Women’s group bans ‘transphobic’ J.K. Rowling

Women’s group bans ‘transphobic’ J.K. Rowling. A Sydney women’s health centre has removed an essay by J.K. Rowling from its social media pages and issued a grovelling apology, after being called “transphobic” over the issue.

Source: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/jk-rowling-writings-removed-from-leichhardt-womens-medical-centre-in-row-over-transphobia/news-story/2670e37d630a358770d01faa4c1fdd4d

Just a pill? | Victoria Smith | The Critic Magazine

Reading Jessica Taylor’s Sexy but Psycho, a feminist challenge to the psychiatric labelling of women and girls, I find myself thinking of contemporary psychiatry as the abusive partner who tries to control you by telling you how shit all the other men are.

“C’mon,” he wheedles. “It’s not as though I’m administering electric shocks until you start to have seizures. Or sticking an ice pick through your eye socket and wiggling it around in your brain matter. It’s just, like, a pill or two. What’s the big deal?”

Taylor is uncompromising, stating that psychiatry is wholly incompatible with women’s liberation. The present-day examples she offers are numerous and shocking: women and girls harmed by sexual violence being told their signs of trauma reveal them to have personality disorders; abused women being encouraged to get diagnostic labels in order to access support, then having their diagnoses used to discredit their testimonies; women’s reports of violence and abuse being treated as evidence that they are fantasists, particularly if they already have histories of being labelled mentally ill; women’s physical ailments being treated as emotional, while their emotional distress is treated as physical in origin.

A psychiatric diagnosis robs women and girls of two of the things for which feminists have fought longest and hardest: our credibility and our right to consent to what is done to our own bodies.

In 1990’s The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf argued that “new possibilities for women quickly become new obligations. It is a short step from ‘anything can be done for beauty’ to ‘anything must be done’”. She was right. In 1990 it was not normal for wealthy women to have their faces injected with poison during their lunch hours; now it is. I think the same principle operates in terms of psychiatric labelling and treatments. If it can be done, it will, and once it is being done, it is seen as justified.

Source: Just a pill? | Victoria Smith | The Critic Magazine

Announcing Hague Mothers – a FiLiA Legacy Project — FiLiA

Under The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980, a child is considered abducted if they are removed by one parent without the other parent’s consent. The motive is not relevant. Over 100 countries have signed the treaty.

The Convention was intended to deal with a parent taking their children across national borders without the permission of the other parent. It was particularly aimed at fathers. However, in over seventy percent of cases the legislation is being used against mothers, many fleeing domestic violence and sexual abuse. The cases are brought by the perpetrators of that violence with support from the state. The outcomes are invariably catastrophic for the abused victims and for their children.

The Hague Mothers FiLiA Legacy Project aims to amplify the voices of the women who are victims of The Hague Convention, to raise awareness of the issues, and to work with lawyers, domestic violence experts, children’s organisations, women’s groups, and Hague victims to put right the injustices perpetuated by this legislation.

Source: Announcing Hague Mothers – a FiLiA Legacy Project — FiLiA

Ground-breaking family law firm bridges affordability gap | The Lighthouse

A new Sydney-based not-for-profit family law firm, Wallumatta Legal, aims to provide legal services to the ‘missing middle’, those not eligible for Legal Aid or other free services but who cannot easily afford fees charged by commercial lawyers.

A collaboration with global law firm DLA Piper, Wallumatta Legal has evolved from research that identified family law as one of the biggest areas of unmet legal need in Australia.

Says Associate Professor Lise Barry, Interim Dean of Macquarie Law School, “A lot of essential workers – aged care workers, nurses, teachers, cleaners and delivery drivers ̶̶̶ fall into the ‘missing middle’.

The reality, she says, is that unless you’re on Centrelink benefits and don’t have many assets, you’re not going to meet the threshold. Even then, Legal Aid is available only for certain matters in family law. It is not usually available for property disputes, for instance, she says.

