New GC News feature!
Today’s Extraordinary Revolutionary Female (T.E.R.F.)
And the first inductee into the Global Order of Terven Women!
Mia Ashton
GC News is proud to launch the Global Order of Terven Women and new feature, “Today’s Extraordinary Revolutionary Female (T.E.R.F.),” by presenting the very first of many, Mia Ashton!
Mia lives in Canada (originally from Britain) and is the proud mother of a beautiful daughter. Mia’s favorite time of day (and her daughter’s too) is when she reads Harry Potter to her before bed every evening.
An articulate and persuasive advocate for Gender Critical views, Mia writes for The Critic Magazine, is a regular guest on the Richard Syrett Show on Sauga960 AM Radio, and is a prolific tweeter, whose following has just crested the 10k mark! Congratulations, Mia!
In this thread from a couple days ago, Mia shows why so many of us in the GC twitterverse follow and appreciate her:
For any trans activists watching my account, let's get one thing clear: there's a conflict between women's rights and trans rights. This conflict won't be resolved by shutting down debate and screaming accusations of transphobia. No one cares anyway because the word transphobia is meaningless now. You've overused it. At this point it just means having a grip on reality and a basic understanding of human biology. You may think you've won and the issue is settled, but you're wrong. The debate is just getting going here in Canada.
You can't simply redefine woman to include males, removing our right to female-only spaces, and expect women to accept it. And yes, that is what it means. It is logically impossible to maintain women's right to single-sex spaces while also allowing males into those spaces.
Female-only spaces for women are not a privilege we're hoarding, they're a necessity to protect us from violent males. I'm not saying all males commit violent crime. Just that most violent crime is committed by males. All males must be excluded because of the action of the few.
Housing any male who claims a "female gender identity" in women's prisons is inhumane and barbaric. I've never met a Canadian who doesn't agree with me when they understand what that really means. That it means the rapist who decides he's a woman after being caught or the child rapist and murderer who is housed in a women's prison with a mother-and-baby unit.
I understand why you want to silence us. It's because you know that if the truth gets out, most people will agree with us. So you try to intimidate us, make us too afraid to speak Perhaps that tactic worked for a while, but it's not working any more. We have found our voice, we have the truth on our side, and now we won't be silenced.
The incomparable JK Rowling has liked at least one of Mia’s tweets:
GC News is so proud to inaugurate the Global Order of Terven Women with its very first inductee, the amazing and indomitable Mia Ashton.
Gender Recognition Reform Bill: Predatory, abusive men like the paedophile who stole my soul will exploit proposed legislation – Susan Dalgety
March is Women’s History Month. It coincides with International Women’s Day on Tuesday and is designed to mark the many achievements of women over the centuries.
From The Scotsman (Scotland)
By Susan Dalgety
March 5, 2022
I was going to write about the Duchess of Atholl, Scotland’s first woman MP; about Nicola Benedetti, appointed the first woman director of Edinburgh’s International Festival earlier this week; and several other Scottish women, some now long forgotten, some household names, who have changed our world for the better.
Instead, I am going to focus on the personal history of one woman. She’s not famous, or special, just a woman, born and brought up in a rural corner of Scotland. She was a serious child, who preferred books to running around, and from a very early age lost herself in a world far away from the mundane but happy reality of her life.
…
Then at the age of 11, on the cusp of adolescence, her world shattered, yet stayed the same. She was sexually assaulted. Not once, but relentlessly. Once or twice a week for a year until she went to high school. The abuse continued for another year after that, but only sporadically as she learned how to avoid the man who had stolen her soul.
…
That young girl was me. And on Thursday, I heard a woman, a mother, proclaim in our Parliament that there is no evidence that “predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour”.
Never mind that Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison spoke these words in a cynical attempt to justify her government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill which will allow men to change their legal sex simply by affirmation. … read full article
The SNP’s Gender Recognition Bill is a threat to women
The Scottish government wants to make it easier to change gender – regardless of the consequences.
From Spiked (UK)
By Jo Bartosch
March 5, 2022
The Scottish government published its Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill last week. This bill will make it easier for adults in Scotland to change their legal gender, even lowering the age – from 18 to 16 – at which they will be able to do so.
After listening to Scotland’s social-justice secretary, Shona Robison, introduce the bill on Thursday, an important question was left hanging in my head – is the minister just a bit dim or is she being disingenuous? On reflection, she may be both.
Robison explained that the bill ‘just simplifies a process that has been in existence for 18 years’, and reassured listeners that it would have no impact on other groups. She made no reference to the rising number of young de-transitioners – that is, those young people who believed themselves to be the opposite sex as teenagers, sometimes undergoing medical procedures, only to experience regret and often infertility as adults. And she dismissed as unfounded warnings from women’s groups about dangerous men exploiting the process to abuse women. … read full article
JK Rowling's warning over Scotland's gender bill
From The Herald (Scotland)
By Maureen Sugden
March 5, 2022
JK ROWLING has spoken out against the Gender Recognition Reform Bill in Scotland saying it "will harm the most vulnerable women in society".
