Latest news with #transRights
Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Health
- Telegraph
NHS trains midwives in trans breastfeeding workshops
NHS midwives have been trained by a trans workshop that promotes male breastfeeding, The Telegraph can reveal. The Queer Birth Club runs 'LGBTQ+' competency and lactation classes, using the tag line 'birthing people ain't all women'. The group has provided training sessions for NHS England and a number of trusts across the UK, and its founder has given talks at the Royal College of Midwives (RCM). One nurse who raised concerns about the training is now facing disciplinary action. The NHS worker told The Telegraph: 'The content of these sessions undermines established clinical standards and introduces extreme ideological beliefs that have no place in healthcare settings.' Campaigners last night called for the NHS to carry out an immediate review to ensure that 'training and care provision is urgently grounded in biological reality'. The Queer Birth Club has said that it has also provided training in universities and its courses are embedded in some midwifery and doula training programs. It promotes breastfeeding by trans women and claims that it is 'transmisogyny' to say that the milk produced by biological men is 'less'. This is despite concerns over the safety of the milk, which is produced after taking a series of medications to induce lactation. Domperidone, the drug commonly used to stimulate lactation, was not intended for this purpose, but is prescribed off-label by doctors. Janssen, which manufactures the drug, has recommended against it because of possible side effects to a baby's heart. Concerns have also been raised about the impact testosterone could have on babies who are being naturally breastfed by trans men. The Queer Birth Club say that their 'lactation competency' training, which they advertise with a cartoon of a person breastfeeding with the message 'trans joy' covers 'inducing lactation, feeding after top surgery, co-nursing'. Another of their posts on social media shows a drawing of a person with a beard and a pregnancy bump with the slogan: 'Boys have babies too.' The club has previously provided 'cultural awareness' training for midwives through NHS England and courses for a number of NHS trusts across the UK. It is listed as a recommended resource on several NHS websites. AJ Silver, the founder of The Queer Birth Club who identifies as non-binary, has also appeared as a speaker at conferences led by the Royal College of Midwives and says they have trained more than '600 birth professionals'. In a speaker profile for an event at the RCM in Wales, it says the organisation 'has worked with organisations such as NHS England, Birthrights, Make Birth Better, The Positive Birth Company, NCT as well as universities, collectives and health trusts across the UK and Ireland'. Those who have attended the courses are invited to join a 'closed' Facebook group of '500+ like-minded professionals' where they can 'build valuable networks and enhance their understanding of LGBTQ+ competency'. The nurse, who has faced investigation and disciplinary action after saying that the course did not align with her Christian views, questioned whether the content of the courses aligned with the recent Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman. She said: 'Student midwives are being taught and influenced to implement this ideology once they begin working on the NHS front line, which cannot be right, especially following the clarity of the Supreme Court ruling. 'I believe there are serious patient safety implications that warrant investigation. I am deeply concerned that this teaching on pregnancy attempts to downplay and discredit well-established clinical risks, potentially endangering the wellbeing of pregnant women, especially younger mothers. 'The activist network at the heart of this club must be open and transparent and no longer allowed to undermine the law, biological reality and basic standards in NHS services.' Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: 'The Supreme Court's ruling in the For Women Scotland case has made it clear that biological sex matters in law. 'These workshops risk undermining evidence-based maternity care and compromise the privacy, dignity and safety of both patients and staff. The NHS has a duty to uphold the law and to protect women, not to promote contested and harmful ideologies under the guise of inclusion. 'An immediate review of these programmes must be accelerated, and NHS leadership must ensure that all training and care provision is urgently grounded in biological reality and integrity.' An NHS spokesman said: 'NHS training should always be produced in line with the best clinical evidence.'
