US supreme court fails to act to block near-total ban that allows private citizens to sue abortion providers
The most radical abortion law in the US has gone into effect, despite legal efforts to block it.
A near-total abortion ban in Texas empowers any private citizen to sue an abortion provider who violates the law, opening the floodgates to harassing and frivolous lawsuits from anti-abortion vigilantes that could eventually shutter most clinics in the state.
Continue reading...Answer to sex question can differ from birth certificate, without need for gender recognition certificate, says NRS
People can answer the male or female question in Scotland’s 2022 census based on how they identify themselves rather than according to legal status, according to new guidance from the body responsible for the survey.
Issued by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) on Tuesday, the guidelines tell people to answer the sex question according to how they self-identify, regardless of the details on their birth certificate or whether they have a gender recognition certificate.
Continue reading...In a country with shocking brutality against LGBTQ+ people, Alexya Salvador is using her faith to help others like her
Desperate calls from LGBTQ+ youths contemplating suicide or from their parents after they have made an attempt on their lives often punctuate Alexya Salvador’s day. When they do, she drops everything to talk.
As a transgender woman, she recognises the anguish in their voices. “I feel their pain in my body because I went through this,” she says. “My family went through this.”
Continue reading...A collective of female journalists are battling to make women’s voices heard as the Islamist militants tighten their grip on the country
Despite years of development, investment and progress in the Afghan media industry, 28-year-old Zahra Joya often found she was the only woman in a newsroom. “It was a lonely space, dominated by men who made the decisions about which stories were important, and which were not,” she says.
Joya, who is from the persecuted Hazara community, felt she faced discrimination because of her ethnicity and sex. “There were so few women journalists in Kabul,” she says. “There would hardly be women reporters covering political events or press conferences even though these stories affect us greatly.”
Continue reading...Salima Mazari, one of only three female district governors in Afghanistan, tells of her motivation to fight the militants
It is early morning in Charkint, in the northern Balkh province of Afghanistan, but a meeting with the governor is already well under way to urgently assess the safety of the 30,000 people she represents. Salima Mazari has been in the job for just over three years, and for her, fighting the Taliban is nothing new, but since July she has been meeting with the commanders of her security forces every day as the Islamist militants’ attacks across the country increase.
As one of only three female district governors in Afghanistan, Mazari has attracted attention simply by being a woman in charge. What sets the 40-year-old apart, particularly amid the recent wave of Taliban violence, is her hands-on military leadership. “Sometimes I’m in the office in Charkint, and other times I have to pick up a gun and join the battle,” she says.
Continue reading...He’s DJ’d naked, put a great dane on the catwalk – and now with an album, Shayne Oliver is on a mission to bring New York’s queer underground to the world. Is the former Hood by Air designer the 21st century Andy Warhol?
Interviewing Shayne Oliver is a conversational rollercoaster. We hurtle from cult 90s guitar bands to Arthur Jafa, from the problem with political correctness to the pressure on creatives, from Kanye West to Vin Diesel, with little warning of which thrill or spill is next. “I’m such a scatterbrain,” he says at the end of our call. “I’m sorry.”
But Oliver is far from a scatterbrain. He is best known as a fashion designer, the former vogue-dancer who founded the critically adored label Hood By Air, or HBA, in 2006. However, he is no longer limiting himself to clothes. Oliver is moving into music, having formed Anonymous Club – a “creative studio” focused on young talent that began as a series of parties. The studio’s debut release is Screensavers Vol 1, a compilation album based on Oliver’s demos, executive produced by Yves Tumor.
Continue reading...DNA suggests body buried in feminine attire with swords had Klinefelter syndrome, researchers say
Modern analysis of a 1,000-year-old grave in Finland challenges long-held beliefs about gender roles in ancient societies, and may suggest non-binary people were not only accepted but respected members of their communities, researchers have said.
According to a peer-reviewed study in the European Journal of Archaeology, DNA analysis of remains in a late iron age grave at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki in Hattula, southern Finland, may have belonged to a high-status non-binary person.
Continue reading...Tabitha Chawinga, a Malawi international who plays in China, has called for greater safeguards against abuse in her home country
The international footballer Tabitha Chawinga is calling on Malawi’s football authorities to introduce safeguards to protect women from abuse at all levels of the game.
Chawinga, who became the first woman from Malawi to sign for a European football team when she joined the Swedish club Krokom/Dvärsätts IF in 2014, said that she had been forced to strip in public during a match to prove she was female and was regularly trolled on social media about her looks.
Continue reading...Acquittal comes after attorney general said evidence insufficient to prosecute for unlawful assembly
A Ghanaian court has acquitted and freed 21 people who were arrested during a crackdown on homosexuality in May for attending an LGBTQ+ event.
Gay sex is a criminal offence in the west African country and members of the LGBTQ+ community often face discrimination.
Continue reading...Co-creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab hopes it will inspire young girls to enter Stem careers
Prof Sarah Gilbert has had quite a year. The co-creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab has been made a dame, been given an emotional standing ovation at Wimbledon – and now a Barbie doll has been made in her honour.
Gilbert, who led the development of the Covid vaccine at Oxford University, said she initially found the gesture “very strange” but hoped it would inspire young girls to work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem).
