Trans-identifying males over-represented in NZ prisons | Speak Up for women

In July 2024 Speak Up for Women (SUFW) submitted a request to The Department of Corrections under the Official Information Act 1982 as follows:

We would like to request the following information, from 2020 until now, broken down into yearly or part yearly statistics (in the case of 2024). 

 

Please break the statistics down into ‘sentenced’ and ‘remand’ where possible.

A trans-identifying male is a biological male who identifies as a woman.

  1. The number of trans identifying males in custody during each period

  2. The number of trans identifying males who were housed in a female corrections facility during each period

  3. The number of trans identifying males who requested a transfer to a female corrections facility

  4. The number of the trans identifying males who were sentenced or on remand for crimes involving ‘sexual assault’ during each period

  5. The number of the trans identifying males who were sentenced or on remand for crimes involving ‘an act intended to cause injury’ during each period

We received a delayed but comprehensive response to questions 1,2,4 and 5. The results are unsurprising – male offending patterns do not change because of the way a man identifies.

Read the full release here

Source: Trans-identifying males over-represented in NZ prisons

House panel probes if Harris-Biden admin officials ‘inappropriately’ pressured medical experts to nix age-limit guidelines for transgender surgery | New York Post

Rachel Levine

House Republicans are investigating whether the Harris-Biden administration “inappropriately” pressured an international group of medical experts to do away with age-limit guidelines for transgender procedures – including gender-changing surgery for minors.

“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating allegations of political interference by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in third-party medical organization recommendations,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), the chairwoman of the committee’s healthcare and financial services panel, informed HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on Tuesday.

“We are concerned that HHS officials, acting in their official capacity, inappropriately applied pressure for changes to international pediatric medical standards,” the congresswoman wrote in a letter to Becerra.

McClain’s letter is in reference to a June report in the New York Times alleging that Adm. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, urged the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to remove age limit recommendations for transgender surgical procedures over concerns that it could limit access to the operations in the US.

Source: Ground News – House panel probes if Harris-Biden admin officials ‘inappropriately’ pressured medical experts to nix age-limit guidelines for transgender surgery

Women’s Groups File Amicus Brief in Sixth Circuit Challenging Biden-Harris Policy to Force Girls to Change and Shower with Males | IWF

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Independent Women’s Law Center, alongside Women’s Declaration International USA and Concerned Women for America, filed an amicus brief in the Sixth Circuit to prevent the illegal Biden-Harris Title IX rewrite from taking effect in Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia.

“The only thing more concerning about the Biden-Harris administration’s desire to eliminate the reality of male and female is the administration’s use of Title IX to do it. This law was intended to equalize opportunities for women, not by pretending we didn’t exist, but by explicitly affording us equal rights. The Biden-Harris bureaucrats want to infuse gender ideology throughout our education system, but cannot do so democratically. Independent Women’s Law Center will stand up for women and against lawless administrative power,” said May Mailman, director of Independent Women’s Law Center.

“‘Gender identity’ does not exist in any real, material sense, yet the Biden administration insists on pretending that it does. Women’s Declaration International USA (WDI USA) works to advance the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, which is grounded in radical feminist principles, throughout U.S. law and society. Article 7 of the Declaration reaffirms women’s rights to the same opportunities as men to participate actively in sports and physical education. Sports are played with bodies, not ‘gender identities.’ WDI USA is proud to unite with women’s groups across the political spectrum in standing with the plaintiffs in their fight to preserve the original intent of Title IX,” said Elizabeth Chesak, president of Women’s Declaration International USA.

A copy of the amicus brief can be found here.

Source: Women’s Groups File Amicus Brief in Sixth Circuit Challenging Biden-Harris Policy to Force Girls to Change and Shower with Males | IWF

Global protest vs German SElf ID law – 1 November 2024 – Initiative “Lasst Frauen Sprechen!”

On November 1st 2024 the German Self-ID law („Selbstbestimmungsgesetz“) will come into force. We are calling for women around the world to join our protest against this harmful legislation. From 12:05 til 4 p.m. in the afternoon we will be protesting in front of the German Bundestag in Berlin. We ask our feminist sisters to show their solidarity and protest on the same day in front of German embassys and consulates of their country. We offer a draft for a letter to the German ambassador of your country.

Source: Global protest vs German SElfID law – Globaler Protest gegen das Selbstbestimmungsgesetz – 1. November 2024 – Initiative “Lasst Frauen Sprechen!”

Statement on the decision of the Federal Court of Australia in the case of Roxanne Tickle v. Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd and Sally Grover | Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem

GENEVA (4 September 2024) – In a statement today, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, expressed grave concern over a decision by the Federal Court of Australia in the case of Roxanne Tickle v. Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd and Sally Grover, that the exclusion of a male who identifies as a woman and is recognised as female under the law from a female-only social media platform constitutes unjustified indirect discrimination.

“The ruling demonstrates the concrete consequences that result when gender identity is allowed to supplant sex and override women’s rights to female-only services and spaces,” said Alsalem.