Her comments came after Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison spoke in Holyrood earlier this week about the bill - which will allow men to change their legal sex simply by affirmation - saying that there is no evidence abusive men have ever “had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour”.
Author and journalist, Susan Dalgety, wrote a newspaper article about her own experiences of abuse in childhood, saying she was inspired to do so after listening to Ms Robison's "crass statement".
Describing herself as a "fellow survivor", Edinburgh-based Ms Rowling commented that the article was a "searing, heartfelt and courageous response" to Ms Robison's "astounding claim".
She added: "The law Nicola Sturgeon is trying to pass in Scotland will harm the most vulnerable women in society - those seeking help after male violence/rape and incarcerated women. Statistics show that imprisoned women are already far more likely to have been previously abused."
Self-ID law ‘not supported by all trans people’ says campaigner
Transgender groups hail new legislation but some transsexuals fear that it may mean some miss out on the right support
From The Times (UK)
By John Boothman
March 6, 2022
A leading campaigner against new Scottish legislation that will enable people as young as 16 to rapidly switch their official gender has claimed many transgender people also oppose the change.
Marion Calder, co-founder of the feminist group For Women Scotland, said she is aware of many trans people who believed the reform is a mistake but are “too scared to speak out in favour of women’s rights because they fear the inevitable cold-shouldering from their community”.
Last week the Scottish government published its long-awaited bill enabling people born male to be declared female and vice-versa without having to provide medical evidence of gender dysphoria as long as they have been living in their acquired gender for three months. … read full article (share token)
The Truth About Detransition
From Genspect
By Stella O'Malley
March 6, 2022
Until now, the detransitioner experience has largely been ignored – even though the best way for clinicians to improve their work in this field is by listening to detransitioners’ stories. That’s why Genspect is hosting a webinar where detransitioners will share their own experiences, in their own words. The webinar will be held on Saturday March 12th at 8pm GMT, to accommodate as many people as possible from Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and North America.
The grass, as they say, is always greener. Or, as e.e. cummings put it, “listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go.” And in many ways, the desire to transition is the most comprehensive pursuit of escape that has ever been offered to any human.
Think back to a time when you were filled with uncertainty and self-loathing. How thrilled would you have been to discover that you could become someone else? For a young person wracked with tension and distress, little could be more alluring than the chance to become a member of the opposite sex, with a different body, a different voice and mannerisms, a different name, identity and pronouns – and not only that, but a rule that nobody is allowed to even mention your previous, hated self. Transition today comes with the added bonus of a collective collusion that you were never really the person you were. Your new identity is your “real self.” … read full article
Idaho House committee approves bill to prohibit gender-confirmation medical treatment
From East Idaho News (USA)
By Ruth Brown
March 6, 2022
BOISE (Idaho Reports) –The Idaho House State Affairs Committee passed a bill that would prohibit gender-confirmation surgery from being performed on children, even if they had parental consent.
Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, introduced the bill that would add to the existing law for “female genital mutilation” under Idaho Code 18-1506B.
The Legislature initially established that law in 2019, targeting ritual genital mutilation conducted against girls by some faiths. The law also added an enforcement mechanism to align with a federal law that passed in 1996 outlawing female genital mutilation.
But Skaug’s bill, HB 675, would change the law to apply to both male and female children and would prohibit surgery “if it is for the sole purpose of attempting to change or affirm the child’s perception of the child’s sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child’s biological sex.”
Some transgender people choose to undergo a gender-confirmation surgery.
Should Skaug’s bill pass, any person convicted of a violation of the law would be guilty of a felony, punishable by up to life in prison.
Skaug stressed that some of the procedures can cause children to develop sterility or stunt their growth. He also believes that sometimes children with gender dysphoria “grow out” of it, comparing the issue to children who grow out of disorders such as anorexia.
“This bill protects the harm that will be caused to our children if we allow this to go on,” Skaug said.
Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, voted against the bill, saying the Idaho Medical Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Endocrine Society all opposed the legislation.
“I don’t think the government has the right to hurt people, but I don’t think it has the right to deprive people of medical treatment,” Gannon said.
He said the legislation was “well intended, but way too far reaching.” … read full article
Male violence against women is about so much more than toxic masculinity
It is safer and more effective to disrupt dangerous men rather than trying to fix them
From The Guardian (UK)
By Sonia Sodha
March 6, 2022
The murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer a year ago prompted a wave of national shock. Her brutal abduction, rape and killing pierced the public consciousness to such a degree that feminist campaigners wondered if this tragedy might move us from seeing violence as something society has to live with to something that can be significantly reduced.
Today, those hopes look misplaced. A single statistic shows how little has changed: since Sarah’s murder, at least 125 women have been killed by men. Some, like Sabina Nessa, were murdered in a public place by a man they didn’t know; many more behind closed doors, often by their partners. The question, after having read report after report, is why, for all the never agains and pledges to do more, have we failed so badly to reduce violence?
Any analysis of violence has to begin with the stark difference between the sexes. The vast majority of violence is committed by men – more than four-fifths of violent crime and an even greater proportion of sex offences. While men are also more likely to be victims of violent crime, women are overwhelmingly more likely to be victims of severe domestic abuse. (One of the reasons single-sex spaces have become the norm in prisons, hospital wards and refuges: it is a simple rule of thumb to safeguard against male violence.)