Continue reading...Landmark parliamentary report features evidence of gang rape, sex for career advancement and trophies to ‘bag the woman’
Almost two-thirds of women in the armed forces have experienced bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination during their career, according to a parliamentary report that says the UK military is “failing to protect” female recruits.
Heralding its inquiry into the treatment of women in the armed forces as one of the most vital in its history, the defence subcommittee said 62% of the 4,106 veterans and current female personnel who gave testimony had either witnessed or received “unacceptable behaviour”.
Continue reading...Jehan Sadat, who has died aged 88 of cancer, spent most of her life promoting social justice and women’s rights in Egypt. She continued to campaign decades after her husband, President Anwar Sadat, was assassinated, on 6 October 1981, by militants in the army avenging the imprisonment of fellow Islamists and condemning the 1978 Camp David accords that he had signed with Israel.
As a girl in Cairo, Jehan had explored the streets of her neighbourhood of Al-Manial, attributing her self-confidence to her supportive parents. She said that her fight against gender inequality started during her schooldays, when she was encouraged to focus on subjects such as sewing and cooking in preparation for marriage rather than the sciences that would lead to a university career. “I have always regretted that decision. I would never allow my daughters to close off their futures that way,” she wrote in her autobiography, A Woman of Egypt (1987).
Continue reading...Additional emojis will complete Unicode’s drive to offer more variety and gender-neutral options
A pregnant man, a multiracial handshake and a face that cannot bear to watch are some of the emojis that will hit devices over the next year, according to a draft list published by the Unicode Consortium, which approves icons for use.
Continue reading...Dumfries course teaches 11- to 18-year-olds how to create a persona, apply makeup and the history of drag
“You can use drag to explore anything you want to,” says Natalie Doidge, the organiser of what is thought to be Scotland’s first “drag school” for teenagers, which opens its doors later this month after facing down controversy.
“Drag isn’t limited to men dressed as women … and this course opens it out to anyone who wants to try it. It’s an exploration of [oneself] – especially for young people at the upper end of high school, when your life is just beginning and you’re thinking about who want to be. Gender is a performance, after all.”
Continue reading...Activists say Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime uses televised confessions ‘under duress’ to hold back women’s rights, despite changes in society
Khalimat Taramova, the 22-year-old daughter of a prominent Chechen businessman, sits demurely on a velvet sofa ornately embellished in gold. She is wearing a modest dress and a headscarf. With her on the sofa are three men dressed in suits. They are appearing on Grozny TV, the state television channel of Russia’s Chechen Republic.
Only a couple of weeks before the programme was shown on 14 June, Taramova fled her home, where she said she was subjected to violence after going against her family’s wishes. She sought help from a group of women’s rights activists, the Marem project , who let her stay in a flat owned by one of its members in the neighbouring republic of Dagestan. In a video released on social media on 6 June, she pleaded for the Chechen authorities not to come looking for her.
Continue reading...Campaigner Zoe Scaman has collected women’s stories and is calling for policy change in the industry
Hundreds of women working in advertising have described being sexually assaulted, harassed and discriminated against, after a blog provoked an outpouring of fury that is being described as the industry’s #MeToo moment.
Senior advertising industry player Zoe Scaman said she had been inundated with emails from women across the world describing incidents ranging from sexist comments in meetings to sexual assault and rape. She is now working with leaders of bodies representing women in the advertising sector to try to effect real change and “not just another policy pledge”.
Continue reading...At 17, Priyanka Bairwa refused her arranged marriage. Instead, she started Rajasthan Rising to help thousands of others and call for free education
Priyanka Bairwa was 15 when her family began to look for a husband for her. The pandemic sped up the process, as schools shut and work dried up. By October 2020, her parents had settled on a suitable boy from their village of Ramathra in the district of Karauli, Rajasthan.
But Bairwa, now 18, wouldn’t hear of it. “During the pandemic, every family in the village was eager to marry off their girls. You’d have to invite less people, there were fewer expenses,” says Bairwa. “But I refused to be caught in a child marriage. There was a major backlash – constant fights. I finally threatened to run away and, fearing I would do something drastic, my family called it off. My mother convinced them to let me study and I joined a college.”
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia
Continue reading...As Turkey quits the Istanbul convention, Gülsüm Kav’s group We Will Stop Femicide is helping keep women alive amid a rise in gender-based violence
“History is on our side,” says Gülsüm Kav. She leans in and speaks intensely. She has a lot to say: Kav helped create Turkey’s We Will Stop Femicide (WWSF) group, and has become one of the country’s leading feminist activists even as the political environment has grown more hostile.
Amid protests, Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul convention, the landmark international treaty to prevent violence against women and promote equality, on Thursday. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has long attacked women’s rights and gender equality, suggesting that feminists “reject the concept of motherhood”, speaking out against abortion and even caesarean sections, and claiming that gender equality is “against nature”.
Continue reading...Generation Equality Forum in Paris announces plans to radically speed up progress on women’s rights
Billions of pounds will be pledged to support efforts to tackle gender inequality this week at the largest international conference on women’s rights in more than 25 years.
The Generation Equality Forum, hosted in Paris by UN Women and the governments of France and Mexico, will launch plans to radically speed up progress over the next five years.
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