WIRED
a day ago
- Business
- WIRED
The Era of ‘Woke' Brand Activism Is Over
Jun 27, 2025 6:00 AM In the wake of Donald Trump's attacks on DEI and trans Americans, major corporations have pulled out of Pride and Juneteenth. Some are pushing ultra-nationalist messages instead. Parade participants march in the LA Pride Parade on Hollywood Blvd. on Sunday, June 8, 2025, in Los Angeles, CA. Photograph:In May 2019, Gillette released an ad on Facebook just in time for Pride month. It featured Samson Bonkeabantu Brown—a Black Toronto artist and trans man—learning how to shave for the first time. 'I went into my transition just wanting to be happy. I'm glad that I'm at the point where I'm able to shave,' Brown says in the video; later he's seen shaving as his dad smiles and encourages him from behind his shoulder. 'Don't be scared. Shaving is about being confident,' Brown's dad says, repeating, 'You are doing fine.' The ad went viral, receiving national news coverage, industry awards, and praise from LGBT advocates. The Ellen Show tweeted that it was 'nothing short of incredible.' Gillette was not alone in creating a buzzy ad about the LGBT community as a marketing strategy; in the past two decades, there's been a steady uptick in brands and corporations embracing Pride, a trend sometimes criticized as being superficial, or 'pinkwashing.' But, as someone who has worked in marketing for over a decade, if you felt like this Pride month was a lot quieter than years previous, you're not imagining it. Five months into Donald Trump's second presidential term, his executive orders against DEI and LGBT rights have influenced an increasing number of high profile corporate brands to abandon marketing and programming that could be considered too progressive, forcing Pride and Juneteenth celebrations around the country to scale back. At the same time, there's been an influx of brands doubling down on nationalist messages in advertising, at least some of which appear to be tied to Trump's tariffs and fixation on American-made goods. 'I've heard stories of clients wiping out … references to old work or old programs to try to erase that trail online because they're afraid of getting attacked,' says Mark, a creative director and former chief creative officer of a top New York ad agency who did not want his real name used due to potential industry backlash and repercussions. Where there used to be 'a lot of activity and a lot of discussion about social justice issues,' he adds, there's now a 'void of silence.' Welcome to the Trumpian era of anti-woke capitalism. Please check your pronouns at the door. Advertising is one of America's most popular and potent forms of cultural messaging, and signs of Trump's 'anti-woke' cultural crusade are all over our TVs, on our Instagram feeds, and in our communities. According to a poll from Gravity Research, 39 percent of corporations surveyed planned to reduce Pride Month initiatives in 2025, with none planning to increase their engagements. And World Pride, which was just held in Washington, DC, reportedly received only around 30 percent of its previously projected 3 million visitors. Mastercard, which famously launched a monthlong omnichannel Pride campaign called 'Your True Self Is Priceless' in 2022 and, only a few years before, that developed the widely lauded 'True Name' initiative that championed the identities of transgender Americans, has failed to debut any Pride messaging so far this year. Instead, it quietly withdrew as a top-level sponsor of this year's New York City Pride, along with PepsiCo, Nissan, Citi, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Target, after receiving conservative backlash for its collections of Pride merchandise in years prior, released a scaled-back, beige-heavy line this year, which has been mocked relentlessly on TikTok. 'Mastercard is a long-standing supporter of the many communities our employees are part of, including the LGBTQIA+ community,' said Will O'Connor, Mastercard's senior vice president of communications for North America, in a statement. 'This year, we continue that commitment by proudly participating in the NYC Pride March and related events with a strong employee-led presence and a community engagement program designed to uplift and celebrate our workforce.' In a statement to WIRED, a Citi spokesperson said, 'Our Citi Pride Inclusion Network is excited about sponsoring a range of Pride Month celebrations and participating in local marches around the globe, including in New York City where we will march in partnership with SAGE, one of our not-for-profit partner organizations.' Similarly, a Nissan spokesperson said the company remains 'committed to promoting an inclusive culture for employees, consumers, dealers and other key stakeholders.' PepsiCo and PricewaterhouseCoopers did not respond to WIRED's requests for comment. Granted, corporations' commitment to LGBT rights, even at the peak of their Pride participation, has long been criticized by some as hypocritical, particularly when it comes to police marching in uniform and companies that profit off war; anger over the corporatization of Pride has sparked protests