“Anyone with a net income over $400 a week is generally not going to meet the eligibility for Legal Aid. Some 14% of the population live below the Henderson Poverty Line yet only 8% will be eligible for Legal Aid.” (The Henderson Poverty Line was devised by the Melbourne Institute’s foundation director, Professor Ronald Henderson, in 1975; in 2021 this was established as $1091.50 a week for a family of two adults, one of whom is working, and two dependent children.)

An online questionnaire collates information ahead of an initial consultation, enabling the lawyer to focus on providing the client with advice and representation rather than the often-costly face-to-face process of collecting information.

The new clinic fast-tracks students’ ability to make real-world, positive changes to their communities with valuable insights into the practical application of family law.

Source: Ground-breaking family law firm bridges affordability gap | The Lighthouse

Justice for Tamica and Charlie Mullaley: 9 years, no action.

Unlike the names Hannah Clarke, Jill Meagher, Daniel Morcombe and most recently Cleo Smith – another WA child that went missing in the night – the story of what happened to the Mullaleys in 2013 hasn’t been seared into the psyche of Australians in quite the same fashion.

Time and time again the Mullaleys were faced with what they say was blatant discrimination at the hands of police. Like the police request that Tamica go home and produce a birth certificate to prove that the man who took Charlie wasn’t his birth dad – as if who took him mattered. Like the six thousand Google hits Charlie had in media mentions compared to the 70 million for Cleo.

Because this isn’t just about police discrimination – it was media discrimination, too.

“If you’re a white baby and you’re abducted, everyone knows your name. People know Cleo’s name, they know the Beaumont children. But I challenge people to name the Bowraville children who were murdered, and no one outside of the Indigenous community in WA have even generally heard of baby Charlie, ” Mr Newhouse told Mamamia.

Source: Justice for Tamica and Charlie Mullaley: 9 years, no action.

Is it too late to save women’s sport? | The Spectator Australia

There’s a change in the air.

Last week, transgender swimmer Lia Thomas’ ‘wins’ and ‘records’ at the Ivy League Women’s Championships were met with anger and frustration. One feels for Thomas – a biological male – who had simply followed the absurd rules as set, but after dominating female competitors and catapulting from #462 in men’s swimming to #1 in the female ranks, the gross injustice was impossible to ignore.

Then this week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison publicly threw his support behind Senator Claire Chandler’s ‘Save Women’s Sport Bill’ also known as the Sex Discrimination and Other Legislation Amendment (Save Women’s Sport) Bill 2022.

Sporting groups may continue to offer mixed-sex sport or open categories, but the legislation will ensure that if they do choose to provide single-sex sport for women, they are protected from the perverse threat of legal action that they currently face. The current vague legal exemption for female-only sport being trumpeted by those opposed to Chandler’s bill is useless when sporting organisations are too afraid to use it.

Again, the Bill will not ban trans people from playing sport, but will simply restore a level playing field for women and girls. If anything, it is the status quo that is harming trans people – the indignation felt as biological males continue to thrash women in the sporting arena will only grow.

Source: Is it too late to save women’s sport? | The Spectator Australia

Fathers’ Allegations of Mental Health and Mothers’ Allegations of Coercive Control: Intersections and Outcomes in Family Law Proceedings — University of Canberra Research Portal

This article examines the possible impact of separated fathers’ coercive control on their former partners’ mental health, and the apparent differential treatment of mothers’ and fathers’ allegations by family law courts. A small select population of judgments for the period 2013–20 published in the Australasian Legal Information Institute were identified. Each matter contained allegations of both maternal mental health issues and allegations of family violence against the father. The analysis of this sample has shown that the psychological impact of coercive control on mothers tends to be minimised. The courts do appear to acknowledge the potential nexus between controlling behaviour and mental health but give primacy to the impact of coercive control on the mother’s parenting capacity rather than on her mental health. This approach can adversely impact mothers because it can result in a child being placed in a violent father’s care.

Source: Fathers’ Allegations of Mental Health and Mothers’ Allegations of Coercive Control: Intersections and Outcomes in Family Law Proceedings — University of Canberra Research Portal