Category Archives: Gender

I am 16 and identify as an ace lesbian – but I don’t want to ‘come out’ to my parents | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

Posted on by

It sounds as if your sexuality and orientation will be no surprise to them, says Annalisa Barbieri

I am 16, and identify as an ace lesbian (NMLNM, or non-men loving non-men). I have questioned my sexuality since the age of 12 or 13, thinking I was bisexual. I downloaded TikTok, which allowed me to explore my identity more and interact with other queer young people. Until this summer, I questioned my identity multiple times a day (exhausting and not affirming), but I slowly began to feel confident in labelling myself as a demi-romantic, asexual lesbian (I like to use labels). However, that feeling didn’t last long. I felt dysphoric a lot of the time, and I hated my breasts. Fortunately, after about a month, I rediscovered the term “demigirl” and it just fitted. I am also trying out she/they pronouns, but haven’t told anyone. My gender is quite fluid – some days I feel more neutral, other days ultrafeminine.

I am open about my sexuality at school and online, and would happily tell most people that I am gay, but don’t want to “come out” to my parents. I think it’s a combination of fear, not of rejection (they are supportive of the LGBTQ+ community), and the fact that I hate the idea of having to “come out” if you are queer; I don’t want to contribute to our heteronormative society. Should I tell my parents so they have time to process it, or should I wait until I have a partner to introduce to them? Also, I feel obliged to inform them of my pronoun change, but I don’t want to be the one to teach them how to use she/they pronouns. I wish they would educate themselves. If I tell them my gender and/or sexuality, I don’t want them to perceive me differently. I know how they react is not in my control, but ideally our relationship will stay the same or improve.

Continue reading...

They stayed to fight the Taliban. Now the protesters are being hunted down

Posted on by

Women’s rights activists fear for their lives as Afghanistan’s new rulers infiltrate, detain, beat and torture groups of protesters

A month ago, Reshmin was busy organising protests against Taliban rule in online groups of hundreds of fellow women’s rights activists. Now the 26-year-old economics graduate must operate clandestinely, dressing in disguise and only demonstrating with a select few.

“If things continue like this, there will be no future for women in Afghanistan. It’s better if the future never arrives,” says Reshmin, who spoke to the Guardian using only her first name, which means “silk” in Farsi, out of security concerns. “Each time we go out, we say farewell because we might not make it back alive.”

Continue reading...

Nearly two-thirds of those who died young in 2019 were male, research finds

Posted on by

Boys and young men neglected in efforts to tackle mortality in 10- to 24-year-olds, Lancet report says, with a failure to address violence, substance use and accidents

Boys and men are more likely than women to die as teenagers or young adults, according to new research that warns the gender gap in mortality rates for that age group is widening in many countries.

In 2019, boys and young men aged 10 to 24 accounted for nearly two-thirds (61%) of all global deaths.

Continue reading...

Stella Creasy on her lonely maternity cover battle: ‘Women should be able to have kids and do politics’

Posted on by

The Labour politician is used to fighting battles – but can she win her latest: convincing her colleagues to back proper maternity cover for fellow members?

Stella Creasy is dodging people on the pavement as we talk. She apologises for the background noise but it’s hard finding time for a conversation when you have a newborn son, a toddler daughter, and no proper maternity leave from a full-time job as Labour MP for Walthamstow; this walk to an appointment is the only window she has. Last month, she spoke in a Commons debate on childcare, baby Pip in a sling, sounding astonishingly composed for someone who had given birth four weeks earlier. I ask how she’s feeling and she laughs briefly and says: “Tired as hell, mad as anything.”

And then it all comes tumbling out: the night before that debate, she’d been in hospital with an infection she thinks was brought on by doing too much. The day after her caesarean, she was dialling into meetings with the defence secretary from hospital – she has had about 200 cases in her London constituency of people seeking help getting family members out of Afghanistan – and has barely stopped since. “There wasn’t any alternative,” she says. “These are people ringing up my staff threatening to kill themselves because they’re so worried about family members. You can hear the terror in their voices.” Meanwhile, she’s grappling with “the mum guilt” for not taking more time off, while struggling to be patient with people in parliament who ask how she is, only to back away when answered honestly. Having lost a battle with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) this summer over the maternity leave cover she wanted, Creasy refuses to draw a polite veil over the consequences. And if that means breaking the working mother taboo against admitting that everything is not in fact fine, then so be it.

