A Week in the War on Women: Monday 29th July - Sunday 4th August
A Week in the War on Women: Monday 29th July - Sunday 4th August
Monday 29th July - Legalised Lying Down Under
THE COURIER MAIL: Hundreds of Australians are ‘changing gender’ following the implementation of new self-id legislation in Queensland.
On 24th June the Australian state of Queensland introduced self-id legislation that allows both children and adults to legally change their sex - even altering their birth certificates - removing all the previous safeguarding measures.
Now changing one’s legal sex merely requires a bit of paperwork and adults can register a new ‘gender’ without needing any medical diagnosis or physical alteration. The law also allows the legal sex of minors under the age of 16 to be changed, either through the Children’s Court or by parental application. (What a gift for homophobic parents of gender-nonconforming or gay kids.)
As of 22nd July, less than a month after the law came into effect, 247 Queensland residents, including 11 children, applied to change the ‘gender’ on their birth certificates. Of the 142 applications completed thus far, around two-thirds are trans-identified males who are now legally women.
One such trans-identified male is 61-year-old Emily Wells who is now legally female and able to access all of Queensland’s women-only spaces. “It's really hard to explain the euphoria”, he commented.
Tuesday 30th July - This Unsporting Life #1
REDUXX: Trans-identified male powerlifter, Anne Andres, has received only a six month suspension after threatening and bullying women online.
41-year-old Anne Andres is a trans-identified male Canadian powerlifter who is 6 feet 2 inches tall and weights 250 lbs. Outrageously, thanks to the sport’s governing body in Canada - the Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU) - Andres has been permitted to compete in women’s events.
Not surprisingly, Andres holds numerous records in the female division, including the women’s deadlift and bench press, and he’s ‘won’ the vast majority of the competitions in which he has participated. In August last year he stole first place in the Female Masters Unequipped category at the 2023 Western Canadian Championship. Not only that, he set both a Canadian women’s national record and an unofficial world record.
April Hutchinson is a female powerlifter who has courageously spoken out against the inclusion of trans-identified male competitors in women’s powerlifting events, challenging the CPU’s glaringly unfair policy. From the moment she started speaking out, she was warned that she would be banned from the sport over her views but she could not ignore the gross unfairness.
Last August, Hutchinson appeared on Piers Morgan’s TalkTV ‘Uncensored’ programme and spoke of the physical advantages which males have over women. She also made her views known via her own personal social media accounts. Anne Andres submitted an official complaint to the CPU and Hutchinson became the subject of an ethics investigation.
Further to that investigation, for speaking out in defence of women’s powerlifting, April received a two-year suspension from the sport. This was later reduced to a one-year ban following a legal appeal.
In contrast, this week Anne Andres has been banned from Powerlifting for just six months after a barrage of rage-filled social media comments. Posting on his (now private) Instagram account, Andres attacked sports officials from the CPU, the Alberta Powerlifting Union (APU), and several individual women. He made abusive and insulting comments, issued death threats, and engaged in targeted harassment. He also threatened to commit suicide if the APU wouldn’t accede to his demands, lied about having been banned from the female sports category, and harassed members of the APU’s executive board.
In one particular Instagram post, Andres said that he was ‘wishing death upon’ April Hutchinson. In a further post, Andres attacked both April Hutchinson and the Alberta premier, Danielle Smith, who introduced legislation to protect female sports categories from trans-identified males. He wrote, “That fucking terrible human being from Ontario makes profits off of hate… that self-righteous bitch… goes and talks about how a trans basketball player is hurting women by playing… You fucking sicken me and you promote this kind of thing. There is no hell, but times like this I wish there was so you and Smith can spend eternity suffering… May your generation die painfully and leave the youth to inherit a better world.”
In making their disciplinary ruling, the CPU deemed Andres’ comments to be “Harmful, disparaging, insulting, or otherwise negative.” He received a six-month suspension.
Also Today - This Never Happens #1
OTAGO DAILY TIMES: A trans-identified male recidivist paedophile is still deemed at high risk of committing further sex offences, a court has ruled.
Pierre John Parsons is a 47-year-old trans-identified male sex offender who lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.
In 1995, then aged eighteen, Parsons attacked a 12-year-old girl in a toilet at a sports centre. He tied a rope around her neck and dragged the unconscious child down a corridor and into a changing room where he stripped off her clothes. He then moved the girl into another room where he raped her. During therapy sessions in prison, Parsons admitting to sexually abusing both a disabled teenager and a 4-year-old child.
