NSW Government held a Secretive Consultation on Conversion Practices Bill during August 2023. Read what feminists and LGB advocates have to say about conversion practices Here are a selection of submissions made regarding LGB and women’s rights in regard of proposed NSW Conversion Practices legislation.
(Ed: and Feminist Legal Clinic’s own submission is available here.)
Source: Submissions to the NSW Government Consultation on Conversion Practices Bill – Respect Our Sex
Is the tide finally turning on trans? It can often feel as if every public figure is toeing the woke line, with any dissenting view crushed by cancel culture. Even those rock stars who think of themselves as rebellious, from Billy Bragg to Neil Young, have become boringly conformist. Thank God, then, for Alice Cooper.
In an interview with online music magazine Stereogum this week, the American rock legend gave some refreshingly commonsense takes on gender-identity ideology.
Cooper was especially sceptical about the growing number of kids who identify as trans. ‘I’m understanding that there are cases of transgender [children], but I’m afraid that it’s also a fad’, he said. ‘I find it wrong when you’ve got a six-year-old kid who has no idea. He just wants to play and you’re confusing him [by] telling him, “Yeah, you’re a boy, but you could be a girl if you want to be”.’
Cooper also touched on the threats trans ideology poses to women’s rights and single-sex spaces: ‘A guy can walk into a woman’s bathroom at any time and just say, “I just feel like I’m a woman today”, and have the time of his life in there.’
Saying what we’ve all been thinking, Cooper also summed up ‘the whole woke thing’. ‘It’s getting to the point now where it’s laughable’, he said. ‘Everybody I talk to says, “Isn’t it stupid?”.’
Of course, there is nothing progressive about insisting that boys who play with dolls must really be girls. The gender-bending of past rock stars was about liberating people from those gendered expectations and stereotypes. The trans ideology, on the other hand, repackages them in a woke guise.
Source: Alice Cooper’s rock’n’roll revolt against trans ideology – spiked
Listen now (50 min) | How to keep your job in the days of gender ideology.
[ed: Please note the summary at the end by Phil Dye does not accurately convey the content of this interview and should not be relied upon. The law in this area is complex, untested in many areas and currently in flux and does not lend itself to a potted summary. For example, there are other exceptions under the discrimination legislation other than that for sport and it may be reasonable to exclude a child from the girls toilet on the grounds of safety but not as a punitive measure. Do not rely on this podcast as a substitute for legal advice.]
Source: (100) Ep 31: Teachers, gender and the law – by Phil Dye
The mother of a 13-year-old girl (sic) with gender dysphoria is seeking to remove an independent children’s lawyer who has opposed her(sic) ongoing medical treatment, a Melbourne court has heard.
The girl (sic), who the court heard was self-harming and threatening suicide, is being treated at a Melbourne hospital.
Hospital policy prevents the treatment from continuing unless a family court order is obtained, or the girl’s(sic) father – who has no involvement with the child – provides consent, barrister Robin Smith, for the mother, told the court on Thursday.
Smith told the court the hospital recommended the treatment for the girl (sic), who cannot be named, as she had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
The girl (sic) was born male but “socially transitioned” at the age of four, the court heard.
But a barrister representing Susan Hamilton-Green, who is the court appointed independent children’s lawyer, said that it was important the court consider “the risks and the advantages” of the treatment and that “the science isn’t settled” before making the order.
The exact nature of the treatment sought by the girl (sic) was not mentioned during Thursday’s hearing.
In the to and fro of daily life, an accidental knock to the breast can hurt for a moment. But in the push and shove on the sporting field – such as the upcoming 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup – a blow to the breast can cause breast pain, swelling and bruising.
Coaches, health clinicians and sporting organisations don’t know enough about this silent, female-specific injury. And female athletes involved in sports like soccer or football need to be aware of the potential dangers. Our recent review paper outlines how risks vary as breasts change in structure and function over a lifetime – through puberty, pregnancy, lactation, menopause and following surgery.
[M]ost injuries are not assessed or treated even though they cause symptoms that can last for weeks, negatively affect athletic and work performance and have long-term consequences, including:
- breast fat necrosis (or tissue death), that can result in fibrous lumps within the breast
- breast deformities and asymmetries from either the halting of breast development during puberty or the bursting of breast implants, with both requiring surgery if correction is sought
- damage to the milk ducts of lactating breasts that can affect breastfeeding.
Female athletes also suffer from frictional skin injuries from bras, and from breast pain associated with hormonal changes or excessive breast movement.
Source: Breast injuries are common for female athletes. Here’s why better awareness and reporting are needed
Complaint by Anna Kerr, Principal Solicitor
Four Corners has really lost credibility after allowing Patricia Karvelas to cover such an important subject. Our service supports detransitioners and were keen to see Four Corners expose the extensive human rights abuses that have been taking place in the guise of “gender health care”. Of course, once it was announced that PK would be the journalist on the program, it was clear we could not expect impartial reporting. Who made the decision to have PK report on a subject on which she has already demonstrated such clear bias? No wonder people were unwilling to speak with her about their devastating experiences. Her conscience, and that of Four Corners producers, will be heavy in future years with the knowledge that they facilitated the continuation of this shocking abuse of young and vulnerable people. It seems to take about 10 years before individuals recognise and are able to speak about the extent of their regret. The current trickle of litigation is set to become an avalanche in view of the exponential increase in the numbers of young people being sterilised and mutilated in recent years (yes – that is the accurate description). Four Corners has lost its chance to blow the whistle on one of the greatest global scandals of all time.
