Latest news with #gender
Daily Mail
15 minutes ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Pauline Hanson exposes the disturbing question her grandson asked after coming home from school
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has accused Australian schools of 'feeding innocent kids lies' about gender and has blamed the lessons for confusing her grandson. 'Innocent kids are being fed lies in classrooms, lies about their bodies, their identity, and their families,' Ms Hanson said. 'Children as young as four are being told they can choose whether they're a boy or a girl. That biology doesn't matter. That parents are wrong, and feelings are truth,' she said. Ms Hanson said her seven-year-old grandson had been left unsettled by lessons. 'My seven-year-old grandson recently came home from school and asked his mother, "Where's your penis?" - "What do you mean?" she asked, reminding him that she is female and females do not have a penis. 'My grandson then asked his mother where his vagina was. Troubled, my daughter asked him where these questions were coming from and why. "From school," he said. 'He said, "School told me that you can choose if you want to be a boy or a girl," and then added that he wanted to know when he gets to choose. 'Let's think about that for a second. He wanted to know when he gets to choose. All his life up to the age of seven years, he's been told he's a boy. 'He was reared as a boy, he looks like his father and his brother, he knows he's not like his mother, and now he gets to choose. 'Now he knows he's a boy - his parents told him that - because biological sex can't change because of words or an operation. I wonder if the school is also teaching him, if he then says he has a vagina, how he has a baby.' She argued that 'this isn't education' but 'ideological indoctrination, smuggled into schools under 'inclusion' programs and hidden from parents.' 'I want to give some examples to parents of what is being taught to their children. She claimed schools were teaching that a person's gender couldn't be determined by their genitals, that someone could be born male but feel like a girl inside, and that the sex assigned at birth could change. 'These are just a few examples of the perverse rubbish our children and grandchildren as young as four are being taught at schools in Australia. 'Schools and departments call it "sexual education". It is part of the Australian national curriculum, promoting diversity and inclusion. The Victorian curriculum teaches that gender is shaped by social and cultural factors, a concept included in the Health and Physical Education curriculum under Relationships and Sexuality. Tasmania's Growing Up Program covers identity, respectful language, growth and change, wellbeing, and respectful relationships - helping children understand themselves, respect diversity, and develop healthy relationship skills. In NSW, the Safe Schools program was ended in 2017 after opponents criticised it for teaching that gender and sexuality are fluid, that heterosexuality is not the norm, and that sex is arbitrarily assigned by a doctor at birth. 'It is all the same: transgender ideology which is pressuring our children and causing great distress and long-term harm,' Ms Hanson said. 'In many cases, no prior consent or permission is obtained from parents to teach this curriculum, and in some cases parents are denied access to or visibility of the content when requested. 'Let's be honest: the goal is to separate children from their families, from biological truth, and from anything solid enough to push back. If they can confuse them young, they can control them for life.' The outspoken senator also lashed out at the Liberal Party, accusing it of inaction. 'And where is the so-called opposition? The Liberals know it's happening. They've seen the curriculum. They've seen the consequences. But they're too weak, too captured, and too gutless to act,' she said. Ms Hanson insisted One Nation was the only party 'willing to stand up and say enough.' 'We've been raising the alarm for years, and we will not stop. Because you can't fix this by hoping. You fix it by fighting. And One Nation is the only party fighting to protect your kids from this madness. 'Our schools are being perverted into turning our kids into fodder for gender clinics where they are drugged and butchered.' She said many families no longer trust the education system and are choosing homeschooling as their only option. In Queensland, the number of homeschooled children increased by 229 per cent between 2009 and 2014, Ms Hanson claimed.
