Weekly News Roundup: June 17-23
FINA's New Policy on Women's Swimming, trouble at Pornhub, electroshock therapy, and more.
Here’s our News Roundup this week. We aim to keep track of how the current rush and political push to implement gender ideology in law, public policies, education, culture, and society, without closer examination and deeper discussions, is leading to negative impact on women and consequences on erosion of women’s rights. This week we also bring attention to stories about the porn industry and women’s health.
Males in Female Sports
6/23/22 - On this 50th Anniversary of Title IX, Women rallied in Washington, DC to save female Sports.
Full event on YouTube.
6/23/22 - Transgender footballers in Germany can choose men’s or women’s team
In opposition to the recent decisions of other sports governing bodies, the German football federation has passed regulations that allows players to self-ID and choose which category they feel most comfortable competing in. Rules will go into effect next season.
6/22/22 - Chris Evert recalls Renee Richards match to explain her trans-athletes stance
Evert adds her much-needed voice to support sanity and facts as The New York Post covers the opinions of a range of top athletes on the issue of transgender athletes competing in single-sex categories. Notably, even Renee Richards, a trans-identified man who competed against when in his 40s, admits that no woman could have outperformed him had he played against them in his prime.
6/21/22 – Rugby league joins clampdown on transgender athletes in women’s sport
The International Rugby League (IRL) has followed suit after the FINA decision. IRL is restricting trans-identified men from participating in women’s rugby matches until the league determines a policy that makes space for trans athletes to fairly compete. We patiently await as FIFA, the international governing body for soccer, and World Athletics, the international governing body for running competitions, review their policies on allowing transgender athletes to compete in single-sex categories.
6/21/22 – Canada voted to ban transgender swimmers from women’s events
Canada was among the ~70% of countries that voted to keep women’s swimming female-only. We would not expect this from Canada since it is a country with a government that is strong and vocal in its support promoting transgender privileges.
6/19/22 – Swimming body announces new policy on gender inclusion
In an enormous victory for women’s sports, FINA, the international association that governs swimming competitions, has instated a new policy that effectively bans trans-identified men from competing in the women’s category. The policy specifies that trans-identified athletes must prove “that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later.” As a compromise, FINA is developing an open category that will allow for athletes who do not fit either the eligibility criteria for the men’s or women’s categories.
Silencing Girls, Women, and Their Supporters by Threats and Cancellation
6/22/22 - Amnesty Norway Collaborates With Trans-Identified Male Who Reported Feminist To Police
The Norway chapter of Amnesty International, another organization that prioritizes men over women, joins in on criminalizing women for upsetting trans activists. Amnesty Norway is promoting “Christine Marie” Jentoft in a video to respond to “"uneducated” opinions about fears of men in women’s single-sex spaces. Jentoft is responsible for calling the police to have women’s rights advocate Christine Ellingsen criminally punished for stating that men cannot be lesbians.
6/22/22 - Women flee trade union in row over trans rights and name badges with pronouns
The UK’s biggest union, Unison, has instated policies that require its members to prove themselves as “trans allies” by opposing gender critical views. Unison takes the position that anyone who repudiates gender ideology must be aligned with “far right and religious-right groups” in another lazy attempt to outright dismiss any woman who is concerned about infringement on her rights as bigots.
Olympic Medalist Sharron Davies talks about getting harassed with death threats and threats of job loss for speaking out in support of fair play for women and girls in sports.
A women’s rights gathering was bombarded by Bristol Anarchist Federation. The “anarchists” convened for the sole purpose of intimidating women who they see as a threat to trans rights. These men, dressed in black and covering their faces with balaclavas, lobbed their favorite slur, “TERF”, right and left and made vague threats of violence against the women.