In 2003 he was released from prison on parole but was subject to an extended supervision order (ESO), a court order which is used to closely monitor and manage the long-term risk posed by high risk sex offenders who reside among the general community. Two years later Parsons was back inside after he was caught keeping pictures of children in his room at the supervised housing facility where he was living. In 2006 a decade-long ESO was imposed.
Over the next ten years Parsons breached his ESO numerous times, on one occasion deviating from his approved route to work and approaching a 15-year-old girl in a school uniform to ask if he could sexually abuse her. In 2020 he was returned to prison for nine months following the discovery of ‘vile and degrading’ images and videos of child sexual abuse on his electronic devices.
In 2023 the High Court ruled that the continuation of Parson’s ESO was justified. Justice Rachel Dunningham commented, “I am left with the situation where there is a clear pattern of Ms Parsons taking the opportunity, when it arises, to give expression to her [sic] sexual drive”. A health assessor said Parsons is in the above average range of re-offending risk and added that there is no evidence the treatment of gender dysphoria reduces the risk of sexual recidivism in ‘transgender individuals’.
Parsons brought a legal action to challenge the imposition of his ESO. However, this week the Court of Appeal decided that Parsons’ liberty issues did not outweigh the need to protect the public. It concluded that his ESO is ‘strongly justified’ and that he remains at high risk of re-offending.
Wednesday 31st July - First, Do No Harm
THE TIMES: The BMA has chosen to oppose the Cass Review and is calling for the ban on puberty blockers to be lifted.
The British Medical Association (BMA) is the trade union representing doctors and medical students and has around 190,000 members.
The landmark Cass Review, overseen by one of the country’s most experienced and respected paediatricians, took four years to research and produce and is the most thorough examination of the medical treatment for gender dysphoria ever to be carried out. It found that there is a lack of evidence for the use of puberty blockers and recommended a move away from a ‘medical pathway’ for children suffering with gender issues. The government subsequently banned the prescribing of puberty blockers for minors outside of strictly controlled clinical trials, a decision which was upheld by the High Court this week.
It is, therefore, utterly disgraceful that BMA leaders have voted in favour of a motion calling for children to have ‘prompt access’ to puberty blockers and that the union intends to lobby ministers and NHS authorities to “Oppose the implementation of the recommendations of the Cass review”.
This week, the BMA issued a press release, announcing that it intends to carry out an ‘evaluation’ of the Cass Review, claiming that there were ‘weaknesses in the methodologies used’. In the meantime, the union is calling for a delay in the implementation of the review and a return to prescribing experimental and untested drugs to children.
But then this is the BMA - a trade union of medical professionals, remember - which speaks of different ‘gender identities’ and of being ‘non-binary’ as if these were accepted, valid things.
It also cites WPATH guidelines on its website as if entirely unaware of the huge and shocking scandal surrounding them. (And, you will notice, it advocates an approach “That affirms patients’ gender identities”.)
Writing in The New Statesman a few weeks ago, Hannah Barnes commented, “For an official medical organisation to even consider rejecting one of the most in-depth, evidence-based reviews of an area of healthcare ever undertaken – by one of the most respected and experienced doctors in the country – might seem extraordinary. But this is gender medicine… The normal rules don’t apply”.
Thursday 1st August - This Never Happens #2
REDUXX: A trans-identified male convicted of killing his own wife after she tried to leave him has been placed in a women’s prison.
57-year-old Kier Anderson murdered his wife, Jennifer, in February 2006. During their six-year marriage he had been controlling and psychologically abusive and had made ‘increasingly disturbed’ sexual demands on her. In December 2005, when his two daughters were aged just one and three, bisexual Anderson invited another man, Joel Steele, to move into the family’s Sacramento home, intending to pursue a sexual relationship with him.
Contrary to Anderson’s plans, however, Jennifer began to develop romantic feelings for Steele. Anderson was extremely jealous and Steele eventually moved out. Jennifer maintained contact with Steele and, at the beginning of February 2006, she confided in her mother that she was planning to leave her husband for him.
On 27th February 2006, an extremely happy Jennifer told a friend that she intended to live with Joel Steele and was preparing to leave her husband. The following day, Jennifer’s dead body was discovered at the family home. Kier Anderson had strangled his wife then strung up her body in the garage, trying to make her brutal murder look like a suicide.