Complaint by Bronwyn Williams, Solicitor
The Four Corners program titled ‘Blocked’ that aired on Monday 10 July at 8.30 pm was billed as a ‘fair’ investigation and discussion of the current controversy surrounding medical and surgical interventions for gender dysphoric children and young people – see https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-10/four-corners-gender-distress-children-westmead-opinion/102577934.
Nothing could be further from the truth of what was served up as responsible investigative journalism by the ABC last Monday. The program’s host, Patricia Karvelas, didn’t even bother to hide her bias, hoping perhaps to convince the many, many viewers who are unfamiliar with the issues at hand that so-called ‘gender affirming care’ is the only right and proper protocol for managing gender dysphoria in young people.
The ‘personal stories’ presented portrayed a number of young people who appeared to be happily transitioning, and one clearly very troubled teenager who took her own life while waiting for assistance from the Westmead Children’s Hospital Gender Service. I understand the ABC has no obligation to follow the Australian Press Council’s standards but the identification of this child and the emotive way in which her story was presented were clearly in breach of the Press Council Standards on Coverage of Suicide – https://www.presscouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/SPECIFIC_STANDARDS_SUICIDE_-_July_2014.pdf.
How is it in the public interest to describe the tragic circumstances of a child’s death at some length while implying, very strongly, that it could have been avoided if a government funded service had seen her more promptly? How is that not taking a transparently biased approach to the gender medicine debate? How is it not cynical manipulation of those viewing the program?
Further, this aspect of the program may breach the ABC’s own Code of Practice standard 7.6, which requires that much care be taken when reporting incidents that may lead to ‘dangerous imitation’ – https://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/ABC-CODE-OF-PRACTICE-08-05-2023.pdf. It is well accepted that stories about suicide can lead to a spike in similar incidents – hence the admonition to take extreme care when reporting. ‘Blocked’ arguably made an inappropriate spectacle of suicide in circumstances where it could be reasonably foreseen that other vulnerable young girls may see it as an option for relieving their distress.
A Westmead Children’s Hospital team recently produced research suggesting a more conservative approach to gender dysphoria in children and young people was warranted, in preference to gender affirming medical and surgical interventions. Ms Karvelas ensured that the Westmead team and their research were relentlessly denigrated. It was said they declined to participate in the program, and that is perfectly understandable – who would want to be publicly eviscerated by a journalist who clearly opposes your sensible views and is intent on making you pay for them.
No robust research was cited supporting ‘gender affirmation’. It was enough, apparently, to nitpick about data in the published research that doesn’t support this model.
There was some time allocated to those who advocate for a more careful, psychotherapeutic approach to gender dysphoria in young people, but it was only a fraction of the coverage given to ‘gender affirmation’ as the gold standard of care. The program was also careful to associate the medical professionals who hold an alternative view with conservative groups that are often portrayed negatively in the media.
Ms Karvelas made only a token attempt at genuine balance, and despite her lip service to the principles of journalistic integrity, she wasn’t fooling anyone who is informed about the issues involved.
Is the ABC now firmly in the business of promoting gender identity ideology and the medical and surgical transitioning of children? Is the organisation prepared to be complicit in the negligent refusal to consider the real, damaging consequences of these experimental interventions? It seems like common sense that you don’t feed an adolescent toxic hormone drugs and remove healthy body parts – we can only conclude that common sense is sadly lacking at ‘our ABC’.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-10/blocked:-the-battle-over-youth-gender-care/102584850
It’s time the left pushed back against woke. Afraid of being branded a racist, misogynist or transphobe, the left has been browbeaten into silence by woke activists, even though the left enabled the modern movements for black rights, gay rights and feminism.
Woke is neither progressive nor left when it reduces politics to individual self-expression and identity. And woke politics is anti-democratic when its call-out tactics and cancel culture create a punitive and exclusionary environment. Fear of being publicly shamed, bullied, cancelled or even fired is stifling sincere dialogue, not least among academics.
Bigots should be called out, but anathemising those with a progressive but different view is divisive and unfair. Opinions that are annoying, upsetting or infuriating are not necessarily intolerant or harmful, let alone “hateful”. They are an everyday part of living in a democratic society.
The only way to understand and effectively respond to opinions you don’t like is to first listen to them. Yet balaclava-clad woke agitators have threatened gender-critical feminists such as Holly Lawford-Smith, an associate professor in political philosophy at the University of Melbourne, so that now she needs security guards on campus. It’s unforgiveable. They want to silence her, going so far as to denounce students taking her feminism course as “fascists”. So, studying different views should be forbidden?
In the Greens, the worship of victimhood is rife, giving rise to some woeful decisions. And intolerance in the trans “debate” borders on the extreme with calls to punish those who do not toe the wokest of woke lines.
Metro Bank has refused to open a new business account for Our Duty, a group of more than 2,000 parents who believe that it is harmful for transgender children to undergo a medical transition. The group’s founder, Keith Jordan, claimed that a manager from the bank told the group it could not open a business account because “the content of your website conflicts with the culture and ideas we are pushing”.
Reporter Heidi Davoren provides an extraordinary insight into a parenting dispute, where a mother and father come together after a Family Court psychologist harmed their family.