Reuters
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Fact Check: French court ruled on defamation case appeals, not Brigitte Macron's gender
A court in France ruled in early July on a defamation case involving Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, not on her gender, contrary to online claims. Social media posts, reacting to the Paris Court of Appeal decision, said it was confirmation that Brigitte Macron was a transgender woman born a man. 'Brigitte Macron is not a woman,' said one July 13 Facebook post, opens new tab. 'What once sounded like a conspiracy theory now stands confirmed in a court ruling.' However, a copy of the July 10 ruling seen by Reuters shows the Paris Court of Appeal acquitted two women of defaming Brigitte Macron. The court did not rule on the truth of the claims about her gender. Delphine Jegousse and Nathalie Rey had claimed, in a video published in December 2021, that Brigitte Macron was a transgender woman born a man, originally called Jean-Michel Trogneux. That is also the name of her real brother, who was a co-plaintiff in the case. A criminal complaint was filed, and in September 2024 the Paris Judicial Court found both women guilty of defamation., opens new tab They were fined and ordered to pay 8,000 euros ($9,150) to Brigitte Macron and 5,000 euros to her brother. The Paris Court of Appeal in July 2025 said the allegations about gender and transition were made 'in good faith' and therefore did not constitute defamation given the importance of freedom of expression in a democratic society, court documents show. The court overturned the women's convictions and acquitted them of all charges. All credible media, opens new tab reports, opens new tab say the Paris Court of Appeal acquitted the women of defamation and did not rule on Brigitte Macron's gender. An attorney representing Brigitte Macron and her brother did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jean-Michel Trogneux is appealing the latest ruling to a higher French court, his attorney told AFP, opens new tab on July 13. On July 23, Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron filed a defamation lawsuit in the U.S. against right-wing influencer Candace Owens, centred on her assertions that Brigitte Macron is a man. In her podcast that day, Owens said, "This lawsuit is littered with factual inaccuracies" and part of an "obvious and desperate public relations strategy" to smear her character. Reuters has previously addressed baseless claims about Brigitte Macron's gender. In August 2024, a fact-check showed that an altered picture of a young Russian male model had been shared online with the false suggestion that it was Brigitte Macron as a young man. False. The Paris Court of Appeal ruled on a defamation case involving Brigitte Macron, not on her gender. This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work. ($1 = 0.8744 euros)
Reuters
4 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Climate, gender in focus for World Bank in aid-reliant Pacific Islands
SYDNEY, July 28 (Reuters) - The World Bank has maintained its focus on climate change and gender in the Pacific, managing director of operations Anna Bjerde said on a visit to Australia, even as its largest shareholder the United States reduces aid in those areas. After meeting Pacific Islands economic ministers in Fiji, Bjerde said countries in the region continued to worry about being exposed to the accelerating effects of climate change, and had grave concerns about food security and rising debt levels. Six Pacific Island countries are at high risk of debt distress, the bank says. The World Bank is moving a regional vice president from Washington to Singapore, and will move directors from Australia to Fiji and Papua New Guinea to be closer to a $3.4 billion Pacific aid programme that has grown seven-fold in 10 years, she said in an interview on Monday. "We are committed to designing projects that really take into account the vulnerabilities of countries we work in. In this part of the world, countries are vulnerable to the impact of climate change," she said. "We haven't really changed our language around that," she added. Pacific road projects designed to be flood resilient provide better infrastructure that can withstand the changing climate and also be counted in climate finance programmes, Bjerde said. The World Bank was focussed on boosting women's workforce participation to help lift the region's economic growth, she said, after meeting women leaders in Fiji who highlighted the need for childcare so women can work. On Monday, Bjerde also met officials from the Australian government, the largest bilateral donor to the region. Under reforms introduced last year by its president Ajay Banga, the World Bank has started to roll out region-wide programmes to have a bigger impact among Pacific countries with small populations. Eight countries have joined an arrangement that stops small island states being cut off from the international financial system, while a health programme targeting non-communicable disease will potentially reach 2 million people across the Pacific Ocean and train 16,000 health workers. A trade programme is also being designed to give access to goods faster and more cheaply, she said.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
My chilling decade on the front line of university culture wars