Anderson was convicted of Jennifer’s murder and, in May 2009, received a prison sentence of 25 years to life. He was originally placed, of course, in a men’s prison.
During his marriage, Anderson had been a sometime cross-dresser with a ‘feminine alter ego’ he called Claire. In prison, he seemingly began ‘identifying as a woman’ full-time. He launched a Facebook page inviting people to contact him through JPay, a communication service for inmates in state institutions. In January 2019 he posted to the site describing himself as “Intentionally a transgender woman” and stated that he was “Unwittingly serving 25 to life in a men’s prison”.
We have written in the past about Californian law SB 132 which took effect in January 2021. It requires the state to house trans-identified inmates in prisons based not on their sex but on their ‘gender identity’ and prisoners can request their choice of male or female facilities. Such requests cannot be denied solely because of an inmate’s anatomy or because of “a factor present” among other prisoners. So intact trans-identified males - regardless of the nature of their crimes - can be housed with vulnerable female prisoners, even if those women protest.
As we have reported previously, huge numbers of male prisoners in California now claim a trans identity in order to transfer to a women’s prison. Official figures show that, in the first three months after the law came into effect, there were 255 requests for transfers to female prisons by trans-identified males. 4W has reported that one-third of the men who request a transfer to California’s female estate are sex offenders.
Kier Anderson was moved to a female prison, the California Institute for Women, at some point following the implementation of SB-132. In 2023, Anderson appeared on a prison news podcast, Ear Hustle HQ, and expressed his gratitude to the Californian government for passing the law which allowed him a transfer to the female estate. “I immediately filed my paperwork”, he said. “I wanted to be the first one on the bus… What I was really looking forward to is being among women”.
Friday 2nd August - This Unsporting Life #2
THE DAILY MAIL: A 17-year-old girl suffered life-altering injuries after being forced to compete in a volleyball game against a trans-identified male player.
Payton McNabb, a very talented high school volleyball, softball and basketball player, had hoped to win a sporting scholarship in order to fund her college education. That dream ended abruptly during a volleyball match in September 2022 when Payton was 17 years old.
The opposing team included a trans-identified male player who, at 5 feet 11 inches tall, towered over the female players on the court. A ‘spiked’ shot from this player hit Payton in the face, knocking her to the ground and causing her to lose consciousness. (In volleyball, ‘spiking’ is a form of attacking play which involves jumping and, with the palm of the hand, hitting the ball hard and sharply downwards into the opposing court.) The male player is said to have ‘cackled with delight’.
Payton was unconscious for a full 30 seconds and lay on the floor with her arms locked upright in a ‘fencing’ position. Doctors later diagnosed her with a traumatic brain injury, concussion, partial paralysis on her right side, whiplash and vision loss, all issues which she is still dealing with almost two years on. She has vision problems and struggles to move the right side of her body, regularly falling and losing her balance. Now a student at Western Carolina University, Payton’s mental acuity is also affected and she requires hours of extra tutoring every month and extra time during tests because of the damage. Having to cope with all of these issues, she also suffers with anxiety and depression.
Saturday 3rd August - This Unsporting Life #3
DARTS NEWS: A prominent female darts player felt compelled to withdraw from a competition rather than be forced to play a trans-identified male opponent.
The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) follows the guidelines set out by the Darts Regulation Authority which allow trans-identified male players to compete in women’s events as long as they have a testosterone level below 10 nmo/L.
Deta Hedman, dubbed the ‘heart of darts’, is one of the best known players in women’s darts, having been at the forefront of the ladies’ game for decades. During the 1980s and 1990s, Hedman was one of the players who fought extremely hard for recognition and opportunities in women’s darts and it is in only in recent years that women’s competitions have been established. Hedman has often voiced her opposition to trans-identified males competing in women’s darts, citing the obvious physical advantages males enjoy and the unfairness of the situation as her reasons.
Writing on her Facebook account earlier this year, Hedman commented, “The Women’s game should be for biological women, this current path could lead to the death of women’s sport as a separate identity”.
28-year-old Samantha Lewis is a trans-identified male darts player who participates in supposedly female-only competitions. In a recent BBC interview he commented on those who speak out about the unfairness of his competing in the women’s category. “Just keep your opinions to yourself”, he said.