She noted that the ruling concerned the Australian Sex Discrimination Act, and that while the Act differentiates between the concepts of sex and gender identity, this distinction is abandoned in practice. She said the Act severed the term sex from its ordinary meaning of biological sex, operating on what she described as a built-in and fictitious premise that every human being has a gender identity. Consequently, she said that the Federal Court had argued that the Convention on Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), ratified by Australia in 1983, was irrelevant to certain aspects of this case, on the pretext that gender identity discrimination was not alleged in favor of a man or men. However, in her view, the Court ignored the fact that the CEDAW Convention recognises that there are women who are more vulnerable to discrimination as a result of the interplay between sex and other factors that affect their lives.

Alsalem said that the Federal Court relied on a general anti-discrimination provision of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), article 26, next to Australian legislation to argue the prohibition of discrimination based on gender identity. However, as noted by the UN Human Rights Committee, “not every differentiation of treatment will constitute discrimination, if the criteria for such differentiation are reasonable and objective and if the aim is to achieve a purpose which is legitimate under the Covenant”.

The Special Rapporteur referred to the position paper she issued in relation to this court case, which highlighted that “where tension may arise between the right to non-discrimination based on sex and non-discrimination based on gender identity, international human rights law does not endorse an interpretation that allows either for derogations from the obligation to ensure non-discrimination based on sex or the subordination of this obligation not to discriminate based on sex to other rights”.

The Special Rapporteur expressed concern that the court decision could make it potentially harder for women and girls to argue for the proportionality, legitimacy and necessity of female-only spaces in some circumstances.

Source: 20240904-stm-sr-vawg-australia-en.pdf

Posie Parker assault: Activist Eli Rubashkyn who doused anti-trans campaigner in tomato juice convicted – NZ Herald

  • Eli Rubashkyn was denied a discharge without conviction for assaulting Posie Parker with tomato juice
  • Judge Kirsten Lummis deemed the assault premeditated and serious, despite Rubashkyn’s remorse
  • Rubashkyn, also known as Eliana Golberstein, pleaded guilty to two assault charges in June

However, Judge Lummis was not persuaded.

She told the court today the seriousness of the offending was elevated because it was a “well thought out premeditated assault” that she later justified to the media.

While Judge Lummis acknowledged Rubashkyn, whose legal name is Eliana Golberstein, was remorseful, she noted an apology was absent from her submissions to the court.

Judge Lummis told the court Golberstein had been subjected to death threats following the assaults and she agreed with Olsen’s submission that she had already received enough punishment.

With this in mind, Judge Lummis chose not to impose a penalty, resulting in Golberstein receiving a conviction and discharge for her crimes.

Source: Posie Parker assault: Activist Eli Rubashkyn who doused anti-trans campaigner in tomato juice convicted – NZ Herald

Adolescent Gender Dysphoria Is a Temporary Diagnosis for Most Teens | City Journal

It is widely recognized that most children with gender dysphoria (GD) will come to terms with their sex and not live as transgender adults. Transition advocates contend, however, that administering irreversible endocrine and surgical interventions to adolescents is not a problem because, unlike childhood-onset GD, adolescent GD almost never remits.

This view is encapsulated in a quote from Stephen Rosenthal, a notable U.S. gender physician, in an article for Nature Reviews Endocrinology, one of the highest-ranked peer-reviewed medical journals: “Longitudinal studies have indicated that the emergence or worsening of gender dysphoria with pubertal onset is associated with a very high likelihood of being a transgender adult. This observation is central to the rationale for medical intervention in eligible transgender adolescents” (emphasis added).

Like many assertions in youth gender medicine, the claim about the near-permanence of adolescent gender dysphoria (GD) has never been properly tested. (How these studies are designed makes them incapable of answering this question, which is probably why Rosenthal uses the vague word “indicate[s].”) So we decided to test it ourselves. Our findings, from an ongoing Manhattan Institute analysis of an all-payer, all-claims national insurance database, challenge this “central” belief underpinning youth gender medicine. In fact, the rate of persistence of the gender dysphoria diagnosis for youth over seven years is 42.2 percent to 49.9 percent, with the trend line suggesting likely future declines.

Our findings are highly significant for the debate over youth gender medicine. Treatments with permanent effects, and that include negative impacts on health and functioning, should not be offered to patients—especially not minors—with a diagnosis likely to disappear after a few years.

Like our prior analysis of the number of mastectomies performed on minors, this analysis is based on a comprehensive database of insurance health claims in the United States containing health-care encounter data for about 85 percent of the insured U.S. population. Since American insurance rates are high (about 90 percent of the U.S. population overall, and 95 percent of children, are insured), this is probably one of the most comprehensive resources for health care-related inquires.

. . .

So, what is the takeaway from this analysis? The single biggest observation is that, contrary to what has been asserted by advocates of youth transition, most adolescents with a GD diagnosis will not have this diagnosis within as few as seven years, during the period of rapid identity development. The single most important implication is that there is no empirical basis for assuming that most adolescents presenting with GD are destined to live as gender-transitioned adults. This further suggests that the GD diagnosis presents a dubious basis for offering teens life-altering interventions with permanent impacts on health and functioning.

. . .

