Category Archives: Transgender

UK supreme court ruling on legal definition of woman ‘brings clarity and confidence’, says government – live

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Judges say definition of women and sex in Equality Act 2010 act refers to biological women and biological sex

The definition of a woman and sex in the Equality Act relates to “a biological woman and biological sex”, the supreme court has ruled as it unanimously allowed an appeal from gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland.

A possible outcome of the case is that the court will agree with the previous interpretation of the law as it stands, but suggest parliament considers amending the Equality Act to deal with these previously unforeseen consequences.

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Gender critical campaigners win at UK supreme court over definition of woman

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Judges rule that Equality Act definition excludes transgender women holding gender recognition certificates

Gender critical rights campaigners have won their supreme court challenge over the definition of a woman.

Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).

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Australian academics refuse to attend US conferences for fear of being detained

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‘When academics fear travelling or partnering with US institutions, the impacts ripple through the entire global knowledge ecosystem,’ one says

When Gemma Lucy Smart received an invitation to attend an academic conference in the US, she was excited. But that was before Donald Trump was returned to office.

Now Smart, who has a disability and is queer, has decided it’s too risky to travel to Seattle for the social sciences conference in September.

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US air force reverses ban on pronouns in email signatures and websites

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Department will follow rest of Trump’s anti-DEI order while adhering to 2024 defense bill barring any pronoun policy

The US air force has reversed its ban on the use of preferred pronouns in email signatures and other professional communications.

In a memo dated last Wednesday, the Department of the Air Force announced that it has “rescinded” the directive it issued earlier this year prohibiting “the use of ‘preferred pronouns’ to identify one’s gender identity in professional communications”, including email signatures, memoranda, letters, papers, social media and official websites.

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University of Sussex taking legal action over £585,000 free speech fine

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Vice-chancellor Sasha Roseneil accuses Office for Students of seeking to ‘persecute’ rather than solve problems

The University of Sussex is taking legal action to overturn a record fine levied by England’s higher education regulator, accusing the regulator of seeking to “persecute” it rather than solve problems.

This week the Office for Students (OfS) said it would fine Sussex £585,000 for two “historic” breaches of its regulations related to freedom of speech and governance. It comes after a three-and-a-half-year investigation into the resignation of Prof Kathleen Stock, who was the target of protests at Sussex over her views on gender identification and transgender rights.

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Denmark and Finland urge caution for US-bound transgender people

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Travel advice updated amid reports of ordeals at US border after Trump said country would only recognise two genders

Denmark and Finland have updated their US travel advice for transgender people, joining the handful of European countries that have sought to caution US-bound travellers in recent weeks as reports emerge of ordeals at the American border.

Denmark said this week it had begun advising transgender travellers to contact the US embassy in Copenhagen before departure to ensure there would be no issues with travel documents.

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Russell T Davies: gay society in ‘greatest danger I’ve ever seen’ after Trump win

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Exclusive: Doctor Who writer says he feels ‘a wave of anger heading towards us’ and hostility in UK as well as US

Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.

Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.

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US arts funding agency sued over Trump order targeting LGBTQ+ projects

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Groups sue National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) after president bars funds for promotion of ‘gender ideology’

Several arts organizations are suing the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) over its new requirements following Donald Trump’s executive order barring the use of federal funds for the promotion of “gender ideology”.

The groups, which are seeking funding for projects that support art about or are made by transgender and non-binary people, say they have in effect been unconstitutionally blocked from receiving grants from the agency that was built to promote artistic excellence, despite having received funds for similar projects in the past.

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Elon Musk and Texas governor celebrate firing of worker over pronouns in email signature

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Billionaire Trump ally and Greg Abbot tweet about Frank Zamora, who was let go after refusing to remove pronouns

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, and, later, Elon Musk showed support on Wednesday for the firing of a state employee who refused to remove his pronouns from his work email signature.

Frank Zamora, 31, was let go from his job as a program manager at the Texas real estate commission (TREC) last month because he refused to comply with a mandate from the organisation to employees to remove gender pronouns from email signatures.

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Transgender US military personnel must be identified and stood down, says Pentagon memo

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Being transgender is not compatible with service, court filing says, foreshadowing removal of people from service within 60 days

Transgender service members will be separated from the US military unless they receive an exemption, according to a Pentagon memo filed in court on Wednesday – essentially banning them from joining or serving in the armed forces.

Donald Trump signed an executive order in January that took aim at transgender troops in a personal way – at one point saying that a man identifying as a woman was “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member”.

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No evidence of hate crime in killing of US transgender man, authorities say

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Five people charged with murder in Sam Nordquist’s death in upstate New York also identified as LGBTQ+, say officials

Authorities investigating the alleged torture and murder of Sam Nordquist in upstate New York say they have found no evidence the transgender man’s killing was a hate crime, pointing out that five people recently charged in connection with the slaying also identified as LGBTQ+.

“We urge the community not to speculate into the motive behind the murder as we work to find justice for Sam,” authorities said over the weekend in a joint press release from the Ontario county district attorney’s office and New York state police. “At this time, we have no indication that Sam’s murder was a hate crime.”