The first point at which it became crystal clear that the times were changing was when we marked the 40th anniversary of the admission of women to Selwyn College, Cambridge in 2016. I was three years into my 12-year stint as master of the college, which ends this autumn. My vice-master, Janet O'Sullivan, told students that we were inviting the women of the college to a group photograph at 2pm and then, because we were celebrating co-education, men were welcome to join us for refreshments afterwards. She received an immediate reprimand from a young man: what about people who were non-binary or those who identified as a different gender? At this point, I was not even sure what non-binary meant – and it had never been a topic at any college meeting. Only three years later, though, a revolution had taken place. A new gender orthodoxy, based on self-identification rather than biological sex, was firmly established in universities and swathes of the public sector. It was common for students across the University of Cambridge to attend lectures with slogans adorning their laptop computers, proclaiming 'trans women are real women.' A female professor recalls: 'I remember thinking when I saw a man brandishing that statement – imagine if I'd displayed a sticker saying the opposite. Would I lose my job? I felt uncomfortable about a man telling me what a woman is, even though as a mother I assumed I might know.' A distinguished female scientist told me that the worst revelation for her was the need for self-censorship: 'The scientific evidence is that biological sex is immutable, and that is scientific orthodoxy, but there was a time when I just didn't feel that I could say that.' Required beliefs These examples represent a phenomenon across all universities – and across sections of society in Britain and around the world – that spread into multiple issues of identity politics and reached its peak in the early 2020s. Cambridge's experience was less dramatic than at some other universities, such as Sussex, where Prof Kathleen Stock faced threats of violence for her views and felt forced to leave her job. Michelle Donelan, the universities minister at the time, condemned what she called 'the toxic environment at the University of Sussex', while an academic at Oxford had to attend lectures with security protection to ensure her physical safety. An industrial tribunal found that an Open University academic had been discriminated against and harassed by colleagues and management, and constructively dismissed, because of her gender-critical opinions. America went through an even more vivid and painful experience on multiple aspects of gender and racial politics, with a further and more recent escalation over the Middle East. Trans rights were only one element of what seemed to become a list of required beliefs for academics. In 2022, I took part in a webinar on these issues with Arif Ahmed, the Cambridge-based free speech campaigner who is now leading on these matters for the Office for Students. During the discussion, he highlighted some areas where he believed public debate in universities had become difficult, if not impossible. These included questioning the political aims of Black Lives Matter or the so-called decolonisation of the syllabus, criticism of either Israeli settlements or the use of force against Palestinians, and admitting support for Brexit. This week I asked a number of academics in Cambridge and beyond how they felt during that period. The words some of them used include 'afraid', 'frightened' and 'isolated', while one spoke of a 'chilling' atmosphere. A student I know felt hostility from an influential senior figure at the university because he had spoken publicly in favour of Brexit. This mattered because the leader was someone who would have determined his academic future and its funding. Jane Clarke, a recent president of Wolfson College, recalls finding herself 'in a poisonous space', caught between gender-critical feminists and trans activists who fought their wars locally on social media and then in the national press. The challenge to freedom of speech at the university became apparent when students began claiming that 'words are violence', as if disagreement were the equivalent of a physical attack. Succumbing to pressure This was compounded by universities seeking to overhaul their complaints procedures in response to pressure from activists who felt they were too weak. Under a previous management team, Cambridge even suggested that the correct response to a microaggression – a generally unintended verbal infelicity – was to dial 999 and ask for the police. The advice was rapidly rescinded, but I came across multiple academics who felt vulnerable to a career-threatening disciplinary process if they got a few words out of place. They were also worried about ostracism if they expressed the 'wrong' views. There was an attempt by the central administration, which was defeated, to allow students – and indeed any member of the public – to make anonymous complaints online about named academics, without any ability to check the validity of the allegations. Critical race theory spread across universities – even though, as a colleague from a more traditional Left-wing background said to me, 'it is a theory and not a law.' No university committee was complete without someone advocating that we should bear in mind 'intersectionality' – a spin-off from critical race theory – even though its meaning would have been mysterious to most of the outside world. A senior figure in another college says: 'Academics are afraid to offend students, but they are more afraid to offend each other.' Some of the great figures in the university got caught up in the crossfire of the global culture wars. Prof Mary Beard told me at a public event earlier this year about her social media experiences: 'I did take some nasty hits. Interestingly, a lot of those came from the political left rather than the right. And that was especially hurtful because I felt, 'Hang on, I'm on your side!' Sometimes, all it took was saying something mildly off-message, and suddenly I was being treated like a traitor […] But the idea that we all have to sign up to one monolithic cultural viewpoint is stifling.' And yet, there was always a sense that the bulk of university opinion remained in a rational place, albeit one that required the wearing of a metal helmet. I certainly found that at Selwyn. My views on freedom