Last week, Deta Hedman found herself facing Lewis in a singles tournament run by the United Kingdom Darts Association (UKDA). She won her first two matches against Patricia Roberts (4-0) and Barbara Legge (4-0) and would have faced Sam Lewis in the third round. True to her principles, she chose to withdraw from the competition. But she should never have been placed in that position in the first place.
Sunday 4th August - The Olympic Wrongs
Despite compelling evidence that they are male, two boxers were permitted to compete against women at the Paris Olympics this week, amid gas-lighting and misogyny on a massive scale.
Last week Reduxx reported on two boxers, Imane Khelif, a 25-year-old welterweight from Algeria, and Lin Yu-Ting, a 28-year-old featherweight from Taiwan, who are competitors in the women’s boxing at the Paris Olympic Games. Last year, both Khelif and Lin were disqualified from an international women’s boxing championship after undergoing sex tests which shows they are male.
The Women’s World Boxing Championships took place in India in March 2023. At the time of the event, the president of the International Boxing Association (IBA), Umar Kremlev, announced the disqualification of a number of competitors. He said that concerns had been raised over the sex of some participants and that after “A series of DNA tests” they were proved to be male. Two of the disqualified competitors were Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting.
Female boxer, Mexico’s Brianda Tamara, described encountering Khelfif in the ring. “When I fought with her [sic] I felt very out of my depth. Her [sic] blows hurt me a lot, I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely”.
Imane Khelif has competed in - and been extremely successful at - women’s boxing events, for several years, representing Algeria at the 2020 Olympics.
Prior to his disqualification for failing the ‘gender test’ last year, Lin Yu-Ting had previously won five gold medals in women’s boxing tournaments.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) chose to end sex-verification screening in 2000, despite the vast majority of female athletes being in favour of it. Now it seems that individual national boxing federations are responsible for setting and enforcing their own eligibility criteria. The IOC also refuses to recognise the IBA and the validity of the sex tests it has carried out.
Earlier in the week, the IBA issued a statement explaining that Khelif and Lin were found to be male after a ‘recognized’ test was carried out. The tests were performed at CAS (court of sports arbitration) accredited laboratories and both athletes chose not to appeal. The IBA says this was not just a test for high testosterone, meaning it must have been a genetic test. IBA Officials have separately added that both boxers have XY chromosomes.
The IBA stated, “We absolutely do not understand why any organisation would put a boxer at risk with what could bring a potential serious injury within the ‘Field of Play’ (FOP). The main role of the referee in the ring is to manage the boxer’s safety at all times. How is this reasonably practicable when a boxer fails to meet the eligibility criteria to compete?”
Later in the week, István Kovács, the European Vice President of the World Boxing Organization and former Secretary General of the International Boxing Association, spoke out about Imane Khelif. In a statement to the Hungarian press, he confirmed that Khelif is ‘biologically male’ and said that he had warned the IOC about males participating in women’s boxing events two years ago, but that nothing was done.
The Telegraph reported that the IOC were informed that Khelif has ‘the DNA of a male’ well over a year ago.
It seems likely that both Khelif and Lin were born with a DSD (difference of sex development) which may have lead to them being mistaken for females when babies. However, as detailed in a Quillette article by Professor Doriane Lambelet Coleman, they will have experienced a normal male puberty and will, therefore, now enjoy all the usual physical and physiological advantages which men have over women.
Nevertheless, the IOC were adamant that Khelif and Lin should be permitted to compete in the women’s category. It issued a statement referring to them as ‘female athletes’ and insisting that “As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport”. The IOC’s spokesman, Mark Adams, continued to peddle the ‘but their passports’ line in a series of press conferences.
Olympic President, Thomas Bach, also held a press conference in an attempt to defend the IOC’s position. He described those pointing out that Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting are male as being guilty of ‘hate speech’. He also told reporters that this is ‘not a DSD case’. Within seconds of the press conference concluding, the IOC rushed to clarify Bach’s statement. It had to issue a correction on X (formerly Twitter). You will notice that the IOC chose to hide numerous replies to this post.
Does this clarification not suggest that the IOC is fully aware the boxers in question are males with a DSD?
With a blatant disregard for the safety of its female competitors, the IOC allowed the scheduled bouts with Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting to go ahead.
