Shocking video has emerged from the US showing police officers mocking a 73-year-old woman with dementia after her violent arrest.
Karen Garner was detained in June 2020 while walking home after leaving a Colorado Walmart without paying for items worth less than $A20.
Bodycam footage, released by Ms Garner’s lawyer on Monday, shows an officer forcing her to the ground before he and a colleague continue to manhandle the distressed pensioner.
Ms Garner, who weighs just 36 kilograms, suffered a dislocated shoulder and fractured arm – to the apparent amusement of the officers, Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali, who watched the footage while she was left in a cell without medical attention.
Before her arrest, Ms Garner, who has nine grandchildren, lived independently in her own apartment near her daughter’s home.
However, her family said she now struggled to communicate and had anxiety, including bouts of pacing and hand-wringing. She has never been able to tell her family what happened on the day of the arrest, only asking: “Why did they hurt me?”
The current prospective study examined the clinical characteristics of children (including adolescents) presenting to a newly established, multidisciplinary Gender Service in New South Wales, Australia, along with the challenges that clinicians faced in providing clinical services to these patients and their families. We found that the clinical characteristics of the children presenting to our service were comparable to those described by other paediatric clinics: a slight preponderance of biological females to males and high levels of distress and comorbid mental health disorders. While previous studies of children have highlighted high rates of abuse, bullying, discrimination, victimization, and family rejection or lack of family support in a general way—often under an umbrella heading of “abuse and victimization experiences” (p326) (Chew et al., 2020)—the results from our study, including the developmental stories told by the children and their families, highlight that many of these experiences have occurred within the family setting itself. That is, our results highlight that many of the ACEs reported by the children and families—family conflict, bullying, parental mental illness, financial stress, maltreatment, and a breakdown of the family system—occur within the family system itself and that the ACEs reflect a long-standing history of relational stress and a chronic disruption of what are normally comfortable and nurturing attachments.
Our study found that the children and families who came to the clinic had clear, preformed expectations: most often, children and families wanted a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to be provided or confirmed, together with referral to endocrinology services to pursue medical treatment of gender dysphoria. . . . It was our impression that these expectations had been shaped by the dominant sociopolitical discourse—the gender affirmative model. It will be interesting to track the expectations of children and families in the years to come as sociopolitical discourses become more varied and diverse and as the voices are heard of both those who have done well and those who not done well via the medical pathway.
Probably few Tasmanian voters going to the polls on May 1 will be aware that their recently dissolved Parliament was responsible for some of the most radical (and incoherent) legislation in the world concerning gender issues. Remarkably, it was passed from opposition by Labor and Greens MPs in 2019. It was supported in the Legislative Assembly by Speaker Sue Hickey, a member of the Liberal Party at that time, who voted against the position of the Government. The changes were also supported in the Legislative Council by a sufficient number of independents.
The legislation was the Justice and Related Legislation (Marriage and Gender Amendments) Act 2019 . It allows a person 16 years or older to register ‘a gender’ which has the effect of amending the birth register, and for parents to do so for a child under 16. The application must be accompanied by a “gender declaration”. This is a statutory declaration in which the person declares that he or she identifies as being of the gender specified and lives, or seeks to live, as a person of that gender.
The problem with the Tasmanian legislation is that it begins from the premise that sex and gender are different, and then concludes that gender is the same as sex once someone fills in a form which is accepted by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Through an application to an administrator without more, a person can, in essence, change their sex for legal purposes in Tasmanian law.
The intentions of the Parliament to make it possible for transgender people to identify as another gender without sex reassignment surgery could have been fulfilled in a range of ways without embracing unscientific and highly controversial beliefs. People who self-identify as the opposite sex could have been given a gender recognition certificate for the purposes of indicating gender on driving licences or other such official documents. This does not impact upon the rights of anyone else.
Is it so unreasonable for Tasmanians to want their birth certificates to be what they are meant to be – a record of their birth? If 99.98% of the Tasmanian population have no difficulty with their sex or gender, and have not sought to change official records, should policy be dictated by tiny minorities who would like to see sex at birth erased from public records?
The Tasmanian Parliament, recently dissolved, lost its way in a fog of ideological confusion and unscientific beliefs. The new Parliament needs to do better, and to take account of the beliefs of the large majority of people who do not have degrees in gender studies.
