Australian Politics
Thursday, April 11, 2024
"Married at First Sight" TV show is a cry for help about the state of gender relations in Australia
Rubbish! The participants are picked for drama potential, not representativeness
Each relationship was not so much the beginning of two people’s happily ever after as it was project management for the brides of their of grooms.
Take Cass – an admin officer from Queensland – who was bubbly, outgoing and optimistic while also mourning the death of her first boyfriend and mother. She was matched with Tristan – a 30-year-old events officer from NSW – who at one stage told the experts and his co-stars that he “hates himself” as he has always struggled with his weight and finding connections with women.
Sneaky editing and the splicing and dicing of footage amplified everything, but it was difficult to watch how both individuals grappled with these issues, and each other, while trying to build a romantic connection. Tristan then threw a tantrum when Cass asked to leave.
Another star, Lucinda – a compassionate wedding celebrant from Byron Bay – was matched with Tim, a convicted drug smuggler, who wouldn’t touch or open up to her until midway through the season. He proudly proclaimed he was “like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz” and didn’t like to talk about feelings (or his criminal past) until the final credits rolled.
Lucinda cracked.
“Am I signing up for minimum affection? Am I signing up for someone who can’t share their emotions?”
The silver lining was witnessing both Tristan and Tim acknowledge their troubles. But the excessive emotional labour required by their partners should be something the Fair Work Commission should look into.
The highlights of the season was not the salacious scenes and sound bites, it was the way it held up a mirror to how far we have to go when it comes to breaking down the barriers men face.
There are still oceans of difference between how men and women interact and seek help.
Women are talkers. Men – if this MAFS sample size is anything to go by – are unable to shake off conditioning to not seek external help from friends and professionals when it comes to “hidden” issues like emotional pain and mental turmoil.
MAFS cops a lot of criticism. Rightly so. It’s got about as much depth as a paddling pool. Yet if it continues to help shine a light on how we can help bridge the gender divide to stop women being the carers and men being closed off, sign me up for another serving of this televisual junk food.
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Calls for Australian review of gender services as rigour questioned
A senior Australian psychiatrist has called for a complete overhaul of gender services is to prevent Australia from replicating the UK systems, which were found to have “let down” young people questioning their identities.
Dr Andrew Amos, who is the Queensland chair of Rural Psychiatry a the RANZ College of Psychiatrists, believes the treatment of people under 18 who are reporting gender dysmorphia is not being put under the same scrutiny as other medical practices, putting them at risk of overtreatment and detrimental, long-lasting health outcomes.
“There is no question that in order to have high quality medical services, you need to be doing adequate oversight,” Dr Amos told The Australian.
“We call it clinical evidence and the first step is to record what you’re doing, report what you’re doing, and then review what the results have been. None of that’s happening with gender services in Australia.
“A lot of patients are going to be harmed.
“If the federal government doesn’t implement a review similar to a case review, we’ll continue on this path … it’s absolutely needed.”
The findings of the UK’s four-year-long Cass review into gender services found the entire field of medicine aimed at enabling children to change gender was “built on shaky foundations”.
The number of children under 18, particularly young girls, reporting gender dysmorphia in Australia is rising exponentially, says Dr Amos. A similar spike in the number of children being referred to England’s National Health Service for gender treatments sparked the controversial review in 2020.
In response to the interim findings of pediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, which offered an extensive examination of the care being provided to children at London’s Tavistock clinic, the associated Gender Identity and Development Service (Gids) was closed in March after being deemed “inadequate” by inspectors.
British health authorities last month announced a ban on the routine prescription of puberty blockers to young teens – a treatment that “pauses” development prior to cross-sex hormones to transition sex.
Monash University Associate Professor Gemma Sharp, who leads the Body Image and Eating Disorders Research in the Department of Neuroscience at Monash University, endorsed the use of puberty blockers for children on a case-by-case basis, but acknowledged the need for greater rigour to ensure children were achieving appropriate levels of care.
“Obviously, we shouldn’t be handing out puberty blockers without absolutely comprehensive assessments,” she said
“But honestly, if we didn’t have gender affirming care, I think we’d lose a lot of people to suicide.”
In response to the UK review, Queensland Health Minister Shannon Fentiman has stood by the state’s Gender Services, which she said “continually reviews” care models based-off the best available evidence.
“All trans young people deserve access to high quality and timely healthcare, and that is something we are committed to continue providing,” Ms Fentiman.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park acknowledging that gender treatment is a “complex and evolving practice area.” Meanwhile, Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital stood by its “multi-disciplinary model of care with a strong emphasis on supporting mental health and wellbeing.”
Dr Amos said activist doctors have hijacked the treatment of children – a sentiment echoed in the Cass Review – and that young people who choose to de-transition and revert to their birth gender being dropped from services.
“It’s really the responsibility of the medical profession to protect all of our patients and by allowing this small group of clinician activists, to go beyond the evidence, we’ve allowed their patients to be put at enormous risk,” he said
“People get trapped into what I’ve called “a transgender treadmill”, where basically, they are rewarded for continuing to report these experiences, and they are punished for stopping.
“I think this is going to be a blot on the reputation of the medical profession because I think we’ve really sort of dropped the ball on this.”
Assoc. Professor Sharp said doctors who are working in gender services nationally have patients top of mind and are offering the best services possible with current academic knowledge.
“I know that the people who work in those services have nothing but goodwill and they are doing their best with the evidence they have,” she said.
“They really want to help these young people.”
