INTERVIEW: Maria MacLachlan on the GRA and the aftermath of her assault at Speaker's Corner

My experience of court was much worse than the assault. I was the one on trial that day and if it hadn’t been for the clear video evidence that I’d been assaulted, my assailant wouldn’t have been convicted, even though there were over a dozen witnesses who could have said what happened. I was asked “as a matter of courtesy” to refer to my assailant as either “she” or as “the defendant.” I have never been able to think of any of my assailants as women because, at the time of the assault, they all looked and behaved very much like men and I had no idea that any of them identified as women. After he was arrested, the defendant posted vile misogynistic comments on his Facebook page that no woman would ever make. He was also filmed aggressively intimidating a woman on a picket line, shouting obscenities at her. In what sense is this person a woman?
The judge never explained why I was expected to be courteous to the person who had assaulted me or why I wasn’t allowed to narrate what happened from my own perspective, given that I was under oath. His rebuke and the defence counsel’s haranguing of me for the same reason just made me more nervous and I so continued to inadvertently refer to my male assailant as “he.” In his summing up, the judge said I had shown “bad grace” and used this as an excuse not to award compensation. One writer said, “It was as if the state had colluded with the defendant to take one last stab at the victim,” and that’s exactly how it felt.
https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/06/21/interview-maria-maclauchlan-gra-aftermath-assault-speakers-corner/

These Are the Women Saudi Arabia Doesn’t Want to Talk About – Bloomberg

The night the Saudi government declared an end to its ban on women driving, Aziza Alyousef was elated. The retired professor was inundated with celebratory calls and messages after years of fighting for the freedom. She couldn’t wait to get in line for a license.
“I want to be No. 1,” Alyousef told a reporter after the government’s announcement in September.
Alyousef now awaits the milestone behind bars. She was detained last month, along with some of the most outspoken women’s rights advocates in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom. With days to go before the ban is lifted, nine of the 17 people arrested remain in prison, accused of aiding enemies of the state.
Indeed, the women targeted have been fighting for more basic freedoms than the right to drive, including the end to guardianship, the Saudi legal system that requires women to have the approval of a male relative to travel outside the country or get married.
After the announcement that the driving ban would be lifted, Alyousef and other activists celebrated their breakthrough. Then the mood changed. One by one, they started receiving calls from authorities warning them to stay silent.
The arrests have sent a chill through Saudi Arabia’s intellectual elite. People who once talked freely with foreign journalists are now canceling meetings, saying they’re worried about the risk.
Women are unlikely to push for change in public now, observers say. The future is “state feminism” led by the government, said Al-Dosari, the researcher.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-19/the-saudi-women-most-eager-to-drive-are-sitting-in-jail

The 4 Former First Ladies Condemn Trump’s Border Policy

In the weeks since the Trump administration instituted a zero tolerance policy that seeks to criminally prosecute anyone who crosses the border unlawfully and effectively causes children to be separated from their families, criticism has poured in from advocacy groups, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and a host of political luminaries who are no longer in office.
Now, in the span of about 24 hours, all four living former first ladies have added their voices to the chorus of public critique, calling the practice “immoral,” “disgraceful” and a “humanitarian crisis.”
Even the current first lady, Melania Trump, took the somewhat unusual step of issuing a statement that appeared to align somewhat with her predecessors, while also avoiding assigning partisan blame.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/us/politics/first-ladies-trump-family-separation.html

Distressing audio released of children separated at Mexico border

Heartbreaking audio of wailing children desperately calling out for their parents at the Mexico-US border has been released, highlighting the human toll of Donald Trump’s harsh immigration stand-off.
Democrats, and some in Mr Trump’s own Republican Party, have blasted the administration for separating nearly 2000 children from their parents at the border between mid-April and the end of May.
Former first lady Laura Bush called the separation policy cruel and immoral, while Republican Senator Susan Collins expressed her concern.
Even First Lady Melania Trump appeared to question her husband’s policy on Sunday, while medical professionals have argued the practice could cause lasting trauma to children.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also weighed in, saying refugee and migrant “children must not be traumatised by being separated from their parents”.
In Geneva, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, called for the Trump administration to halt the practice, saying it was unconscionable that any country would seek to deter parents from migrating “by inflicting such abuse on children”.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2018/06/19/donald-trump-separated-children-mexico-border/?

Vocal Lesbian Feminist Magdalen Berns Has Been Attacked

On May 26th, vocal lesbian feminist and popular YouTube vlogger, Magdalen Berns, posted on Twitter “I just got beaten up by a random bloke on the street.” Fans were concerned that the attack was potentially a gay bashing, as she is routinely threatened online.
Luckily a guardian angel jumped in to defend her–a man–who took the worst of the blows. Berns wrote, “He got knocked out trying to stop this lunatic and possibly saved my life in the process.”
So many in the community are just now learning of the news and are disappointed that (as is so often the case with lesbians and more specifically butch lesbians) there has been no coverage of this attack in “LGBTQ” media.
http://www.afterellen.com/general-news/559717-vocal-lesbian-feminist-magdalen-berns-assaulted-suspect-at-large

Trans activism is excusing & advocating violence against women, and it's time to speak up

