March 10 - March 16, 2023 - Weekly News Roundup
Iowa protects girls, German Catholic Bishops contradict the Pope, Maternal death rates soar to horrifying new heights in the US while medical schools erase the study of women
Top News
A California teenager has started to sue the doctors who at age 13 cut off her breasts in a medical gender change she now bitterly regrets. The 18-year-old, who is referred to as Layla Jane, says she should never have been put through the 'torment' of testosterone hormones at age 12 and puberty blockers and breast removal surgery the next year.
Call to Action
Women’s Declaration International USA Journalism Style Manual
A reference guide for reporting on incidents and issues affecting the sex-based rights of women and girls. “The language that is used in discourse around the idea of “gender identity” is of utmost importance in conveying our message clearly. If we allow any dilution of the language we use to refer to our sexed bodies, or to describe our realities in them, we compromise not only our integrity, but the basis on which women have won our sex-based rights.”
Recreating Women Spaces
March 11, 2023 - Protecting women and their spaces is not transphobic, says Ministry of Justice
Protecting women is not transphobic, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has suggested after civil servants drew up a list of “coded language” that claimed it was. Ministry of Justice officials warned that talk about 'protecting women' could be transphobic. The list included the phrase “gender critical”, which is used to refer to campaigners who believe biological sex is binary and immutable, as well as “protect women’s spaces/protecting women and girls”.
March 10, 2023 - Inside Los Angeles’ first lesbian bar in years
In the 1980s, there were roughly 200 lesbian bars in the United States, according to the Lesbian Bar Project. Today, that number has dropped down to 27. From 2017 up until just a few weeks ago, Los Angeles had zero lesbian bars. In February, Mara Herbkersman and Emily Bielagus opened The Ruby Fruit, a restaurant and wine bar in a strip mall on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake.
Erasing Women and Women’s Safe Spaces
March 11, 2023 - Yorkshire shopping centre removes 'ladies only' sign from women's toilet following trans community outrage
A Yorkshire shopping centre has removed a 'ladies only' poster from outside a women's toilets after a LGBTQ group branded the notice as 'toilet policing'.
It is understood the men's loos were temporarily closed at the time and the warning - which read 'Hey there, these toilets are for ladies only', with the word 'only' underlined - was posted to deter gents from using the women's facilities if caught short.
March 13, 2023 - Catholic Church of Germany Goes Reform-Mad
The German Catholic Church this weekend, within an overwhelming margin, decided to begin blessing same-sex couples and accept transgender people’s self-assigned gender as truth. These were only two of a bevy of controversial reforms gaining the support of the Fifth Synodal Assembly in Frankfurt, March 9-11. Other victories claimed by the German Church’s progressive wing—‘The Synodal Way’—were the re-examination of compulsory celibacy for priests and allowing women and non-ordained men to preach.
In other words, the German Catholic church is considering allowing women to be ordained and accept same-sex marriage, while they are also willing to accept gender ideology. They are willing to consider putting a self-declared gender identity on baptismal certificates. No gain for women without including men.
March 11, 2023 - Pope Francis: 'Gender ideology' is one of 'most dangerous ideological colonizations'
Pope Francis spoke out against gender theory in a recent interview, echoing his past comments expressing disapproval of transgender ideology. "Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations," Francis said in the conversation. "Why is it dangerous?" he continued. "Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women."
Silencing Girls, Women, and Their Supporters
March 14, 2023 - Not coming to a venue near you
How trans activists have forced a documentary film underground
In Belfast, Ireland “Women” (as they were once known) organized a private screening of the documentary “Adult Human Female.” The screening succeeds only by planning the event with extreme secrecy, inviting only carefully vetted attendants. Previous efforts to host a viewing of the film were met with protests and threats.
Women's rights groups clashed with TRANS/MR activists as hundreds of protestors descended on Sydney's Victoria Park on Saturday. UK-based activist Kellie-Jay Keen, who also goes by the name Posie Parker online, has travelled to Australia for a series of Let Women Speak rallies.
March 12, 2023 - Indiana medical students subjected to DEI instruction on gender as part of basic human structure course
First-year students at the Indiana University School of Medicine are being subjected to woke diversity, equity and inclusion instruction as part of a basic Human Structure class. Students in the class receive a "sex and gender primer" lesson that includes instruction on gender being a "social construct," that sex and gender are not the same thing, and on how to be a "more inclusive" healthcare professional when it comes to "gender diverse patients."
Males in Female Sports
March 15, 2023 - Massachusetts high school solidifies state title with help from transgender girl, policy put under microscope
A Massachusetts high school won a state championship in track and field after allowing a boy, Chloe Barnes, to compete in girls events. ICONS Women, a female-athlete advocacy group, noted that Barnes pushed a girl from potentially getting into the finals in the hurdles competition.
March 11, 2023 - Woman fights for fairness, future of women's sports against trans athletes: 'Inherent biological differences'
A former West Virginia State University women's soccer player stood up firmly for women's sports and for keeping transgender women — or biological males — out of athletic competitions against women for the sake of fairness, a level playing field and the very future of women's sports.
March 10, 2023 - Fuse Announces Series “Like a Girl”
A new reality series about the world of women’s sports will feature men competing in women’s categories.