Continue reading...

Why is the idea of ‘gender’ provoking backlash the world over? | Judith Butler

Posted on by

Increasingly, authoritarians are likening ‘genderism’ to ‘communism’ and ‘totalitarianism’

In June, the Hungarian parliament voted overwhelmingly to eliminate from public schools all teaching related to “homosexuality and gender change”, associating LGBTQI rights and education with pedophilia and totalitarian cultural politics. In late May, Danish MPs passed a resolution against “excessive activism” in academic research environments, including gender studies, race theory, postcolonial and immigration studies in their list of culprits. In December 2020, the supreme court in Romania struck down a law that would have forbidden the teaching of “gender identity theory” but the debate there rages on. Trans-free spaces in Poland have been declared by transphobes eager to purify Poland of corrosive cultural influences from the US and the UK. Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul convention in March sent shudders through the EU, since one of its main objections was the inclusion of protections for women and children against violence, and this “problem” was linked to the foreign word, “gender”.

The attacks on so-called “gender ideology” have grown in recent years throughout the world, dominating public debate stoked by electronic networks and backed by extensive rightwing Catholic and evangelical organizations. Although not always in accord, these groups concur that the traditional family is under attack, that children in the classroom are being indoctrinated to become homosexuals, and that “gender” is a dangerous, if not diabolical, ideology threatening to destroy families, local cultures, civilization, and even “man” himself.

Continue reading...

Viva la vulva: why we need to talk about women’s genitalia

Posted on by
Ignorance about the basic biology of vulvas is still shockingly high – yet there are huge health benefits, physical and emotional, to be won with better understanding

If you have a vulva between your legs, could you identify the seven separate structures in a mirror? If your partner has a vulva, can you identify theirs?

For over half the population, the vulva is a significant part of their body; an exit and an entrance, a site of pleasure and, often, pain, that speaks to core human function and need. In 2021, it can feel as if we’re on the cliff-edge of emancipation from the history of oppression and ick surrounding female genitalia. The booming sex toy market, a growing awareness of hormonal cycles and the messy reality of periods, a sharper focus on female pleasure and evolving conversations about menopause all point to real progress. Yet there remains a well of misunderstanding in society about what’s down there (clitoris, labia majora, labia minora, urethral opening, vaginal opening, perineum and anus, by the way), with tangible consequences.

Continue reading...

Nobel prize will have no gender or ethnicity quotas, academy head says

Posted on by

Only 59 Nobel prizes – or 6.2% of the total – have gone to women since their inception in 1901

Swedish scientist and head of the academy that awards Nobel prizes has ruled out the notion of gender or ethnicity quotas in the selection of laureates for the prestigious award.

Göran Hansson, the secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, accepted that there are “so few women” in the running but conceded the prize would ultimately go to those who are “found the most worthy”.

Continue reading...

Digital gender gap: men 50% more likely to be online in some countries – report

Posted on by

Failure to ensure women have equal access to the internet hampering developing economies and fuelling gender inequality

A failure to ensure women have equal access to the internet has cost low-income countries $1tn (£730bn) over the past decade and could mean an additional loss of $500bn by 2025 if governments don’t take action, according to new research.

Last year, governments in 32 countries, including India, Egypt and Nigeria, lost an estimated $126bn in gross domestic product because women were unable to contribute to the digital economy.

Continue reading...

Najla Bouden: what next for Tunisia’s first female PM?

Posted on by

Academic’s appointment marks historic moment for Arab world but comes amid political and economic crisis, with some fearing she will be Kais Saied’s pawn

Sara Medini, political analyst at the Tunisian feminist organisation Aswat Nissa, was in a meeting at work last week when she happened to glance at a news alert on her phone. What she saw left her at first flabbergasted, then delighted.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I had misread it,” she said. “I told my colleagues: ‘He’s appointed a woman! He’s appointed a woman!’

Continue reading...

Why are so many pregnant women not taking the vaccine?