In January, a woman was photographed holding a sign at the Vancouver Women’s March that included the words, “Trans ideology is misogyny.” This might be viewed as a hyperbolic message for those who consider themselves good, liberal people and who care about a group they have been informed are in extreme danger, and particularly marginalized. And perhaps, if you were unfamiliar with the way women and feminists are addressed by trans activists, you might wonder what statements like this are rooted in. A few years ago, I might have questioned this as well, thinking, “well that’s a bit much, isn’t it.” But as trans activism has gained ground and as I myself — as well as many other women — have begun questioning and speaking out about the aims, ideology, and policies supported in the name of “trans rights,” it has become impossible to deny what is being supported through trans activism: violence against women.
Liberals and the left have broadly defended violence against women as “art” or “sex,” though perhaps in a less overt way than they have outright threats of violence to feminists who wish to question or discuss the notion of gender identity. Pornography, for example, is one area where violence and abuse is consistently defended on account of it being “sex,” “fantasy,” or “free speech.” The ability of men and their allies to avoid viewing a woman being choked, hit, or gang-raped as “real violence” because it is connected to men’s desire and masturbation is without bounds. Similarly, the notion that a man offering a women financial compensation in exchange for permission to abuse her is framed time and time again as “consent,” regardless of the impact on that woman and the broader message this practice sends to all men and women, everywhere.
What is unique about the approach we’ve seen in the trans movement is that it doesn’t attempt to disguise the incitements to violence against women with rhetoric around “consent” and “empowerment.”
The threats of violence against women, on account of having been branded “TERFs,” are frightening not only because we must fear for our physical safety or because of the way these threats act as a silencing mechanism, but because this violence is not being condemned, by and large, by most.
While the San Fransisco Public Library removed the bloody shirt, they did not remove the exhibit entirely, nor do we know why anyone imagined such a display would be appropriate in the first place. One wonders if they would display bloody shirts with the words, “Kill bitches” or “I beat Muslims” next to a display of baseball bats and axes.
Will liberals and progressives stand up before this gets worse? I fear not.
http://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/05/01/trans-activism-become-centered-justifying-violence-women-time-allies-speak/

I know our criminal justice system inside out, and it is being misused

I have worked as both a crown prosecutor and criminal defence lawyer in some of the most remote areas of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. I have seen our criminal justice system inside out and from both sides of the bar table, and I know it is being grossly overused and misused.
The preventable and tragic death of Ms Dhu, who died in police custody after being arrested for unpaid fines, is a clear example of punitive laws and policing practices that are dangerous and compound inequality.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/27/i-know-our-criminal-justice-system
inside-out-and-it-is-being-misused?

Tim Fischer warns 'NRA-inspired' firearms lobby targeting Australia's gun laws

One of the architects of Australia’s strict gun control laws says he is “deeply concerned” about the emergence of what he described as a US-inspired firearms lobby.
Tim Fischer, the former deputy prime minister and leader of the National party who alongside John Howard helped to pass landmark reforms after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, says he believes a “wave” of firearm lobbying influenced by the US National Rifle Association is putting renewed pressure on Australian gun laws.
Fischer’s warning comes in the context of an increasingly well-funded and organised gun lobby with ties to weapons importers and manufacturers.
Last week the Guardian revealed that the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, was considering establishing a committee to allow gun importers to review proposed changes to firearm regulations for “appropriateness and intent”.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/18/tim-fischer-warns-nra-inspired-firearms-lobby-targeting-australias-gun-laws?

So many Australian place names honour murderous white men and their violent acts

As you drive around this continent, stop and think about some of the names you’ll see on creeks, roads and beaches. It’s no coincidence there are so many places named Skeleton Creek in Queensland and Skull Creek in Gippsland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. There is a Murdering Gully in Victoria, a Skull Hole in Queensland and a Massacre Waterfall in central-west New South Wales. I’ve walked the length of a lichen-lined furrow through a field of gold on the Atherton Tableland, wondering if the howling wind might not be the spirits crying. For the place, Boonjie – which was renamed Butchers Creek with the massacre of its custodians in 1887 – is alive with distressed spirits, a descendant of the dead has assured me. The continent, seeded with Indigenous names and stories, has been progressively renamed in places not to commemorate the deaths of First Nations people, but the very act of murdering them.
The wild Australian west meanwhile was the scene of frontier violence that stretched well into the 20th century. The pioneering families and figures involved in extreme acts of violence against the Aboriginal people and who “opened” (a euphemism like “dispersal” when it came to dealing with the hostile Indigenes) that country, are honoured with statues, plaques and public spaces. They are people such as the Duracks and the Forrests, Canning and Stirling.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/17/so-many-australian-place-names-honour-murderous-white-men-and-their-violent-acts?

Transgender files complaint against shelter for abused women

The transgender individual in this story is referred to as a male for purposes of clarity, because he is a biological male who presents as a female, and because no legal record of his female identity or name change could be discovered through research.
The Brother Francis Shelter takes both homeless men and women, but because of the circumstances of his inebriation and fight, the staff sent him over to the Hope Center, which runs a shelter for abused and battered women who are homeless.
Four days later, Coyle filed a complaint with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, saying that he had been discriminated against at a place that provides “public accommodation.” He alleges he was refused entry because he is transgendered. Transgendered means he is in a protected class of individual, his complaint says. He cannot be refused service.
In fact, if the Hope Center had to admit men, it would not have the physical means to segregate them from the women.
His court records show that Coyle is a man with an extensive criminal record, including violent crimes.
Coyle’s complaint is clean, legalistic, and notarized. He may have gotten help from Abused Women’s Aid in Crisis (AWAIC) in filing his complaint against Hope Center.
If indeed AWAIC is helping transgendered persons file complaints against another women’s shelter over the issue of men seeking entry into a place reserved for the safety of traumatized women, then the AWAIC board of directors may have some new policy decisions to make.
http://mustreadalaska.com/transgender-files-complaint-shelter-abused-women/