News and Updates

Nov. 20, 2019, 7:18 p.m.

Feminists have spoken up

When Massey University responded to activist pressure by cancelling the venue booking for Speak Up For Women’s Feminism 2020 event in Wellington, it proved to be a gift to the event’s organisers. It ignited public debate around freedom of speech in our universities, and the group was invited to hold the event in the rather more up-market surroundings of Parliament’s banquet hall. A mixed crowd of around 120 people turned out to hear from four women at the centre of the current gender identity debate, including prominent Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy, who had addressed MPs at the Scottish parliament in May. Event organiser, Jenny Whyte, said that while she was “hugely grateful” for the parliamentary venue, it was a “sad reflection on Massey that it capitulated to the mob and de-platformed some vital feminist voices.”

Nov. 16, 2019, 3:57 p.m.

Meghan Murphy on Newshub Nation

A feminist group, Speak Up For Women, brought Meghan Murphy from Canada to speak in New Zealand. Murphy is a radical feminist who believes trans women aren't women. Newshub Nation asked representatives from several trans and rainbow organisations to engage in a debate, but no-one was available. Simon Shepherd asked Murphy to explain her position this morning.

Nov. 11, 2019, 3:43 a.m.

CANADIAN WOMEN’S DECLARATION

AN APPEAL TO REPEAL BILL C-16 This enactment amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. The enactment also amends the Criminal Code to extend the protection against hate propaganda set out in that Act to any section of the public that is distinguished by gender identity or expression and to clearly set out that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance that a court must take into consideration when it imposes a sentence.

Oct. 30, 2019, 11:33 p.m.

Lawyers zone in on transgender drug therapy

Children who identify as transgender and their parents should be warned by clinics that treatment to make their bodies seem more like the opposite sex is still experimental, according to one of Australia’s top class action lawyers and a doctor who is ­an expert in legal medicine. A new paper in the Journal of Law and Medicine, written by leading medical negligence lawyer Bill Madden and professor of obstetrics and gynaecology Mike O’Connor, also argues that judges have wrongly accepted the assertion of doctors that ­puberty blockers are safe and ­reversible for trans youth. In a series of confidential cases, the Family Court has given up much of its role in scrutinising transgender treatment decisions for minors, handing power to clinicians and parents who have celebrated this as a victory for youth rights.

Oct. 24, 2019, 11 p.m.

Estheticians don't have to wax male genitalia against their will, B.C. tribunal rules

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has ruled against a transgender woman who brought 15 discrimination complaints after she was refused wax services at more than a dozen beauty salons. Jessica Yaniv, who identifies as female but has male genitalia, contacted the businesses through Facebook messages requesting appointments, including for a Brazilian wax which is a service to remove most or all female pubic hair. But according to Tuesday's decision, "... human rights legislation does not require a service provider to wax a type of genitals they are not trained for and have not consented to wax." Estheticians who appeared at the hearing testified they declined to wax Yaniv for various reasons, including religious grounds, personal safety concerns, and lack of training when it came to male genitalia.

Oct. 24, 2019, 10:46 p.m.

Discussions with a stone wall

Britain’s main gay rights organisation is risking its own future by adopting gender self-ID as its new cause. In 2010, Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of Stonewall, Britain’s biggest gay-rights group, said that the organisation took “no view” on whether same-sex marriage should be legalised. Set up in 1989 to lobby against “Section 28” of the Local Government Act, which barred the “promotion” of same-sex relationships, it was wildly out of step with the gay population as a whole. After a survey later that year showed that 98% wanted the right to marry, it apologised and reversed its position. Now it is under even heavier fire—and the lateness of its conversion to gay marriage is part of the reason.

Oct. 19, 2019, 1:57 a.m.

Toronto's top librarian refuses to bar trans critical speaker

The Toronto Public Library is standing by its decision to rent out space to a third-party event featuring a writer and activist who argues against transgender rights, despite mounting opposition from authors, politicians and the city's mayor. Meghan Murphy, who runs the website Feminist Current, has argued that "allowing men to identify as women" undermines women's rights, and that transgender women should not be allowed in women's spaces. She has publicly opposed Bill C-16, which made it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity and expression, and was banned from Twitter in 2018 for violating its hate speech policy. Authors Alicia Elliott, Catherine Hernandez and Carrianne Leung say they will no longer participate Toronto Public Library (TPL) events in light of its decision, and have launched a petition decrying the TPL for allowing "hate speech to be disseminated" at the Oct. 29 discussion.

Oct. 7, 2019, 10:59 p.m.

Alaska homeless shelter wins right to turn away transwomen

The Municipality of Anchorage will pay $100,001 and allow the Hope Center homeless shelter to forbid transgender women, settling a lawsuit brought by the faith-based Anchorage shelter for women. The settlement was published Monday and comes a little over a month after U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason issued a preliminary injunction declaring that Anchorage’s anti-discrimination ordinance could not be applied to the shelter as the case moved toward trial in early 2020. The Hope Center was represented in its lawsuit by the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, which argues on behalf of religious-liberty cases nationwide. (The Alliance was the organization that represented a Colorado baker in front of the U.S. Supreme Court over the baker’s refusal to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.)

Oct. 7, 2019, 5:28 p.m.

Scottish Government pledge not to conflate sex and gender

The Scottish Government has pledged that its new working group on the collection of data will ensure sex and gender are not conflated in statistics published by public authorities. The Sex and Gender in Data Working Group, which is headed by the government’s chief statistician Roger Halliday, will seek to ensure that the two categories remain distinct from each other. Concerns have been raised by academics and women’s groups, that the two terms were becoming interchangeable, undermining the collection of vital information needed in the planning of public services for women and men, changing the recording of crimes, and potentially removing sex as a protected characteristic as stated in the Equality Act 2010.