To summarize our key findings, the number of young people who have received a GD diagnosis in recent years is much higher than previously reported. By our conservative estimate, over 300,000 minors in the U.S. had a GD diagnosis between 2017 and 2023, which means that the condition is not rare. Even more important is that among adolescents with a GD diagnosis in 2017, over half lost their gender-related diagnoses by 2023, with future ongoing declines likely, as suggested by the trend. There is also some evidence of a sharper than usual 2023 decline, though future data would need to confirm this trend.

. . .

In sum, while our analysis is the first comprehensive effort to track diagnostic persistence of GD in the U.S., our findings add to a growing international body of evidence that adolescent GD is not a permanent condition and that, given the stakes, it is irresponsible to view adolescents with GD as “transgender adolescents.”

Source: Adolescent Gender Dysphoria Is a Temporary Diagnosis for Most Teens | City Journal

Children to be asked pronouns under new library guidelines | Herald Sun

Children as young as five will be asked if they identify as a she, he or they as part of new taxpayer funded guidelines rolled out to public libraries across the state.

Library staff are being told to ask children what their preferred pronouns are, avoid “gendered-language” and to offer pronoun badges, pins or lanyards for patrons in a new government funded ‘Rainbow Toolkit’.
Staff at public libraries across Victoria have been given new guidelines on how to be LGBTQIA+ friendly, including adding books on gender diversity to their collections, promoting drag story time events and not assuming the gender or sexuality of children, teenagers and adults.
The ‘Rainbow Toolkit’ was launched by the state government on Friday to celebrate LGBTQIA+ awareness day.

Source: Children to be asked pronouns under new library guidelines

As Australian courts test legal definitions of gender, what will it mean for sex discrimination laws? | The Guardian

An emotional Roxanne Tickle leaves the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney, Friday, August 23, 2024

Trans advocates have welcomed one judge’s decision as heralding greater protections, but some say forcing inclusion is ‘authoritarian’.

For more than a decade, it has been illegal to discriminate in Australia on the basis of gender.

Now a series of cases at the federal level are testing that principle – and raising questions about what it means to be a woman.

Last Friday, in a landmark win for trans rights, a federal court justice ruled that transgender woman Roxanne Tickle had been indirectly discriminated against when she was barred from social media platform Giggle for Girls after the firm and its chief executive, Sall Grover, said she was a man.

And on Monday, the Victoria-based Lesbian Action Group (LAG) will ask the administrative appeals tribunal to overturn the Australian Human Rights Commission’s October decision that it cannot exclude transgender or bisexual women from its events.

The LAG argues that a special exemption from usual gender discrimination laws would help them to substantively improve equality – and that freedom of speech and freedom of association are essential for the advocacy and wellbeing of lesbians. They maintain that a trans woman is male and so cannot be a lesbian.

In October, the Australian Human Rights Commission found it was “impossible to tell who is ‘born female’ and who is not without intrusion on an individual’s privacy, bodily integrity, and dignity”. The commission found trans lesbians would be disproportionally negatively affected by an exemption, referencing studies that found transgender and gender diverse people reported high levels of harassment and social exclusion.

Carole Ann from the LAG said the decision, forcing the inclusion of “male-bodied people who identify as women and think they are lesbians”, was “authoritarian and oppressive”.

Anna Kerr, principal solicitor with the Feminist Legal Clinic, which is representing the Lesbian Action Group, says the finding against Giggle means freedom of speech and association protections for lesbians are more important than ever.

“Women want to be able to meet and say, ‘Well, what do we think about this? What does it mean for lesbian groups? What does it mean for young lesbians? What does it mean for women’s spaces and services and sport and women’s jails, women’s domestic violence refuges?’” she said.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/law/article/2024/sep/01/as-australian-courts-test-legal-definitions-of-gender-what-will-it-mean-for-sex-discrimination-laws-ntwnfb

The Absurdity of “Tickle v. Giggle” – Fairer Disputations

Tickle v. Giggle is an Australian court case that, in its very name, evokes the absurd. Since it has scratched a legal itch and produced much gallows humour, there is something of a cosmic joke about the nomenclature of the case, which is the latest battle in the existential war over the category of “woman.”

So, what is it all about? Who are the central protagonists, and what are the implications?

Roxanne Tickle, a trans-identifying male, is the plaintiff who has brought the first case of “gender identity discrimination” in the Federal Court of Australia against the (now-defunct) woman-only app “Giggle for Girls.” Tickle, who was barred from the app in September 2021, claims that the exclusion of males who identify as transgender women is illegal discrimination. Thus, most of the proceedings have concentrated on what constitutes the legal definition of woman. The main question is whether Tickle can identify into the category of woman, and therefore whether sex is mutable in the eyes of the law.

As expected, the Federal Court ruled in favour of Tickle. In doing so, the court came down categorically on the side of gender identity, discriminating against women in the process and, paradoxically, using their own laws to do so.

Far from being a feminist victory, this ruling—and the ideology it represents—is a subversion of the work of foundational thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir. These women critiqued cultural conceptions of gender norms in order to free women from arbitrary constraints—not to deny biology or take away their access to private female-only spaces.

Source: The Absurdity of “Tickle v. Giggle” – Fairer Disputations