Posted on by

Only 31% of pregnant Americans are fully vaccinated. I felt responsible for this bean-like bundle forming in my body. But the conflicting advice made it hard for me to decide

These are the first three things I did when I found out I was pregnant in February. I took about six more tests. Then, I called the doctor’s office to make an appointment. A few days later, I signed up for a Covid-19 vaccine. I stood in line, freezing, at a high school in Coney Island to get my shot.

Deciding to get the vaccine that same month was not easy – even as a former health reporter accustomed to deciphering medical journals. I felt a very visceral and personal responsibility toward this bean-like bundle forming in my body. There were only preliminary studies about vaccine safety – saying the vaccine was likely safe – but based on participants who didn’t know they were pregnant during trials. Gynaecologists and family physicians had not yet achieved full and public consensus on their recommendations as most have now.

Continue reading...

The 81 women killed in 28 weeks

Posted on by

Since Sarah Everard’s brutal murder, only one thing has changed – the death toll

People said something had changed with the awful death of Sarah Everard. But the message certainly hasn’t reached the men who rape, harm and kill women. And I can’t see a difference in the government, police, Crown Prosecution Service or the judiciary either.

Since Sarah Everard was abducted, raped, murdered and, in the words of her mother, “disposed of as if she were rubbish”, at least 81 other UK women have been killed in circumstances where the suspect is a man. It is absolutely ludicrous that we know this because of my work, a random northern woman in east London, not the government, not the National Police Chiefs Council. Each of these women will have died in terror and pain, just like Sarah. Each one leaves behind grieving friends and family for whom the loss will last a lifetime.

Continue reading...

Anita Hill on sexual harassment and survival: ‘You have to think: what is my life for?’

Posted on by

Before Christine Blasey Ford and Monica Lewinsky, there was Anita Hill, shamed for exposing the actions of a powerful man. She explains how she withstood the tumult

Anita Hill sits so still that, when she is not speaking, I worry that the screen through which we are talking may have frozen. Yet despite her lawyerly, academic poise, she exudes warmth: you would feel safe confiding in her. And that is what people have been doing for the past 30 years – telling her of their own experiences with sexual harassment and assault. “I was a symbol of so many people’s experiences,” she says.

In the pantheon of women shamed for exposing the actions of high-profile men – before Christine Blasey Ford in 2018 and Monica Lewinsky in 1998 – there was Anita Hill. In 1991, the US president, George HW Bush, nominated Clarence Thomas to the supreme court. Senate hearings for his confirmation were completed without incident, until an interview of Hill by the FBI was leaked to the press. In it, Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment while he was her supervisor in two separate jobs, at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Among other claims, Hill said that Thomas discussed women having sex with animals, and pornographic films depicting group sex or rape scenes, and described his own sexual prowess and anatomy. According to Hill, Thomas’s behaviour forced her to resign from her job.

Continue reading...

Cop26: Women must be heard on climate, say rights groups

Posted on by

Those worst hit by global heating are left out of talks, says feminist coalition calling for systemic change

Women must be enabled to play a greater role at the Cop26 summit, as the needs of women and girls are being overlooked amid the global climate crisis, a coalition of feminist groups has said.

The Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice has laid out a call for action at the UN general assembly, including demands that world leaders meeting at Cop26, in Glasgow this November, must end fossil fuel expansion and move to 100% renewable energy.

Continue reading...

Taliban ban girls from secondary education in Afghanistan

Posted on by

Government announces re-opening of high schools for boys but makes no mention of girls

The Taliban have effectively banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan, by ordering high schools to re-open only for boys.

Girls were not mentioned in Friday’s announcement, which means boys will be back at their desks next week after a one-month hiatus, while their sisters will still be stuck at home.

Continue reading...

‘How is Pauli Murray not a household name?’ The extraordinary life of the US’s most radical activist

Posted on by

She explored her gender and sexuality in the 20s, defied segregation in the 40s and inspired Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now, a film is bringing her trailblazing achievements to light

It seems inconceivable that someone like Pauli Murray could have slipped through the cracks of US history. A lawyer, activist, scholar, poet and priest, Murray led a trailblazing life that altered the course of history. She was at the forefront of the battles for racial and gender equality, but often so far out in front that her contributions went unrecognised.

