More than half of Australian young people are using strangulation during sex: new research

We recently surveyed thousands of young Australians about their experiences of strangulation (or choking) during sex and found more than half (57%) reported being strangled by a partner during sex. About half (51%) said they had strangled their partner during sex.

But strangulation carries significant risks and harms to those who experience it, including the possibility of serious injury or even death, sometimes months after the event.

Participants most commonly reported first becoming aware of strangulation during sex when they were around 16–18 years old (29%), or during early adulthood, 19–21 years (24%).

People also reported they were exposed to information about or depictions of strangulation during sex through various sources, most commonly via pornography (61%), but also through movies (40%), friends (32%), social media (31%) and discussions with current or potential partners (29%).

More women (61%) than men (43%) reported ever having been strangled, with a high proportion of people who identified as trans or gender-diverse (78%) reporting being strangled.

More men (59%) than women (40%) responded they had strangled their partners, and nearly three-quarters (74%) of trans and gender-diverse participants reported that they had strangled their partners.

Strangulation is linked to many different kinds of injuries regardless of whether there is consent. These can include bruising, sore throat, neck pain, a hoarse voice, a cough, difficulty swallowing, swollen lips, nausea and vomiting.

Other more serious impacts include pregnancy miscarriage, unconsciousness, brain injury and death. Miscarriage and death can occur weeks or months after the initial strangulation.

Generally, there are no visible injuries associated with strangulation, but even when the person remains conscious, brain injury may occur. We know the more often people are strangled, the more likely they are to experience brain injury. This includes memory loss and difficulties problem-solving. Brain injury also accumulates so the more strangulations, the worse it becomes.

Strangulation has been criminalised across Australia because of the risk associated with it in the context of domestic violence and the harms linked with it more generally. But there are different rules across Australia about consent. And consent can be “blurry”.

Source: More than half of Australian young people are using strangulation during sex: new research

Renowned Singer Imprisoned for “Abducting” Child from Molester Father | Women’s Coalition

Award-winning Malian singer Rokia Traoré was set to perform at the Rome Colosseum last Sunday, but instead she was arrested by border police when she entered Italy.

The arrest was made based on an international warrant issued on grounds of “parental abduction”. The warrant originates from a Belgium criminal court that convicted Rokia in absentia and sentenced her to two years in prison. This criminal conviction stems from a violation of a Family Court order giving custody to the father, who the child says molested her.

One of the most inventive female singer/songwriters, Rokia has performed all over Europe, as well as Africa. She’s won many awards, including the BBC Award for World Music and the Victoires de la Musique (French Grammy’s) World Music Album of the Year.

Rokia is also a lifelong humanitarian activist. She presently serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency.

But this incredibly talented and accomplished woman sits in an Italian jail today awaiting extradition to Belgium, where she will serve her two-year sentence. This draconian punishment is being meted out to her because she dared interfere with the age-old male prerogative to take and sexually abuse his own child—as enforced by Family Court and abetted by Criminal Court.

There was no investigation of the sexual abuse, or at least nothing close to a proper one. The Family Court judge disregarded her daughter’s disclosures, discredited her testimony, and ordered joint physical custody with the credibly accused molester father.

But the father was given legal custody. This is a tactic to silence the child. It gave him the power to determine which therapist the daughter could see or not, depending on who would go along with the cover up of his abuse.

When it was time to hand her daughter over for a month-long visit in the summer of 2019, Rokia fled. She escaped to her home country of Mali!

She and her daughter were safe.

When they arrived in Mali, Rokia presented the evidence of sexual abuse to the Mali court. Apparently they did a proper investigation and she was granted sole custody. The problem with that is Belgium claims jurisdiction and does not recognize the Mali judgment.

Rokia is just one of millions of women who’ve had their children taken from them and given to abusive and self-serving exes in family courts around the world. This is unacceptable in the third millennium when women are supposedly equal and free.

Source: Renowned Singer Imprisoned for “Abducting” Child from Molester Father

Gilead and the BBC, a marriage made in hell | Glinner

On March 5, 2024, a concerned member of the public—formerly a senior media professional—sent the WPATH Files to Fergus Walsh, the BBC’s Medical Editor. The files contained damning information, including admissions from WPATH members about the harm caused by their treatments and the influence of non-medical trans activists.

