WA First Nations child removal complaint filed in H… | NIT

Western Australia has become the second state to be subject to an Australian Human Rights Commission complaint for the discriminatory removal of First Nations children from their families.

n one case, Lisa* was allegedly removed from her family by Communities at age seven and taken 600 km from her home. She was placed in ten different foster homes, suffering sexual and physical abuse, all of which was allegedly reported to Communities who did not follow up the complaints.

In another case, Heather*, had her children removed by Communities, despite suffering abuse at the hands of her partner and father of her kids. They were placed with a non-Indigenous family, allegedly disconnected from their family, culture and community. When she became pregnant again, Communities removed her child shortly after birth.

Both women continue to suffer from long-term trauma and depression as a result of these actions.

The complaint is the second filed by Shine Lawyers to the AHRC concerning a child protection department unlawfully removing Indigenous children, which may lead to a class action for concerned families.

The first complaint was lodged against the NSW Department of Communities and Justice in January.

Class actions special counsel, Caitlin Wilson, said Indigenous families across the country had been “torn apart in this modern-day Stolen Generation”.

“We hope that each claim in each State will set us on the path to file class actions for these marginalised families who will never know a life without the weight of this trauma.”

Source: WA First Nations child removal complaint filed in H… | NIT

What are the most common symptoms of menopause? And which can hormone therapy treat?

Our study of the highest quality menopause-care guidelines found the internationally recognised symptoms of the perimenopause and menopause are:

  • hot flushes and night sweats (known as vasomotor symptoms)
  • disturbed sleep
  • musculoskeletal pain
  • decreased sexual function or desire
  • vaginal dryness and irritation
  • mood disturbance (low mood, mood changes or depressive symptoms) but not clinical depression.

However, none of these symptoms are menopause-specific, meaning they could have other causes.

In our study of Australian women, 38% of pre-menopausal women, 67% of perimenopausal women and 74% of post-menopausal women aged under 55 experienced hot flushes and/or night sweats.

But the severity of these symptoms varies greatly.

The Lancet papers suggest menopause hormone therapy alleviates hot flushes and night sweats, but the likelihood of it improving sleep, mood or “brain fog” is limited to those bothered by vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes and night sweats).

[N]one of these guidelines recommend menopause hormone therapy for cognitive symptoms often talked about as “brain fog”.

Despite musculoskeletal pain being the most common menopausal symptom in some populations, the effectiveness of menopause hormone therapy for this specific symptoms still needs to be studied.

Some guidelines, such as an Australian endorsed guideline, support menopause hormone therapy for the prevention of osteoporosis and fracture, but not for the prevention of any other disease.

The greatest concerns about menopause hormone therapy have been about breast cancer and an increased risk of a deep vein clot which might cause a lung clot.

Oestrogen-only menopause hormone therapy is consistently considered to cause little or no change in breast cancer risk.

Oestrogen taken with a progestogen, which is required for women who have not had a hysterectomy, has been associated with a small increase in the risk of breast cancer, although any risk appears to vary according to the type of therapy used, the dose and duration of use.

Oestrogen taken orally has also been associated with an increased risk of a deep vein clot, although the risk varies according to the formulation used.

Source: What are the most common symptoms of menopause? And which can hormone therapy treat?

Mem’s a Boomer. Why her generation drove social change and isn’t just about house prices | SBS Insight

Younger generations often vocalise their resentment towards Baby Boomers and their inaction on climate policy, their hold on property and economic prosperity, but the work that Boomers have done to create positive changes in society is often overlooked.

By rejecting the conservative attitudes of their parents’ generation, Boomers transformed society by pushing back against social attitudes and norms and breaking taboos.

How Boomers fought against the stigma of single motherhood

When Tricia Harper returned to Australia from London in 1969 as a single mother with her baby daughter, she opened Melbourne’s The Age newspaper and read an article that stated the bottom groups on the social ladder, which included derelict men and unmarried mothers.
Harper had been living independently and working as a teacher when she decided to resist the intense societal pressure at the time to give her baby up for adoption. She kept her daughter Ruth despite family and friends voicing their disapproval.

This disapproval motivated Harper to group together with other unmarried mothers to form a group, The Council for Single Mothers and her Child, that would advocate for change.

“We wanted to abolish the illegitimacy … we wanted to change the Family Law Act, and get better child support payments. They were some of our key goals, as well as moving to eliminate stigma, get rid of labels,” Tricia said.

Source: Mem’s a Boomer. Why her generation drove social change and isn’t just about house prices | SBS Insight

Moob Juice is Child Abuse – protesting men who ‘breastfeed’ for kicks -Lily Maynard

The dairy industry informs the UK consumer that there is exciting news! The latest scientific advances mean they can artificially induce lactation in bulls using a cocktail of hormones and chemicals! It’s great! This ‘bovine milk’ is put on the market and sold to the public as the real thing, kosher, bona fide, JUST AS GOOD. Would the public buy it?