Interestingly, the difference in physical aggression between the average man and the average women is moderate – to put it in context, about a quarter as significant as average sex differences in height. The big difference comes at the extremes of the distribution: there are many more very violent men than women.
What underpins this difference? In animals, scientists have found a clear link between testosterone levels and male aggression. But this is not replicated in humans, leading experts to believe that the complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors – the way children are socialised – plays a much greater role. … read full article
Mandy Rhodes: Predators do not wear badges and women need safety of single-sex spaces
From The Sunday Post (Scotland)
By Mandy Rhodes (editor of Holyrood Magazine)
March 6, 2022
On the eve of International Women’s Day, in 2022, with pestilence and war having been visited upon us, and with women, as always, disproportionately affected by both, we are bizarrely, locked in a debate about what we even mean by the word “woman”.
The phrase “Women won’t wheesht” is a uniquely Scottish response to attempts to put women back in their box, to tell them their concerns aren’t valid, that they are on the wrong side of history, to accuse them of being radicalised, to label them as hateful, to shoot them down as bigots and transphobes, and yet we have fallen so far down this particular rabbit hole that it is women that are being blamed for the divisive debate that is whirling around the reform of the Gender Recognition Act.
Women are losing their jobs, being suspended from political parties, potentially turned away from services designed to protect them, and running the risk of breaking the law, for simply daring to speak up about something that feels so fundamental to them – who they are and how they keep safe.
And the more invidious thing is the way bonds of trust have been broken and barriers erected along with a dividing line that somehow separates people into being pro or anti-trans. It is a false narrative that has caused, and is causing, too much pain.
Concerns about changes to the Gender Recognition Act in Scotland that could allow anyone to change their legal sex without the requirement for any medical gatekeeping, self-ID, has never been about being against trans people. It has always been about ensuring the safety of women is preserved. This is about men. Abusive men.
It is International Women’s Day on Tuesday. Usually a time to celebrate all that, as women, we have achieved. And last year, as sisters, we came together in raw grief to mourn the death of Sarah Everard, picked off the street, raped and murdered. … read full article
Texas Children’s Hospital stops therapies after gender-confirming care order
The announcement came after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate reports of gender-confirming care for kids as abuse.
From The Dallas Morning News (USA)
By The Associated Press
March 6, 2022
HOUSTON (AP) — The nation’s largest pediatric hospital has announced it has stopped gender-affirming therapies after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate reports of gender-confirming care for kids as abuse.
Texas Children's Hospital, located in Houston, announced that its decision to stop such hormone-related prescription therapies was made after it reviewed Abbott's order, which came when Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton last month released a nonbinding legal opinion that labeled certain gender-confirming treatments as "child abuse."
“The mission of Texas Children’s Hospital is to create a healthier future for all children, including transgender children, within the bounds of the law ... This step was taken to safeguard our health care professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications,” the hospital wrote in a statement released Friday.
After the hospital's announcement, Paxton tweeted Friday, “Glad to hear that today Texas Children’s Hospital halted their child-abuse procedures.” … read full article
Scotland to be one of the easiest places on Earth for teenagers to change gender
Documents reveal that other countries have tougher safeguards for 16- and 17-year-olds to legally switch sex than those outlined by SNP
From The Telegraph (UK)
By Daniel Sanderson
March 6, 2022
Scotland is to become only the second country in the world to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to legally change their gender without parental permission or a court order.
Nicola Sturgeon’s government recently published legislation that would see Scotland allow teenagers formerly considered children to obtain a gender recognition certificate, with no requirement for parental consent or medical evidence.
Documents published alongside the Bill showed that while a handful of other countries and territories allow children to formally change their gender, all but one, Norway, have more stringent safeguards than would be in place under the Scottish proposals.
Unveiling the proposed law at Holyrood, Shona Robison, the SNP’s Social Justice Secretary, said that extra “support and guidance” would be available to those aged 16 and 17 who made applications.
While they will be “encouraged” to take up the offer of a “conversation” with National Records of Scotland to discuss the process, there is no requirement for them to do so.
Marion Calder, a director of the For Women Scotland campaign group, claimed that the proposed changes ignored scientific evidence around the cognitive development of children and concerns expressed by the Children’s Commissioner for Scotland.
“The reform Bill makes no provisions for the protection of 16- and 17-year-olds, whether that is in making an application or revoking one, that takes into account the unique vulnerabilities of that age group,” she said.
“It is only the second government in the world to do so – the handful of others who have introduced self-ID for this age group all deemed them worthy of the protection their age requires.” … read full article (paywall)
This day in Herstory: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, born March 6, 1806 (died June 29, 1861), was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime.
Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabeth Barrett wrote poetry from the age of eleven. Her mother's collection of her poems forms one of the largest extant collections of juvenilia by any English writer. At 15, she became ill, suffering intense head and spinal pain for the rest of her life. Later in life, she also developed lung problems, possibly tuberculosis. She took laudanum for the pain from an early age, which is likely to have contributed to her frail health. (more)