Violence Against Women, Pornography, Sexual Harassment, and Sexual Assaults
March 13, 2023 - Backpackers are accused of menacing a group of women and kids by jumping on their houseboat and exposing themselves in terrifying river rampage
A group of women enjoying a relaxing weekend together have been left terrified after a boatload of tourists crashed into their houseboat and climbed onboard. A group of men then jumped, uninvited, onto the houseboat, allegedly threatening the women and causing havoc. The men remaining on the pontoon boat allegedly exposed themselves to the women and threw cans and glass bottles at the boat. It's alleged the pontoon boat was driven into the houseboat several times before the men eventually left the area.
Sex Discrimination
March 16, 2023 - US maternal death rate rose sharply in 2021, CDC data shows, and experts worry the problem is getting worse
The number of women who died of maternal causes in the United States rose to 1,205 in 2021. That’s a sharp increase from years earlier: 658 in 2018, 754 in 2019 and 861 in 2020. That means the US maternal death rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with rates of 20.1 in 2019 and 23.8 in 2020.
The new report also notes significant racial disparities in the nation’s maternal death rate. In 2021, the rate for Black women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, which is 2.6 times the rate for White women, at 26.6 per 100,000.
Experts said the United States’ ongoing maternal mortality crisis was compounded by Covid-19, which led to a “dramatic” increase in deaths.
How the United States Compares with Other High-Income Countries
March 15- Canadian Cancer Society Recommends Cervical Cancer Screening for Men Who Identify as Women
The Canadian Cancer Society is drawing criticism for recommending that men who claim to identify as women should undergo pap smears as part of a cervical cancer screening process.
March 13, 2023 - Women across Iran are refusing to wear headscarves, in open defiance of the regime
In defiance of national laws requiring women to wear headscarves, women around Iran are going about their business with heads uncovered.
A Texas man is suing his ex-wife's three friends for $1 million after they helped her get an abortion as a text exchange reveals she was scared he'd 'use it against her' to keep her in the relationship.
Campaigners want to update the Equality Act 2010 to specify that 'sex, male, female, man and woman mean biological sex' rather than 'sex as modified by a gender recognition certificate'.
News Impacting Society and Children
March 16, 2023 -Iowa lawmakers send school bathroom bill to governor
Sex segregated public school restrooms are protected by law in Iowa. School children must use the toilets, locker rooms and showers which align with their sex observed at birth.
March 16, 2023 - Iowa lawmakers pass school 'bathroom bill' protecting students single sex toilets and locker rooms.
Students will not be allowed to use restrooms or locker rooms of the opposite sex under a bill passed Thursday by Iowa lawmakers, the latest in a wave of bills protecting girls and women from predatory males in several Republican states.
The bill prohibits males from entering a school restroom or changing room that are designated for females and vice versa. The bill now heads to Gov. Kim Reynolds to be signed into law. The House voted 57-39 to pass the bathroom bill Thursday. Five Republicans joined 34 present Democrats in opposition.
March 16, 2023 - Covid Worsened a Health Crisis Among Pregnant Women archive link
In 2021, deaths of pregnant women soared by 40 percent in the United States, according to new government figures. Here’s how one family coped after the virus threatened a pregnant mother.
March 12, 2023 - Switzerland: Minors, Including under 14s Have Undergone Sex-Change Operations
Official Swiss hospital statistics show girls under 14 got healthy breasts removed and boys under 18 penises amputated. Since 2018, at least ten girls aged between 10 and 14 have gone under the knife in Switzerland to have their healthy breasts surgically removed within the so-called gender affirmative care. The number of young women aged 15 to 19 who have undergone “torsoplasty” to achieve a masculine-looking chest in Switzerland is said to be at least 58, a Swiss association has revealed. Three boys under 18, according to the data published by AMQG, have had their penis amputated during the same period.
A parent at the scandal-hit school where a drag queen allegedly gave sex education lessons has told of her fury after her 11-year-old daughter was taught about oral and anal sex. The girl, who only left primary school last summer, was left upset and disturbed by what she described as 'graphic' content in the classroom.
The era of 11-year-old girls marrying much older men is in America's rearview mirror, but exclusive new data show that a worrying number of youths in their mid-teens are still getting hitched to adults. That includes 30 teens in West Virginia, 39 in Michigan and another 15 in Wyoming in 2021, according to the latest figures gathered from state sources that can take years to trickle through the system.
March 12, 2023 - Children as young as seven might be ‘mixed berry gender fluid muffins’, Welsh teachers told
Children as young as seven might be a “mixed berry gender fluid muffin”, teachers have been told in a sex education resource promoted by the Welsh Government. It has been described as the latest “highly inappropriate” example of sex and relationships education in Britain's schools to emerge, with critics claiming the Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford is “determined to push gender ideology”.
Books, Documentaries, Interviews
March 12, 2023 - Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale by Maria Mies discussed by Lierre Keith and Jo Brew
Op-Eds of Interest
The right is stealthily working to remove Americans’ access to abortion medication
Existential Threats: A Review of Kajsa Ekis Ekman’s On the Meaning of Sex