinics which were established in Nepal have moved to Cambodia where the health system is poor. Additionally, the People’s Republic of China prohibits surrogacy in all its forms. Despite this, there is a base of commissioning buyers who go to the market available in the United States and Ukraine to rent wombs. Chinese women within Chinese provinces act as commercial surrogates as well, to provide for themselves and their families. Surrogacy also exists in other Asian countries such as Thailand, Laos, and Japan. Therefore, countries in the Global South are either prominent source countries, demand countries, or both when it comes to renting the reproductive capabilities of women.

Surrogacy is an extremely harmful process which causes physical, emotional, and mental damage to women, regardless of whether it is done for money or for altruistic motivations. This is because surrogacy is an induced pregnancy that is brought about through the injection of artificial hormones into a woman’s body. These hormones cause a range of problems such as sickness, bloating, mood volatility, and the resultant physical and mental stress for women who are subsequently injected with an externally fertilised embryo. Should the women fail to get pregnant the first time, this process must be repeated. But the women who are rented as vessels are not the only ones harmed in surrogacy. This is because the dominant practice of surrogacy now is to use donated eggs of one woman, which are fertilised and injected into the body of another woman. Unsurprisingly, egg donation has also come up as a predatory and harmful industry in which women are given hormones to extract the maximum number of eggs from them. Indeed, women have died in surrogate pregnancies in developed countries like the United States as an in-vitro fertilisation pregnancy puts women at the risk of, among other things, placental collapse.

Jennifer Lahl, Melinda Tankard Reist, and Renate Klein give voice to scores of testimonies of women who have been used, ruined, and then spat out by the surrogacy industry and its players in the book Broken Bonds.

Surrogacy is a great example of the intersections of the oppressions of sex, class, and caste (especially in the Indian case).

However, so-called intersectional feminism continues to ignore the exploitative nature of surrogacy as it brands surrogacy as an empowering choice for women to earn a livelihood.

[S]urrogacy is touted as a necessity for those who cannot, for a variety of reasons, have their own children. And on who else should the burden then fall to provide children for this cohort, other than women of course? But as Eva Maria Bachinger points out in Towards the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (Spinifex Press, 2021), a desire for a child does not mean that there is also a right to have one. And as Dr Saravanan also argues, there is no right to use the body of someone else to fulfil one’s own reproductive rights. The mere inability of one to have a child of their own does not give one any claim over the bodies of women. And so the only reason that women are used and then thrown away in surrogacy is because there is a cohort of monied individuals who can pay for the use of women.

Source: A Thriving Industry of Surrogacy in the Global South Demonstrates its Harms for Women Everywhere — FiLiA

Breastfeeding charity suspends trustees who want to ban trans women from its services | The Telegraph | UK

Six trustees of a nationwide breastfeeding support group have been suspended for demanding that biological men be excluded from their services.
The British wing of La Leche League (LLL), which gives mother-to-mother support to those finding it hard to breastfeed, has been told by its US-based board of directors that the service cannot be single sex and they must support “male lactation”.
They were also told that the use of the term “mother” could be a “roadblock”, and that questioning gender ideology was “harmful”.
The suspended trustees have now complained to the Charity Commission, saying the charity’s demand that trans women were admitted was against UK law because single-sex places are protected.
A Charity Commission spokeswoman said: “We have received correspondence from groups of trustees, alerting us to a disagreement among the charity’s board about the way in which the charity delivers its services. We are assessing the information to determine whether this is a matter for the Commission as regulator to become involved in.”

Source: Breastfeeding charity suspends trustees who want to ban trans women from its services

Canadian detransitioner who had breasts and womb removed sues doctors | National Post

An Ontario detransitioning woman who had her breasts and womb removed to change her gender to male is suing medical and health practitioners for failing to consider other treatments during her mental health crisis before ushering her on an irreversible journey she regrets.

“Michelle’s stated desire to become transgender was never challenged and it was treated to the exclusion of her other serious mental health issues, closing the door to alternative treatment options,” her statement of claim says.

The claim says the defendants “permitted Michelle to self-diagnose as transgender and prescribe her own treatment without providing a differential diagnosis or proposing alternative treatments.”

In her statement of claim filed in court in November, Zacchigna says she had difficulty forming relationships with classmates in elementary school and was often bullied.

By the time she was 11, she engaged in self-harming behaviour, including cutting her arm with a knife. This continued into early adulthood.

When she was 20, she tried to kill herself and she was referred by her family doctor for psychotherapy, where she was treated for social anxiety and clinical depression.

About a year into therapy, she engaged with an online community around gender nonconformity.

“Michelle came to believe that her biological sex of female did not match her true gender identity of male,” her claim says.

At a Toronto health centre, Zacchigna was prescribed testosterone hormone therapy in 2010 after three appointments. The doctor there became her family physician.

The claim said neither her mental health nor counselling records were consulted and there was no screening “for any other mental health diagnoses or developmental disabilities,” her claim says.

n detransitioner who had breasts and womb removed sues doctors | National Post