Of course not. Putting aside the fact that dairy cows, unlike human women, are already pumped full of hormones to keep them lactating, nobody would want to drink bull ‘milk’ because it’s so blindingly obvious that it is both wrong and unnecessary. As for being ‘just as good’, I just don’t buy it. And neither would you.

Incidentally, ‘milking the bull’ is an old-fashioned saying which uses the metaphor to indicate “an activity or enterprise that has no chance of succeeding; to do something pointless and futile.”

In short, there are no properly medically controlled or documented studies concerning ‘moob juice’, although there is enough anecdotal evidence, and a few rather patchy records and reports that suggest that it can contain sustenance in some form or another.

What about the colostrum, so important to the first few days of a breastfed baby’s life? What about the changing consistency of breastmilk that is so essential to a breastfed newborn’s development?

Even if moob juice can provide nutritional content, how can it be measured with just one – or two, or three- assessments? Can moob juice offer parental immunities and benefits? And if this cocktail is so effective, easy and harmless a treatment, why is it not being offered to more women who have problems breastfeeding?

Source: Moob Juice is Child Abuse – protesting men who ‘breastfeed’ for kicks -Lily Maynard

MeToo Family Courts

Are you are victim of systemic abuse and institutional  failure in the federal and family court systems?

This Class Action involves a plaintiff (known as the representative plaintiff or lead litigant) pursuing a claim on behalf of a larger group that has been similarly affected. They are the only persons assuming the risk and cost of the litigation, and they are running their claim in the interests of all affected parties within the defined group.

This Class Action has 3 Objectives:

Formal Apology

Obtain a formal government apology and acknowledgement for the harm family and federal courts have caused to children and families, recognizing the impact on a generation and paving the way for healing and justice.

Compensation

Financial and other compensation for harm and economic loss to redress and support affected individuals and children who have been victims of systemic abuse and institutional  failure in the federal and family court systems.

Judicial Accountability

The immediate establishment of an independent Federal Judicial Commission with community representation and measures to deal with systemic bias and collusion.

Source: MeTooFamilyCourts

A child’s fertility pact – by Bernard Lane

A primary school-age girl, Isla1, offered one of her eggs for future harvest so that her elder sister, Mia, who identifies as a boy, could one day have a child if she is sterilised by transgender hormone treatment, a court in Australia has heard.

“It’s like a pact between them,” the court was told by parent A2, who supports their eldest daughter’s wish for puberty blockers and testosterone; Mia has also expressed a wish to undergo “every surgery available.”

The Federal Circuit and Family Court this week has been hearing a case in which the separated parents—whose personal characteristics have been suppressed by order of Justice Peter Tree—disagree on whether “gender-affirming” medical treatment or mental health intervention should be the focus in serving the best interests of the gender-diverse sisters.

Parent A, who lives with the daughters, seeks an order for sole parental responsibility, which would enable Mia, who had begun high school at the time of the fertility pact, to continue down a path towards hormonal interventions with irreversible effects including a risk of permanent infertility.

Parent B, who regards Mia’s trans identification as a phase and favours a child’s acceptance of the body over gender medicalisation, is seeking shared responsibility and orders stopping the pursuit of hormonal treatment.

Source: A child’s fertility pact – by Bernard Lane

Abortions were illegal in Australia in the 1930s, and many women like Isabel Pepper died getting them – ABC News

Until the late 1960s, abortion was illegal in Australia. With limited access to contraception, many women, like my great-grandmother, unlawfully attempted to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

According to The Royal Women’s Hospital records from the 1930s, about 250 women each year presented with a septic abortion. This equates to five admissions each week to that one hospital.

“It’s a situation for the desperate,” registered nurse, midwife and historian, Madonna Grehan says.

According to the inquest, Isabel had repeatedly attempted to abort the pregnancy herself. When these home methods were unsuccessful, she sought the assistance of a backyard abortionist.

But there were clearly complications.

Once at the hospital, Isabel was quickly admitted to ward one, the septic ward.

“Ward one was a ward that collected women with lots of problems,” Ms Mabbitt explains.

Now in her 90s, the former midwife still has vivid memories of caring for women with septic abortions on ward one.

“It’s the distinctive smell, it’s all-encompassing. And the screaming. They were in so much pain from everything shutting down,” she says.

Despite the pain Isabel would undoubtedly have been suffering, she was interviewed by police within hours of her admission to hospital because of the illegality of abortion.

She told police that she had miscarried.

“She really didn’t give any indication of the truth, and that was normal,” Ms Mabbitt says.

Just 24 hours after she was admitted to hospital, Isabel died at 5.15am on August 21, 1937.