6/18/22 – Victoria Greens leader ousts party’s state convener over past comments about trans people
Australian politician Linda Gale, who had just been elected state convener days earlier, was ousted from the Greens party as election results were overturned by party leader Samantha Ratnam. Gale’s crime? Making an argument back in 2019 that we must distinguish between gender and sex in order to protect women’s sex-based rights. Solicitor Anna Kerr was also removed from Greens party membership for her belief that sex trumps gender.
Erasing Women and Women’s Safe Spaces
6/23/22 - New Ruling: Transgender North Carolinians do not need surgery to change birth certificate
Lawsuit Campos v. Cohen, brought by LGBTQ legal advocacy group Lambda Legal, has received a ruling from federal court. The Court has ruled that individuals who request birth certificates that align with their “gender identity” need not have had “gender-affirming” surgery. In other words, there is now no bar beyond self-ID and a certificate from a “gender-affirming” health practitioner, “social worker, or case manager” for an individual to contribute to the obfuscation of data in the category of sex.
6/23/22 - For Publisher Verso Books, women are now “womb carriers”.
Verso Books, a British publishing company with offices in London and New York, which describes itself to be the largest independent radical publishing house which publishes one hundred books a year, tweeted today referring to Indian women as “Native womb carriers”. Following backlash, Verso has since deleted the tweet. But we’ve got receipt and the comments are a riot.
Archived Link with Original Tweet and Comments
6/21/22 - NARAL supports men’s voices on abortion and women’s control over their bodies; Feminism is for men too.
Super Bowl Halftime show director banned Jennifer Lopez from using the female symbol in her performance. In a show meant to celebrate women, the female symbol was deemed “exclusive” while pole dancing was given the go-ahead because it “projects an image of confidence.”
6/17/22 - Ireland to Strip Maternity Law of Sex-Based Language
"The era of no debate on the conflict between women’s rights and trans rights is over in Ireland," says Laoise de Brun of The Countess. The Countess has launched a campaign raise awareness of the government’s intention to remove women-related terms from maternity laws. See one of their campaign videos below, sharing the stories by women about how being “woman” has affected their lives:
6/17/22 - Planned Parenthood urges the usage of gender neutral language regarding the abortion rights of *people*
So sad. Planned Parenthood is lost. It is no longer an organization that safeguards women’s rights. It has been institutionally captured as abortion rates go down with medical advancements, changing societal views and social norms, and women’s financial independence. Each of these factors has led to the organization’s loss of revenue and its subsequent change of mission and practices to the more financially lucrative “trans health care.”
Sex Discrimination
6/19/22 – Thousands of women given ‘dangerous’ electric shocks as mental health treatment in England
NHS data reveals that women are twice as likely as men to have been prescribed electroconvulsive treatment (ECT). Women comprise two-thirds of ECT patients. ECT is a controversial treatment because, while some patients acclaim the therapy as effective, experts and mental health organizations warn that the therapy presents acute risk of impairment of cognitive functioning. This is yet another example of women being disproportionately affected by mental health treatments that do more harm than good, like the historical practice of lobotomies and the present day practice of “gender affirmation” therapy.
A Louisiana family court case is heading to trial next month on 7/15. The case is rising to national attention as local watchdog group Metropolitan Crime Commission has implored that outside agencies investigate the latest ruling which gives to father John Barnes full custody of a child who is allegedly born of rape. Judge Jeffrey Cashe assumed the case in August 2015, and has since increasingly ruled against mother Crystal Abelseth, who became pregnant with the child after an encounter with Barnes in 2005, when she was 16 and he was 30.
News Impacting Society and Children
6/23/22 - Tangshan and Xuzhou: Fury and questions over China’s treatment of women
Violence against women is becoming an issue of national concern in China. In January, a video came to light showing a woman shackled by her neck outside a shed. Over two billion people viewed the video, and were horrified as it was eventually learned that this woman is a victim of trafficking and has been sold and re-sold multiple times since 1998, giving birth to eight children over the years. Now video surfaces of a group of women being physically assaulted by a group of men after one of the women objected to the advances of one of the men.
Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Jim Banks have announced that they intend to introduce the Protecting Minors from Medical Malpractice Act, a bill that would allow patients to sue “gender-affirming” surgeons and doctors up to 30 years after the patients become adults. This continues the trend of Republicans cynically seizing the opportunity to win over voters who are uncomfortable with the increasingly fringe positions that the Democratic party is choosing to promote. What remains to be seen is if Republicans are sincere in following through on the legislation they say they’d like to see, and if Republicans are sincerely interested in supporting the interests of the women who they now are trying to lure into their party ranks.
6/22/22 – SNP’s pro self-ID argument ‘demolished’ by expert witness called in at last minute
Professor Alice Sullivan of University College London testified to Holyrood’s Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice (EHRCJ) committee on the importance of separating gender and sex as well as the risks of self-ID. Sullivan emphasizes the disastrous effect on data records and analysis if we continue to blend the categories of man versus woman.
6/21/2022 — PornHub CEO and COO Resigns as Controversy over Minors in Videos Mount
Pornhub has been under the microscope since The New York Times first published a column in 2021 about videos of minors and other abusive content that are uploaded to the site. More recently The New Yorker published its own piece about the problem (see below, under “Longform and Essays”), which has led to the resignation of two executives at the company. Will meaningful change come from this change in leadership? Let’s not hold our breath.
Pornhub CEO And COO Resign Amid Blowback Over Nonconsensual Videos Of Minors
CEO and COO of MindGeek, parent company of Pornhub, have resigned
6/19/22 – Surge in umber of younger sex offenders in Irish prisons
What is behind the 150% increase in the number of sex offenders, largely young men, in Ireland in the last 15 years? There’s no answer given in the article, but Irish Examiner covers the efforts of the Irish Prison Services (IPS) to significantly improve the rate at which these offenders complete treatment. Dr. Emma Regan of IPS notes the growing trend of offenders becoming involved with the justice system for use of technology to access child pornography and other illegal forms of porn.
6/15/22 - Biden Admin LGBT Mandates for School Lunch Program Unlawful, Republican Attorneys General Say
Twenty-two Republican attorney generals sent joint letter to demand that President Biden withdraw his mandate withholding funds for school lunch programs from schools that don’t let biological males use the girls' bathroom or compete in girls’ sports.
Entertainment
6/23/22 - Emma Watson Will Return To Harry Potter If JK Rowling Isn’t Involved
There are whispers that actress Emma Watson will only reprise her role as Hermione Granger if JK Rowling is not involved in future Harry Potter projects. Over the last few years Watson has tried to present herself as a face of liberal feminism and trans-inclusivity.
Longform and Op-Eds of Interest
The New Yorker: The Fight to Hold Pornhub Accountable - a continuation of reporting on Pornhub’s sketchy practices
Transgender Trend: Is a school LGBT club a good idea? – a teacher reflects on how the mission of an LGBT club went awry
Persuasion: What Is a Woman? – an attempt to find a trans-inclusive definition of “woman”
The Critic: The Wrong Kind of Victim – thoughts on how “troubled” girl victims are viewed as unsympathetic
The Guardian: ‘Women are treated like walking incubators’: Malta’s fight for abortion - a look at status of women in a Western nation where abortion is illegal
Quillette: I Got Thrown Off Etsy and PayPal for Expressing My Belief in Biological Reality – Colin Wright on losing his ability to sell merchandise due to his gender critical views
The Times: Whatever the panic, girls are always victims – on girls and women being disproportionately swept up in psych fads
Women like JK Rowling have been vilified and abused. Now it's clear they speak for the majority - discussion of a report that suggests the gender critical view may be the more popular one
The New Statesman: Why the gender wars become so extreme - on the pathological roots of the anger of some trans rights activists
The Times: People are told they must speak out at all times. What if they don’t want to? - thoughts on the trend of forcing people to pronounce their support for one cause or another