The first fight involved Khelif fighting Italian boxer, 25-year-old Angela Carini. Just 46 seconds into the first round, Carini was forced to concede. Khelif had landed blows so hard that they dislodged Carini’s helmet and left her with a bloodied nose. Fearing for her own safety, she conceded the fight, immediately sinking to her knees in tears.
Carini said that she stopped the fight in fear for her own life. In an interview after the bout, she said “I have never felt a punch like this. After the second blow to the nose, I couldn’t breathe anymore”.
Reem Alsalem, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said of the fight, “Angela Carini rightly followed her instincts and prioritised her physical safety, but she and other female athletes should not have been exposed to this physical and psychological violence based on their sex.”
Of course, the day after being forced to face a man in the boxing ring, Angela Carini was strong-armed into apologising for her post-match comments. It’s not bad enough that women are placed in such a position - compromising the fairness of their sport and jeopardising their own safety - but they are also vilified for objecting to it.
The IOC then set about expunging all footage of the 46 second bout from social media.
The travesty continued with another match in which Lin Yu-Ting beat Uzbekistan’s 22-year-old Sitora Turdibekova - a unanimous decision after three rounds.
Lin was described as has having an obvious height advantage over his opponent and of landing ‘a series of explosive punches’ with his ‘superior reach’. Sitora Turdibekova appeared visibly upset after the match.
In the quarter finals, Imane Khelif defeated Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori by a unanimous 5-0 meaning that he will, at the very least, steal the Olympic bronze medal. He fights Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng in the semi-final.
In his quarter-final fight on Sunday, Lin Yu-Ting beat Bulgaria’s Svetlana Staneva, winning the bout with a unanimous decision from all five judges. He will now fight Esra Yildiz from Turkey in the semi-finals but, again, is guaranteed at least a bronze.
After the match, a defiant Svetlana pointed to her own chest before twice making an 'X' with her fingers, presumably to represent her female XX chromosomes.
Of course, the usual gender zealots were out in force to express their solidarity with these two male boxers, not the women whose safety they jeopardise and whose sporting glories they are stealing. They either ignored all of the available evidence that Khelif and Lin are men or they are breath-takingly ill-informed.
Just when you though he couldn’t sink any lower, Billy Bragg even tried to hijack the heart-breaking and senseless murders of three little girls in Southport last week to support men hitting women in an Olympic boxing ring.
The Times pointed out that a quick cheek swab could clear up all of the speculation and discussion over Khelif and Lin’s sex and protect female boxers. And yet the IOC refuse this simple solution. Holding a press conference this week, IOC spokesman, Mark Adams, spoke sneeringly of not wanting to “Go back to the bad old days of sex testing.”
But when there is even the merest doubt over the sex of a competitor who is about to get into a boxing ring with a woman, shouldn’t our priority be to clear up that doubt, thus ensuring the safety of their opponent? A simple cheek swab is far less invasive and time-consuming than the anti-doping tests to which all athletes are subject.
As Janice Turner writes, “What we see in Paris women’s boxing is the IOC’s ludicrous, dangerous, misogynistic principles given full rein… It discriminates against female athletes by denying their biology where once it used it against them, banning women from the ski jump until 2014 because it might damage their wombs. And it abolished a simple test that would have stopped Paris being remembered for televising male violence. Bring back the cheek swab: for female boxers the bad old days are now.”
See you next week.
Time for female athletes and sportswomen to go all out and call out their governments on not enforcing CEDAW and the UN Convention on Human Rights which they have all signed up to. Both conventions are clear that with rights come responsibility and with responsibility, consequences. If they do not uphold the conventions, they are all as bad as the countries they criticise. And they should be outed as such. There must be lawyers in Canada, the UK and the USA who know the conventions and can take action in behalf of these women and girls.
Thanks JL, i can’t believe the BMA. I’ve been listening to the witch trails of jkr and yesterday it was the episode with Noah who is a 17 yr old trans man, who’s had surgery. Noah sounds so lovely and the interview is sensitive and respectful. Noah sounds so mature and i found myself thinking he must be in his late 20’s or 30’s recalling his experiences, he talks at length about how he relied on the guidance he received from medical professionals he respected.
But Noah is only just 17. And had surgery at 16 and a bit. So all he is recalling about a traumatic puberty and the suicidal thoughts, self harm happened over just a few years and now he has a body that has been irreversibly harmed. Its really sad and now we have the BMA turning its back on the cass review and a government that will be quick to endorse their views. And children are again in the firing line. Makes me want to leave