of speech were well known, and they were never challenged by colleagues on the governing body, and I could not have asked for stronger support from the key college officers. Most students remained phlegmatic too, and we continued to develop talented and engaging young people. The university still produced astonishing, groundbreaking research. But many of us were wary in university meetings about what we said and to whom. Somehow, we allowed the views of activists on a variety of topics to get a grip across the university, and that was probably in part because of their vehemence. Both sides in the culture wars were responsible for this. There was a zest among some on the right for hurtful attacks on trans people and other minority groups; and one head of a college observes that 'both sides of the trans debate (and Israel-Palestine) are far too easily riled up by social media forces.' But the response – insisting on ideological conformity – had a polarising effect. This was because many felt shoehorned into a position of either being pro-minority or pro-free speech. It seemed impossible to be both because any questioning of trans rights in particular was automatically seen as transphobic, and it was a policy – endorsed by the lobby group Stonewall – not to be willing to debate those rights. Silent majority One of my failures was that I never managed to host an event in which these issues could be discussed rationally, because no trans activist would appear on a platform with anyone they deemed to be a gender-critical feminist. Instead, what the university witnessed was stormy meetings where – on the rare occasions they were invited – feminists faced demands that their appearances be cancelled or protesters tried to drown out their voices with cacophonous dissent. But it's not just a supposition that the protesters were in a minority. A Cambridge vote on free speech among academics and senior staff in 2020 resulted in a thumping majority – 86.9 per cent in favour – for advocates of the position that we should 'tolerate' views we disagreed with rather than, as the university preferred, 'respect' them. But Prof Ahmed, who led the campaign for freedom of speech, noted that this was in a secret ballot. He had much more difficulty getting colleagues to put their heads above the parapet to get the referendum launched in the first place. And it was understandable that the silent majority kept their heads down. A recent alumnus told me: 'I've come to realise that the university monoculture was really much worse than I appreciated at the time, as most views that would draw opprobrium would be considered quite middle of the road when venturing outside the academic bubble. This results in a narrow band of acceptable views that are extremely out of kilter with the wider country. This narrow band is fast-changing, which serves as another way of enforcing conformity, with new language and terminology to learn, and unspoken rules to memorise.' Another former student of mine, Christopher Wadibia, is an American who describes himself as 'a compassionate conservative'. But when he moved into an early career academic post in Oxford, he felt he had to keep his views to himself for a while. 'When I started at Oxford I made a decision not to express ideas that I knew would be interpreted as conservative because I thought there was a risk that I would be excluded from some teaching, research and public speaking opportunities.' Soon, however, he settled in and felt better able to say what he thought – and, as proof of his increased confidence, he took to a public platform with me in Cambridge last November to explain why he had voted for Donald Trump in the presidential election. It's a fair bet that almost nobody in the room would have followed suit. Recent improvement All the same, this points to a cheering truth. Times are changing again, and the picture is becoming healthier, as illustrated by last week's election of Chris Smith as chancellor of Cambridge, after he stood on a platform of promoting and safeguarding free speech. Some of this, again, is about society. Our undergraduates gave their pronouns when they introduced themselves at student leaders' dinners in the early 2020s, but for the past couple of years they haven't. At Wolfson College, Cambridge, Jane Clarke was pleased that her students, ground down by the internal strife, set up a 'Discourse Society' to learn how to share their views peaceably – with lasting consequences. She reports: 'We became a college able to hold a series of discussion events which other colleges would not or could not host.' Recently, I found that it was uncontentious to say two things to incoming students. First, that we were in favour of equality and diversity – which is both the law, the university policy and (as it happens) my own belief too. But we are also in favour of diverse opinions and free speech, and we would not be doing our job properly if they were not exposed to challenging and even at times upsetting views. Saying we stand firmly for free speech is also a line that brings applause from alumni at reunions. In the past year of our public events for students at Selwyn, we have, without incident, featured a robust exposition against anti-Semitism; an exchange about allegations of genocide in Palestine; a personal account of a pilgrimage to Mecca; and a wide-ranging analysis of geopolitical hotspots around the globe. More academics have spoken out – one of them being Prof Stephen O'Rahilly: 'For me it was the need to be able to discuss the issue of biological sex and its importance for how we structure medicine, law and society that made me feel I could no longer be simply an observer. 