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Second Labour MP suspended by Labour amid offensive messages on WhatsApp group – UK politics live

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Burnley’s Oliver Ryan suspended as details emerge about Trigger Me Timbers group

Downing Street has announced a mini-reshuffle following the sacking of Andrew Gwynne as a health minister over the weekend.

Ashley Dalton is replacing Gwynne as a health minister. Dalton was a backbencher.

Forcing those whose asylum applications have been rejected or who have overstayed their visas on to planes has never been the most effective way to return people and never will be. Being punitive just scares people into hiding. They lose contact with the authorities, living a life on the margins.

Voluntary returns are far more effective, and the government should know this because it was the last Labour administration that commissioned independent agencies to run a voluntary programme that saw numbers increase. Building trust with refugee and migrant communities and treating people with dignity and humanity was far more successful than an enforcement approach.

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Labour shelves plans to make it easier for people to legally change gender

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Ministers mothball promised reforms to simplify the process amid fears over rise of Reform UK

Labour has quietly shelved plans to make it easier for people to legally change their gender amid concerns about the rising popularity of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Ministers have mothballed their promised reforms to simplify the process whereby anyone seeking to change gender in the UK must get approval from a panel of doctors and lawyers.

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Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders threaten Americans’ health, experts say

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As certain terms are scrubbed from US health agency websites decades of vital data is vanishing, advocates warn

After Donald Trump signed executive orders ordering for mentions of race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities and other terms to be scrubbed from US health agency websites, experts say the implications for health and scientific research are vast.

All pages at US health agencies were told to take down these mentions after Trump signed certain executive orders on his first day in office.

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Brad Battin says Liberals ousted Greens in Prahran by ‘listening to locals’ – as it happened

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Coalition backs healthcare package

Gallagher welcomed the opposition backing Labor’s package for women’s health this morning. She said on ABC Insiders:

We know Peter Dutton wanders around saying he’s going to cut a whole range of things. He’s clear he sees a lot of our investments in Medicare as wasteful spending. But these are really good investments into women’s health. And it will make a difference for millions of people across the country including women who are going through men who really have felt left behind by the health system and hopefully these new measures will address all of those issues.

It’s come down quite obviously for women across the country, the use of contraception, going through different stages of your life, including menopause, that these are areas that either haven’t been addressed for decades, or haven’t been met appropriately through the Medicare system. So, you know, we have landed the hospital deal, keep investing in the public health system, we have got a lot of initiatives about strengthening Medicare and this builds on that.

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Thousands march at trans youth rallies opposing Queensland puberty blockers ban, organiser says

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‘A lot of parents are feeling really angry and frustrated with the government,’ director of Trans Justice Project says

Thousands of people attended rallies across Australia on Saturday to show solidarity with transgender youth and their families, after the Queensland government’s decision to pause essential healthcare for trans minors.

Twenty rallies were held, including a crowd of 5,000 gathering in both Brisbane and Melbourne, 2500 in Sydney and more than 200 in Cairns, lead organiser Jackie Turner said.

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Queensland’s puberty blockers ban has potential to cause harm, sex discrimination commissioner says

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Anna Cody raises concerns over halt to hormone treatments for gender dysphoria as youth service labels it ‘discriminatory’

The Queensland government’s ban on puberty blockers for new patients seeking treatment for gender issues is “discriminatory”, according to the state’s only dedicated LGBTQI youth service, as the national sex discrimination commissioner warns the decision may harm young people.

Sex discrimination commissioner, Anna Cody, said the decision “has the potential to harm the physical and mental wellbeing of children in Queensland who are currently awaiting care”.

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Mexicans make Emilia Pérez parody poking fun at French stereotypes

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Spoof fires back at supposed inauthenticity of Oscar-tipped screen musical with a song-and-dance tale of boulangeries at war

The war of words between Mexico and France over trans gangster musical Emilia Pérez has heated up even more after the release of a spoof film called Johanne Sacreblu poking fun at French stereotypes.

Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard and which is up for the best picture Oscar along with a best actress nomination for its star Karla Sofia Gascón, is the story of a cartel boss who hires a lawyer (played by Zoe Saldana) to enable a gender transition, and has attracted much criticism in Mexico, where it is supposedly set.

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Queensland halts prescription of puberty blockers and hormones for children with gender dysphoria

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Pause comes as Crisafulli government launches independent review after reports gender-affirming hormones were given without proper consultation

Children with gender dysphoria will be denied puberty blockers as a state government reviews hormone therapies for minors.

The Queensland government launched the investigation after reports gender-affirming hormones had been given to children as young as 12 without authorised care.

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Gender dysphoria diagnoses among children in England rise fiftyfold over 10 years

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Study of GP records finds prevalence rose from one in 60,000 in 2011 to one in 1,200 in 2021 – but numbers still low overall

The number of children and young people in England with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria recorded by a GP has risen fiftyfold over 10 years, researchers have found, though numbers are still relatively small.

The growing number of birth-registered females seeking referrals to gender clinics has raised concerns in recent years, with tensions over how best to tackle gender dysphoria in children resulting in the Cass review last year.

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