WHRC weekly newsletter

Latest news from WHRC

WHRC live from FiLiA this Saturday

This week's FQT is live from FiLiA! Starting at the different time of 3.30pm. Register here to listen to Eugenia Rodrigues, Amparo Domingo, Vaishnavi Sundar, Stefanie Bode, Kara Dansky and Anna Kerr live from the FiLiA conference. 

Free Speech For Women - Thistle Pettersen and the 1st Amendment

In this webinar lawyers Kara Dansky (WHRC USA) and Lauren Adams (WoLF) discuss free speech for women in the wake of Thistle Pettersen and her recent legal ordeal. 

Sex-based rights around the world

Hear Me Roar! UK women hold 'dinosaur' protest

UK activists organised a protest in London after Labour MP David Lammy called women who wish to retain single-sex spaces 'dinosaurs' who are 'hoarding rights'. Read Jo Bartosch's report. 

Mexico state allows children of 12 to self-identify 'gender'

Oaxaca state in Mexico has recently passed a law that allows children of 12 and over to self-identify as a boy, girl or 'non-binary' as long as they have their parents' or guardian's permission. 

Father says boy sexually assaulted his daughter in girls' bathroom

A Virginia father who was recently hauled out of a school board meeting by police has revealed that his daughter was sexually assaulted by a boy in the girls' bathroom. His lawyer stated the same boy was charged with another count of sexual assault and abduction at a different school while awaiting his guilty plea for the first incident to be filed.

Women in Japan form organisation to protest against self-ID

Japanese women have formed the organisation 'No Self-ID! For Women's Rights and Women's Safety' to protest against self-ID in Japan and protect women's sex-based rights. 

4 black women and girls murdered every day in the US

According to new FBI statistics an average of 4 black women and girls were murdered every day in the US in 2020. 

Women prisoners in the UK could face extra jail time over preferred pronouns

Female prisoners in the UK could have extra time added to their jail sentence if they fail to use the 'preferred pronouns' of male prisoners. Read the analysis from Kate Coleman of Keep Prisons Single Sex in the Lesbian and Gay News. 

Man pretending to be a lesbian acquitted of rape

A Hong Kong man who pretended to be a woman on a lesbian dating app has been acquitted of raping a woman he met on the app.  

Cambridge University Student Union publishes 'TERF' guide

Cambridge University SU has this week published a guide, 'How to Spot TERF Ideology'. The guide states that 'TERFs' 'co-opt the language of sexual violence' and advises readers not to engage in debate with a person they believe to be a 'TERF'. 

Resources

'Hung Out to Dry'

Jo Bartosch writing in The Critic about the Sussex branch of the University College Union and it's treatment of Kathleen Stock.

UK schools resource from Safe Schools Alliance

UK-based safeguarding experts Safe Schools Alliance have recently published How To Talk To Schools About Their Resources, an FAQ-style guide to common misconceptions about 'gender identity' that schools are likely to state when parents complain. 

Inventing Transgender Children and Young People

Inventing Transgender Children and Young People was launched at a WHRC event in London in October 2019. Edited by Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans and Professor Michele Moore, the essays in this volume are written by clinicians, psychologists, sociologists, educators, parents and de-transitioners. Contributors demonstrate how ‘transgender children and young people’ are invented in different medical, social and political contexts: from specialist gender identity development services to lobby groups and their school resources, gender guides and workbooks; from the world of the YouTube vlogger to the consulting rooms of psychiatrists; from the pharmaceutical industry to television documentaries; and from the developmental models of psychologists to the complexities of intersex medicine. Far from just investigating how they are invented the authors demonstrate the considerable psychological and physical harms perpetrated on children and young people by transgender ideology, and offer tangible examples of where and how adults should intervene to protect them.

The Same Old Misogyny

Interview with three members of Women Talk Back, the feminist student society taking action against Bristol University. 

How Homophobia in India has Fuelled the Rise of Transgenderism

While lesbians and gender-nonconforming women still face stigma and violence, Indian liberals and corporations turn to transition as the answer - by Vaishnavi Sundar for 4W. 

'Visibility Blues: Black lesbians refusing to identify out of our oppression'

Watch Linda Bellos and Allison Bailey in conversation in this LGB Alliance webinar last year about lesbian visibility in 2020, discussing why being a lesbian is not merely an identity that one puts on — anymore than being black — it’s a lived reality rooted in struggle that is ongoing. The message is one of resistance and hope.

Events

Women Unsilenced book launch - Australia

The Australian launch of 'Women Unsilenced: Our Refusal to let Torturer-Traffickers Win' by Canadian nurses Jean Sarsons and Linda McDonald takes place in conjunction with the Feminist Legal Clinic on 23 October at 11-12.30pm AEDT. Tickets are available on the Humanitix website.