Despite the gravity and the urgency of the situation, Walsh did not respond. Six days later, on the 11th March, the same individual tried to send an email with an email summarizing key points from an interview with Mia Hughes, the author of the WPATH report, only to discover that their address had been blocked.

But there’s more. It turns out that Walsh is married to Dr. Véronique Walsh, the vice president of Gilead Sciences UK and Ireland. Gilead Sciences is a pharmaceutical company that set up a $4.5 million fund to “to improve the safety, health, and wellness of the transgender community, particularly in light of the disproportionate impact of HIV on transgender individuals”.

$4.5 million sure pays for a lot of ‘wellness’. Gilead uses its financial resources to establish itself as a dedicated ally to the ‘transgender community’, which is really a collection of autistic, troubled, abused or just confused young people, along with middle-aged autogynephiles who have nothing to do with them. Gilead’s TRANScend Community Impact Fund, launched in 2019, has distributed over $9 million to 26 organizations across the United States. While this fund ostensibly supports “strategic program development, capacity building, and direct services”, it of course does so while promoting a specific, contentious narrative around matters trans.

A few years ago, when the War On Women was just starting out, we published a report on Gilead, who were the subject of a mass tort, alleging that the company withheld safer HIV/AIDS drugs from sufferers and manipulated patent timing for profit.

Fergus Walsh served as the BBC’s medical correspondent from 2004 to 2020, when he took over as medical editor for BBC News. In the years leading up to his appointment and since, the BBC has produced only one major investigation into the use of puberty blockers and the ideological basis of ‘trans healthcare’. This was the Newsnight investigation into the Tavistock by Deborah Cohen and her producer Hannah Barnes, the genesis of her acclaimed book ‘Time To Think’. With a scandal of such proportions, you would think BBC News would have turned its attention to follow-up stories, but the BBC’s interest in the issue, never what you might call ‘burning’, disappeared altogether on her exit.

For years now, the BBC’s handling of the trans debate has been a disgrace. Prominent voices like Helen Joyce, Maya Forstater, Stella O’Malley, and Kellie-Jay Keen have been glaringly absent, even from shows like ‘Women’s Hour’. Their coverage reeks of bias, and this habit of lying by omission has done great damage to the BBC’s reputation.

Source: (24) Gilead and the BBC, a marriage made in hell

Unearthed Emails Show Rachel Levine Discussing ‘Potential Revenue’ From Child Sex Change Procedures | The Daily Caller

  • Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine discussed revenue opportunities resulting from hiring a gender clinic social worker while Levine was serving as Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of health, according to emails obtained by parental rights activist Megan Brock and reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. 
  • The pair discussed the potential return on investment and downstream revenue generated by social workers at gender clinics, particularly through surgical referrals. 
  • “I am trying to give them some numbers to help them realize the eventual ROI [return on investment] for this necessary position,” the doctor wrote. “Even if the patients under 18 who go for surgery might be limited, the patients we start with will eventually be over 18…so I still think it’s worthwhile. Of course, I think it’s worthwhile no matter what.”

Source: Unearthed Emails Show Rachel Levine Discussing ‘Potential Revenue’ From Child Sex Change Procedures | The Daily Caller

HRC – Press conference: UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls | UN Web TV

Briefing from the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls on the reports to the 56th session of the Human Rights Council

Source: HRC – Press conference: UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls | UN Web TV

The Bookseller – News – Publishing network launches for those ‘concerned about the impact of gender ideology’

A publishing network for those “concerned about the impact of gender ideology on our sector and wider society” has launched for publishing professionals, authors and creatives.

SEEN Publishing is currently on X/Twitter (@SEENPublishing) and LinkedIn (SEEN in Publishing), though it is not yet known who is behind the network or if they will remain anonymous. Similarly, the number of members so far is as yet unknown.

However, in a statement, the network said its members “believe in the material reality of sex” and “value diversity of thought and freedom of expression”.

It goes on: “We believe that everyone in publishing should be able to express legally held views on sex and gender, including where these views relate to publishing-sector decisions, free from fear, harassment, discrimination, and negative career repercussions.”