'I am pleased to say that I received no pushback from the university about any public statements I made.' At a national level, protecting the right to free speech in universities was the subject of legislation by the Conservative administration – and, after some hesitation, it has been substantially endorsed by the Labour government and will come into effect on Friday Aug 1. Every university and college in the land will be required to publish a code of practice as part of a duty to promote freedom of speech in higher education. And, crucially, many universities had already got the message. New vice-chancellors at Oxford and Cambridge decided that it wasn't enough to speak the rhetoric of free speech – they needed to show it in their actions. The Cambridge vice-chancellor, Deborah Prentice, who regards free speech as 'the first principle of any academic institution', launched a series of vice-chancellor's dialogues on some of the knottier issues of the day, with the express aim of exposing students to a wide range of opinions and learning how to disagree well; and similar initiatives have taken place across the sector. We had a meeting at Selwyn with academics from Yale to share experiences and coordinate the fightback. Prentice, who was born in California and was previously provost at Princeton University, says: 'Practising free speech is a challenge, and not just here in the UK. Having come from the United States, I am concerned that on both sides of the Atlantic free speech is being dampened by spirals of silence – a hesitancy to voice an opinion if we think it might cause offence. Free speech needs constant nurturing and reinforcement. It is a principle that we must uphold.' A long way to go There has been an easing of some of the tensions. The pro-Palestinian encampments on campuses, which provoked bitter conflicts especially in the United States, have been better managed in Britain, including in Cambridge, through a tolerance of peaceful protest tempered by the use of injunctions when they became unreasonably disruptive. The truth is that some students are passionately engaged with the conflict in the Middle East, but many aren't. 'Students are obsessed with the personal politics, not the big issues facing the world,' claims one senior figure. This disengagement by many, perhaps out of a feeling of impotence, is a sharp contrast to my own student days in the 1970s. It may be the reason why today's activists are losing their grip. But a colleague has a wider criticism about the culture across British academia: 'The exciting ideas in our country are not in universities. Universities are dominated by liberals, and it has been the Right in wider political discourse which has come up with the new ideas. The problem is that those ideas are not very good, and they lack intellectual coherence. But the clever people in the universities are not in the debate.' O'Rahilly agrees that 'we still have a way to go' to restore health to the dialogue in universities. He and I were at a dinner a few weeks ago which showed the opportunity but also the remaining challenge. For a couple of hours, Cambridge academics and administrators discussed the recent Supreme Court ruling on biological sex. The people around the table were from a wide range of backgrounds and views, and it was – as Stephen says – a 'polite but vigorous' debate. Exactly what you'd hope for in a university. But at the end of the dinner, one of the participants said, wistfully, that it was a discussion that couldn't be held in their college. Why not? 'Because it would tear the place apart.' But experience shows that not having the discussion is by far the worst option. Views get better if they are tested; and communities, especially universities, are stronger if they are open and free in their thinking. Rights, as we saw with gay marriage, are more powerful if there is public consent. As I prepare to step down from my role in September, the biggest lesson from more than a decade in Cambridge is about the peril of trying to impose conformity on a university whose driving force should be academic freedom. Britain needs universities to guarantee our future, and they cannot do that if they shackle themselves to the campaigns of the moment.
New York Times
5 days ago
- General
- New York Times
Why Are Young Men Still Struggling?
To the Editor: 'What's the Matter With Men?,' by David French (Opinion newsletter, July 10), which recounts his conversation with the clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, calls attention to the fact that males are doing poorly relative to females in many ways — academically, physically, psychologically and socially. Both ideological and technological causes for this lagging among boys are considered. While I think these factors are important, the larger problem is that while females have dramatically changed their position in society for the better, males have stagnated in an outmoded set of masculine norms. Mr. French seems to assume that masculinity is a given. Yet as a research psychologist focused on masculinity, I believe that masculinity is best thought of as a set of social norms, embedded in culture and a historical era. The current definition of masculinity is predicated on avoidance of stereotypical female characteristics, such as emotional self-awareness and expression, compassion and empathy — the very traits that account for a successful life. Ronald F. LevantCopley, OhioThe writer is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Akron. To the Editor: David French and I both remember a time when men were openly assumed to be superior to women. The changes for the good that we have seen in our lifetimes in opportunities for women clearly mirror those of other repressed groups, but often progress comes with real growing pains. Today too many look at the difficulties faced by young boys and long to return to a time when white men relied on the ignorant security of superiority. To some, those simple answers remain seductive, but they come at a cost to girls, women and any group that has suffered the weight of oppression. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