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No transition from gender reality, app boss Sall Grover tells court
The founder of a women's-only social media app says she does not accept that a person who transitions from male to female surgically, socially and legally is a woman, and removed her from the app as she does with “all males”.
The view, held by Giggle for Girls app founder and CEO Sall Grover was described in court on Wednesday by Roxanne Tickle’s legal team as being at the “heart” of the discrimination case.
Ms Tickle, who underwent gender-affirming surgery in 2019 and is now designated as female on her birth certificate, argues she was discriminated against on the grounds of gender identity by Giggle for Girls and Ms Grover when she was denied access to the app. Ms Tickle claims she was initially accepted into the app in February 2021 when she submitted a “selfie” through Giggle’s third-party artificial intelligence tool but was later blocked by Ms Grover.
Barrister Bridie Nolan, for Ms Grover, says the app was designed “for the purpose of achieving equality between men and women in public life by providing an online refuge”, and so does not amount to discrimination as it is a “special measure”.
But Georgina Costello KC, acting for Ms Tickle, said: “The critical issue in this case, your honour, is that the first and second respondents, Ms Grover and the company Giggle for Girls, have persisted in misgendering the applicant for years. That’s the heart of this case – that there’s been a discrimination on the basis of gender in excluding her from the app and persisting in misgendering her subsequently.”
It is the first time a case alleging gender identity discrimination has been heard by the Federal Court following changes to the Sex Discrimination Act in 2013, which made it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.
Ms Costello asked Ms Grover in cross-examination whether “even where a person who was assigned male gender at birth has transitioned to being a woman” by having gender-affirming surgery, taking hormones to make them grow breasts, removing their facial hair, wearing female clothing and using female changing rooms, “you don’t accept that that person is a woman, do you?”
“No,” Ms Grover replied.
Ms Costello continued: “I suggest to you that in Australian society, the natural meaning of, the ordinary, contemporary meaning of woman, includes women whose gender is dated to be a woman on their birth certificate, having transitioned from man to woman?”
“I don’t agree,” Ms Grover replied.
Ms Costello also questioned Ms Grover about the alleged hurt caused to Ms Tickle through interviews and tweets referring to her as a man.
The court heard Ms Tickle said in an affidavit Ms Grover’s public statements about the case had been “distressing, demoralising, draining and hurtful” and claimed the “scale of online hate” towards her, as a result, was “enormous”.
Ms Grover agreed she would have done about 20 to 50 interviews about the case, most recently travelling to the UK for press, and that she frequently described Ms Tickle as a man, and as a “man wanting access to female spaces”.
Ms Grover also said she had told interviewers she was “harassed by the applicant” and “afraid of the applicant”.
Ms Costello put to her that it was “not kind” to refer to Ms Tickle as a man. “I don’t think it’s kind to expect a woman to see a man as a woman,” Ms Grover responded.
In her opening address on Tuesday, Ms Nolan argued “sex” is a biological and binary concept, while Ms Tickle’s legal team argued it is partly psychological and social.
On Wednesday afternoon, barrister Zelie Heger, on behalf of the Sex Discrimination Commissioner submitted that “sex” for the purpose of the Sexual Discrimination Act is “changeable” and “non-binary” and as a result not “only” biological.
The Commissioner is assisting the Court by providing submissions about the meaning, scope and validity of relevant provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth).
Ms Heger also said a person can be of the “female sex” as per the Act “if they are registered as such” and “had gender affirming surgery”.
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How come it took so long to lock up this menace?
A magistrate has revoked the bail of a 16-year-old stabbing accused, saying tough sentencing is available and courts must consider where community safety ‘trumps’ keeping juveniles out of jail. And he has the Premier’s support.
Redcliffe magistrate Mark Bucknall had on Monday backed the state’s courts to tackle the mounting youth crime crisis as he revoked the teen’s bail, quoting legislation as he said it was up to the courts to decide whether a juvenile offender posed a risk to community safety and if a tough sentence should be imposed.
Mr Bucknall said courts were “armed with significant powers through section 48AAA of the Youth Justice Act” as he revoked bail of the teen boy for posing an unacceptable risk to the community.
Mr Bucknall had granted an application by The Courier-Mail to report on the case of the 16-year-old who allegedly stabbed another boy, 17, in the face, hand and neck at a Deception Bay McDonald’s on Saturday night.
It was revealed the accused had been in court three times this year, with Mr Bucknall deeming the child, who could not be identified, an unacceptable risk to the community.
The 16-year-old, who was already on bail at the time of the alleged offence, had been convicted of eight breach of bail offences and six finalised breaches of bail.
Senior police prosecutor Spicer referred to the teen’s action as a “massive escalation” in violence.
“His history simply speaks volumes,” she said.
“I don’t think there is any other submissions I can put on the record, other than the fact that the charge before the court today is of an extremely serious nature, it is a massive escalation in his offending.
“This is the third time that the accused has been subjected to revoke bail in 2024 alone.”
Included in the long list of offences related to the matter, the teen is accused of grievous bodily harm after the 17-year-old was left with several gashes following the McDonald’s incident.
The teen’s mother admitted that she had lost “all control” over her son in the lead-up to the alleged offence and also admitted that his father was no longer in the picture.
“There comes a point in time where the interests of the community and the safety of the community trumps the specific interests of the community in treating juveniles with care and avoiding their incarceration, particularly whilst awaiting sentence,” Mr Bucknall said.
The 16-year-old will remain behind bars until May 20, when he is next scheduled to appear before court.
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http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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