A process for screening new members is in place, the network said, and membership is confidential. The Bookseller understands that a Substack is also forthcoming.

The network is the latest “SEEN” group to launch with others established in other industries such as the Police SEEN UK and SEEN in Schools.

Source: The Bookseller – News – Publishing network launches for those ‘concerned about the impact of gender ideology’

Family law expert urges ‘abduction reversing’ Hague Convention to take account of domestic abuse | Brunel University London

The Hague Abduction Convention was set up in 1980 with the best of intentions: to return a child back to the country of their primary carer (usually their mother) if the other, non-resident parent has taken the child against their will to another country.

However, 3 in every 4 cases involve mothers as ‘abductors’, many of whom have fled domestic violence – and then have to choose whether to return with their children or send their children back alone.

The only glimmer of hope available to these victims is the ‘grave risk’ defence, but it’s rare for the defence to succeed. Mothers often end up in worse situations than before, including being left isolated, homeless, subject to further abuse – or even murdered.

Legal and governmental representatives from many of the 103 signatory countries gathered last week in Johannesburg to discuss the Convention and the ‘grave risk’ defence. It was the first time this had happened in the Convention’s 44-year history.

Dr Adrienne Barnett is a legal expert on family courts and domestic abuse from Brunel University London and is the UK Lead on the Hague Mothers International Strategy Group.

Numerous speakers emphasised the need for domestic abuse to be recognised in every case as leading to a grave risk to the child, as well as the ineffectiveness of ‘protective measures’ such as restraining orders in preventing further violence and abuse to mothers and children on return.

Dr Barnett also urged states to recognise the human rights of mothers in their own right: “Women’s lives should not be sacrificed on the altar of prompt return, as was the case for Cassie Hasanovic, who was stabbed to death in front of her children by her ex-husband after an Australian court ordered the children’s return to England.”

Key recommendations made by Hague Mothers include mechanisms for monitoring the implementation of the Convention, equal access to legal representation for parents, that domestic abuse be recognised in all cases as creating a grave risk for children, and domestic abuse training for all judges and professionals.

Hague Mothers is calling for:

  • a specific defence against return in cases of domestic abuse
  • a stay on return orders in domestic abuse cases to enable the welfare issues to be litigated while the mother and children are in a safe location
  • proper risk assessment and exploration of each child’s views
  • equality of arms to enable the taking parents as well as the left-behind parents to have legal representation.

The HCCH will be compiling a report in the coming weeks.

Source: Family law expert urges ‘abduction reversing’ Hague Convention to take account of domestic abuse | Brunel University London

Police took nearly an hour to respond to triple-zero call while woman lay dying |SMH

An investigation has been launched into why it took police nearly an hour to acknowledge a triple-zero call to a house where a woman lay dying. The woman’s partner has since been charged with murder.

A call was made to triple zero shortly after 1.30am on Saturday after neighbours reportedly heard screaming from a residential home in Casino in the Northern Rivers.

Police failed to acknowledge the emergency call until 2.25am. When they arrived at the home two minutes later, they found the woman, aged in her 40s, unconscious but still breathing.

An ambulance was called, but the woman’s condition deteriorated and she died at the scene.

Police said the woman’s male partner, 31, had been charged with murder.

It’s the second domestic violence-related death in the state in two days after a woman was allegedly murdered by her housemate at Russell Lea in Sydney’s inner west on Thursday.

Source: 12ft

Josephine Butler: the forgotten feminist who fought the UK police – and their genital inspections | Women | The Guardian

In her memoir, Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade, Butler described her deliberations as filled with angst. She and her husband, a headteacher in Liverpool, knew it would harm his career. But neither was in doubt that the acts had to be fought. They gave the police the power to carry out compulsory genital examinations of women they believed to be prostitutes – but not their male customers. If the women refused to be checked, they were sentenced to jail with hard labour. If found to have a venereal disease, they were forcibly detained in a “lock hospital”.

In 1870, the LNA seized the chance of a byelection in Colchester. Sir Henry Storks was the Liberal candidate and a former governor of Malta, where he had introduced similar laws. He was also on record as arguing that the acts should be applied to soldiers’ wives – a suggestion which appalled Butler, who took it as proof that the acts were an insult to all women and potentially the start of something even more broadly threatening.