For decades, thousands of Australian women found themselves in equally desperate situations and they died as a result.

“What really irritates me, most of the people who are against abortion are men, and they really have no idea what they’re talking about, no idea how women died.”

Source: Abortions were illegal in Australia in the 1930s, and many women like Isabel Pepper died getting them – ABC News

Superannuation will be added to Paid Parental Leave scheme | The Australian

Mums and dads will receive superannuation on top of government-funded paid parental leave payments, in a major spending commitment ahead of the May budget aimed at bolstering Labor’s gender equity credentials.

Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher will on Thursday unveil a plan to increase the nearly $900 a week payment by 12 per cent, which will go into superannuation accounts for the 180,000 parents who access the scheme every year.

Senator Gallagher said the measure would “close the super gap”, with men generally retiring with about 25 per cent more superannuation than women.

The announcement comes almost a year after the government’s Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce recommended it take “urgent” action to add super to PPL, which Senator Gallagher said she was actively considering ahead of the May 2023 budget.

Source: Superannuation will be added to Paid Parental Leave scheme | The Australian

A child of a surrogate mother, now a fighter against the industry

Something was just wrong, but Olivia Maurel did not know what. Until she found out that her parents paid for her. She found her biological mother after a long search.

Olivia Maurel always knew something was “off” about her birth. The secretive behaviour of her mother made it clear to her: the woman who raised her did not give birth to her. “There were no pictures of my pregnant mother, and I am five days old in the first pictures of me.”

Despite the DNA test and recognition of her biological mother, Maurel is officially a child of the parents she grew up with. Immediately after her birth, her birth certificate was sealed, and she was given a new one. There, her intended parents are listed as biological parents, allowing them to take little Olivia to France. “Swapping birth certificates should be completely illegal when you think of it.”

Maurel’s parents came into contact with her biological mother in the early nineties through a surrogacy agency. Because of the age of her intended mother, surrogacy was the only option left.

All these question marks over her head caused Maurel psychological problems, she says. She fears rejection and has difficulties in her relationships with older women. Apart from that, she has bipolar disorder, giving her depressive episodes. However, that is not because she was born from surrogacy, Maurel warns. “I inherited it from my biological mother, who is not mentally stable. The surrogacy agency should have rejected her because of that, but they did not.”

Maurel is still in touch with the family that raised her and her biological family. However, she is convinced that surrogacy is a bad thing. The births of her children, now aged between two and five, made her even more determined to fight against surrogacy. “I was so scared during my pregnancies because I did not know 25 per cent of my children’s genes. I did not know what medical issues I could transfer to them.”

Source: A child of a surrogate mother, now a fighter against the industry

CANADA: HIV Positive Trans-Identified Male Boasts of ‘Breastfeeding’ Infant with Professional Support

A trans-identified male residing in Canada who claims to be HIV positive and inserts progesterone rectally has been allegedly “breastfeeding” his child with the support of established medical clinics. Former men’s rights activist Murray Pearson, 52, who uses the name Margaret (Margie) Fancypants on social media, has been criticized after he shared an image of himself at a lactation clinic holding a young infant.

Disturbingly, Pearson has also revealed that he is HIV positive and is aware that the deadly virus can be transmitted through breastfeeding.

In a shocking display of further disregard for the child’s health, Pearson speculated as to whether his experiment would qualify him as a candidate for the participation in academic research.

Reduxx reached out to Dr. Klein to request information on her involvement in Pearson’s experimental lactation, and she confirmed that she had been monitoring Pearson for his HIV infection at the Chronic Viral Illness Service of the McGill University Health Centre.

Dr. Klein further states that Pearson had expressed a desire to breastfeed and then had been referred to an endocrinologist.

Prior to identifying as transgender, Pearson was involved in politically advocating for the US-based, anti-feminist men’s rights non-profit A Voice for Men (AVFM).

The organization was founded in 2009 by Paul Elam, who has said that there would no longer be “any place to hide on the internet” for “lying bitches,” and members associated with the group have previously published personal information about women who opposed their activities.

Criticism of Pearson’s claims to be “lactating” and “breastfeeding” have focused on concerns that he is “motivated… to experience sexual arousal from lactation” . . .

This is not the first controversy that has involved trans-identified males breastfeeding babies, with a number of recent examples triggering concern over the past year.

Last year, a lactation professional in Australia along with a women’s rights campaigner were warned that they had broken the law after criticizing a trans-identified male who had boasted of breastfeeding his infant. Shortly after, a trans-identified male in the UK dismissed critics of the practice as “transphobes” after he posted images of himself with a baby latched to his nipple.

Source: CANADA: HIV Positive Trans-Identified Male Boasts of ‘Breastfeeding’ Infant with Professional Support