In 1940, 15 years before Rosa Parks, Murray was jailed for refusing to move to the back of a bus in the Jim Crow south. In 1943, she campaigned successfully to desegregate her local diner, 17 years before the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins of 1960. Her work paved the way for the landmark supreme court ruling Brown v Board of Education in 1954 – which de-segregated US schools – to the extent that Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer for the NAACP civil rights group, called Murray’s book States’ Laws on Race and Color “the bible for civil rights lawyers”.

Continue reading...

Court rules against woman who became face of China’s #MeToo movement

Posted on by

Zhou Xiaoxuan, who accused CCTV host of sexual harassment, vows to appeal ‘unfair treatment’

A Chinese woman whose sexual harassment case against a popular TV host sparked a nationwide debate over #MeToo has accused a Beijing court of unfair treatment and vowed to appeal after it ruled against her.

The Haidian people’s court said in a judgment released late on Tuesday that Zhou Xiaoxuan did not meet the standard of proof in claiming that Zhu Jun, her superior at work, sexually harassed her.

Continue reading...

Salesforce offers to help staff leave Texas as abortion law takes effect

Posted on by

Software company sends message to workforce addressing access to reproductive healthcare

The cloud-based software giant Salesforce is offering to help relocate employees out of Texas following the state’s enactment of its extreme new abortion law.

Referring to the “incredibly personal issues” that the law creates, a message to the company’s entire workforce sent late on Friday said any employee and their family wishing to move elsewhere would receive assistance.

Continue reading...

Think being trans is a ‘trend’? Consider these 18th century ‘female husbands’ | Gabrielle Bellot

Posted on by

Conservatives think they can avoid accepting trans people by reducing our existence to a passing fad. But we’ve always been here

Whenever the subject of transgender identities comes up today, there is a tendency for conservative politicians – perhaps most of all in the United States – to trot out a particularly specious argument: that the idea of being trans is a “new” concept, a notion that “no one” in their right mind had heard of, or would entertain, in previous eras.

At its most extreme, this argument suggests that a peculiar concoction of things is to blame for our existence – from social media, indoctrination by well-paid gender studies professors, or even an excess of supposedly hormone-altering substances, like soy or arcane chemicals, in our diets. Non-binary identities particularly confound conservatives.

Continue reading...

‘Deeply rooted tradition’: one man’s long fight to end illegal dowries in India

Posted on by

After 15 years campaigning, Satya Naresh believes it’s time for government action to stop the custom that causes a woman to die every hour through murder or suicide

For more than a decade, Satya Naresh has been trying to persuade India’s men to stop a wedding custom that he sees as one of the country’s worst social evils.

He wants men to declare: “I don’t want dowry”. The line is the name of the website he set up in 2006 as part of his campaign. Naresh wants Indian men not to expect the money, motorbike, sofa, TV, iPhone, gold jewellery or fridge that a future wife is expected to come with.

Continue reading...

Nadia Whittome MP on trauma and recovery: ‘Some said I couldn’t have PTSD because I haven’t been in a war’

Posted on by

The 25-year-old politician talks about taking time off to address her mental health, dropping out of university because of the cost – and why she’ll always give away a large part of her salary

Nadia Whittome originally made headlines when she became the “baby of the house” in 2019, elected at the age of 23 as Labour MP for Nottingham East, in an election whose main take-home was how many seats Labour had lost. She was a firebrand or maverick – insert your favourite term for “disobedient” – from the start: hard-remain when Corbyn’s office was all about the lexiters, further to the left than Starmer has turned out to be (so far).

So she was never going to be a quiet backbencher, working her way strategically through the party ranks, but her next headlines were a long way from politics. In May this year, she announced her decision to take time off because of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a parliamentary culture in which even MPs who have to give birth or have chemotherapy are surrounded by endless discussion about whether they can still do their job, this was a momentous act, signalling to many that Whittome belonged to a new, more honest culture. Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said at the time that her colleague had “shown so much bravery and … will have helped so many other people”, a view shared by many Conservatives. But Whittome wasn’t thinking of the career angle. “My symptoms were getting worse rather than better. I couldn’t be the energetic, effective MP that Nottingham needs and deserves, and, also for my own health, I needed time and space to recover. I didn’t worry about my political future, I wasn’t thinking about that at all.”

Continue reading...