Convinced that MPs had deliberately avoided publicity when the laws were passed, Butler and her supporters organised prayer meetings and gave out thousands of leaflets. This provoked a furious response and repealers were repeatedly attacked. Butler was forced to hide from an angry crowd in a grocer’s cellar, and to leave a hotel in which she had booked under a false name in the middle of the night. But when the votes were counted, it was clear that the bold tactics had succeeded. Storks lost.

When the “first wave” of feminism is referred to, it is usually suffragettes that people have in mind. Less often remembered is that this was not the first time the British women’s movement rejected the reformers’ tactics of petitions, letters and lobbies in favour of a much more direct challenge.

At the root of her determination to overthrow the laws lay her conviction that they violated women’s civil rights. In speeches and writing, she cited the principle of habeas corpus – the prohibition of unlawful imprisonment – that she saw as fundamental to the British constitution. While advocates of women’s rights had long recognised the myriad ways in which women were disadvantaged, the repeal campaign was the first time that the forceful and legal operation of a sexual double standard was publicly challenged by women themselves. The coalition of police, military and courts that promoted the CD Acts, Butler told supporters, was “a diabolical triple power”; the forcible inspection of genitals was itself an assault.

Evidence heard by a Royal Commission pointed to the different way of doing things in Sweden. There, free advice and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases were offered in clinics to all who sought them. This, rather than unrealistic demands for total abstinence, was the model proposed by the reformers – and one far closer to a modern public health approach.

But such progressive notions were ignored, as was a recommendation that the age of protection (consent) be increased from 12 to 14. Instead, MPs chose to retain the status quo whereby men could legally have sex with children (which we would now call rape; the age was raised to 13 in 1875). It took more than a decade of campaigning by more than 100 local groups, and many years’ worth of evidence showing that the acts had failed to curb disease, before parliament backed a motion to suspend them in 1883. Butler was in the Ladies’ Gallery of the House of Commons, where women were allowed to watch from behind a screen, when the cheer went up.

Source: Josephine Butler: the forgotten feminist who fought the UK police – and their genital inspections | Women | The Guardian

Zoraya was physically healthy. Doctors helped her die.

Zoraya ter Beek struggled with her mental health ever since she was a little girl.

Chronic depression, anxiety and trauma were constants in her childhood and adolescent years. She endured extreme bullying,and eventually began dressing in goth clothing in an attempt to scare her tormentors into leaving her alone.

At 21, she was diagnosed with autism, a diagnosis she struggled with. So much so, that by the time she was 22, she wore a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ tag around her neck.

Although ter Beek was physically healthy, she told The Free Press that she’d been hoping her life would end long before she wore the tag.

When she turned 18, ter Beek moved in with her boyfriend, Stein, who was ten years older than her. Her parents disapproved, prompting an estrangement that included her three sisters, as well as her parents.

Ter Beek’s partner urged her to seek help to regain control of her mental health, and she did. Ter Beek said she tried everything. She regularly saw a psychiatrist and even tried electroconvulsive therapy that involves electric currents jolting the brain. She endured this process 33 times.

But, nothing changed. And after her last treatment in 2020, ter Beek says her psychiatrist told her there was nothing more they could do. “It’s never going to get any better,” her psychiatrist reportedly said.

By December that year, ter Beek had applied to the Netherlands’ Euthanasia Expertise Centre (ECT).

In May, ter Beek was approved for physician-assisted dying on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering. The decision came three and a half years after she first applied, and was approved under a law passed in the Netherlands in 2022 that granted eligibility to people experiencing “unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement”.

Because ter Beek is physically healthy, her case caused global controversy, and debate raged around whether or not people with psychiatric illnesses should be eligible.

For ter Beek though, her decision was final, and made with the support of her partner, who she requested be by her side at the time, though she reportedly told him it was okay if he needed to leave the room before the moment of death.

On May 22, ter Beek’s friend, Martin, announced her death via social media. A medical team came to her home, gave her a sedative, and waited until she was in a coma before administering drugs to stop her heart.

She was 29 years old.

Source: Zoraya was physically healthy. Doctors helped her die.