The High Court is considering whether to allow an appeal to a Family Court decision after it was disclosed that the judge and a barrister in the matter had a relationship that included “numerous” text messages and meetings over coffee or drinks.
A Perth real estate agent has brought an appeal to the High Court on the grounds of apprehended bias after his lawyers discovered that the opposing side’s barrister Gillian Anderson had been engaging in a “personal relationship” with the now-retired judge, the Honourable John Walters QC, throughout the course of the proceedings.
In dismissing the retrial mid-last year, Justices Steven Strickland and Judy Ryan, who formed the majority, found that the extensive contact between the two parties would not cause a reasonable person to fear that the judge might have been biased.
However, in a dissenting judgement, the Honourable Chief Justice Will Alstergren said it was incumbent on judges and barristers to disclose any contact that could raise a reasonable concern of apprehended bias.
As a result of the case, the Australian Law Reform Commission is reviewing laws in relation to judicial impartiality with an inquiry set to examine whether the law about actual or apprehended bias relating to judicial decision-making is appropriate and sufficient to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice. They are expected to release a consultation paper later this month.
The Arcus Foundation has allocated 9 million dollars exclusively to Transgender causes. Interestingly if you search for the mention of “transmen” specific projects you will not find any. However some of the projects detailed do focus on “Transwomen” usually Transwomen of colour.
As I have noted before “transmen” tend to get deployed when they are pregnant or when it is easier to argue aganst the, sex based, rights of biological women. Their omission from any specific projects aimed at the needs of “transmen” screams good, old-fashioned, sexism to me!
It appears another tactic was to join with women Fighting for reproductive justice. This means that women’s fight to control their fertility is hijacked with trans organisations hitching their wagon to these long running campaigns. This grant is pretty transparent about its “strategic collaboration”.
Another surprise, to me, is how much of a proportion is going to religion organisations including Evangelical Christians and Muslim organisations. Next time anyone tells you that you are in an alliance with religious groups heres a screenshot to share! Over $10 and a half million to religiouis organisations. These organisations were not simply those who you might have expected to hold liberal, progressive views on homosexuality or Gender Identity. Instead many in the United States were explicity Evangelical Christian Organisations deep in what we may have come to know as Trump supporting territory.
You will find similiar examples of “forced teaming” if you look at the grants focussed on racial justice or homelessness. There are also lots of grants to organisations looking at strategic litigation in the area of LGBTQ or exlusively “Transgender” organisations. A few projects are also engaged in educating/lobbying employees of the United Nations.
Many of the entries also talk of funding to “grow grassroots” activists. Somebody should explain that grassroots movements emerge organically. When you are targetting millions of dollars of funding to “grow” a movement you are engaged in Astro-turfing not grass roots activism.
The media narrative also comes in for some skilful manipulation. These are the organisations involved in journalism or documentary film-making who are taking the Arcus Cash. The explicit aim is to ensure media coverage is shaped by the Trans Lobby.
As many of us are trying to point out to radical leftist groups who are screaming “transwomen are women” ,or other mindless mantras, mainly at feminists of the left, you are being manipulated by billionnaires. This is not a grass roots movement its an elite project and there is a lot of money to be made in fostering a bodily dissassociative condition that unmoors us from our sexed bodies.
Gender-neutral toilets could soon become mandatory in all workplaces in one major Australian state. A probe is already underway with WorkSafe in Victoria.
An anti-domestic violence campaigner says the suspected murder-suicide at the Barossa Reservoir highlights the need for more to be done to prevent such tragedies.
Police said initial investigations revealed a history of domestic violence between Mr Shepherdson and Kobi’s mother.
Natasha Stott Despoja – the chair of Our Watch, a group working to end violence against women – said South Australians were angry and sad at Kobi’s death and what it said about how women and children were treated unequally in society compared with men.
She said Kobi’s death and that of Kelly Wilkinson in Queensland “exemplify failings in the system”.
“We know that there are regulatory, there are legal failings, there are gaps in the law,” she said.
“There are problems with enforcement, there are problems with women being believed.
“There’s problems with apprehended violence orders being enforced.