in multiple North American cities over the years. With the shift away from social justice messaging, 'it becomes pretty obvious that a lot of these things that brands, agencies, companies do are performative,' Mark says. But it's not just Pride. For the first time since 2021, the Super Bowl, which Trump attended, did not stencil its 'End Racism' slogan onto the field in support of racial justice. Denver's Juneteenth Music Festival lost support from more than a dozen companies, causing the event to scale back from two days to one, an event organizer told the Associated Press. According to David Reibstein, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, many brands and advertisers appear to have capitulated to Trump's sweeping anti-woke mandates out of fear of being viewed as anti-American. 'We're seeing, more from Mr. Trump, if you're not on board with [him], then you're against America. I think that's part of what he's communicating as American values,' says Reibstein. Ever since Trump signed a series of executive orders in February calling for the elimination of DEI initiatives across both the federal government and private companies, corporate brands and advertisers have been faced with a tough ethical dilemma: Go MAGA or go moral and risk either conservative boycotts or political retribution. Mark says brands have grown increasingly terrified to stand behind their once-progressive messaging. 'I saw an immediate shift in clients who wanted to not publicize work that they had done for different communities who are underrepresented and … specifically about the trans and LGBTQIA+ community,' he tells WIRED. Some industry experts suggest the DEI panic from corporations predates Trump's second presidential win and began with the extreme right-wing backlash over Bud Light's 2023 partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. According to Matt Skallerud, president of LGBTQ+ marketing agency Pink Media, the Bud Light boycott—which reportedly cost the multinational beer company Anheuser-Busch an estimated $1.4 billion in organic revenue—signaled the beginning of the end of corporate DEI policies in the United States. He says business for firms like his has been much quieter the past two years. 'With this kind of war on DEI, it's now a ghost town,' he says. 'A lot of companies [since then] have just decided to wait this out and just see where it's all gonna go … but sadly, like, four years from now,' says Skallerud. Trump's expansive far-right agenda has also made an indelible impact on Hollywood. Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon, Paramount Global, and Disney have all reportedly walked back their DEI policies following pressure from the Federal Trade Commission, Variety reported. This comes as TV ad spots and social media campaigns are increasingly emulating Trump's vision of a conservative American cultural ideal. A few weeks ago, Stellantis (parent company of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram) launched its 'America Made Us' campaign in honor of America250, the nonpartisan year-long celebration leading up to next year's 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The spot features a gritty manifesto about the nature of the American spirit—one rooted in freedom, revolution, and football—and a call to action for consumers to 'remember everything this country still stands for.' Ford recently released its ultra nationalist 'For America, From America' campaign, touting its record on creating domestic jobs. Another Ford ad, called 'If They Were Like Us,' calls out other car companies with statements like, 'if they were like us, they would have said no to the taxpayer bailout and added thousands of American jobs'—seemingly a reference to the 2008 financial crisis. Similarly, the Secret Service debuted a first-of-its-kind promo video at the Super Bowl called 'A History of Protection' featuring footage of key milestones in American history which include JFK's inaugural's address, Ronald Reagan's 'Tear Down This Wall' speech, and the 2024 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Directed by Michael Bay, the spot concludes with a wide-angle shot of eight men walking dramatically toward the camera in front of Air Force One. The closing shot is notably absent of any female Secret Service agents, who along with DEI policies were blamed by many on the right for failing to adequately protect Trump from serious threats. As WIRED previously reported, the Department of Homeland Security has spent more than $500,000 on YouTube ads encouraging undocumented migrants to 'self-deport.' Meanwhile, Coca-Cola, a brand with a history of diverse TV ads celebrating political counterculture, recently awarded Trump with an inaugural Presidential Commemorative Diet Coke. Trump's anti-DEI mandates may have stymied corporate America's flimsy commitment to social justice, but his war against woke culture is particularly prominent on social media platforms. Mark Zuckerberg's and Elon Musk's highly publicized presence at Trump's presidential inauguration marked the first time social media companies like Meta and X pandered publicly to an incoming president. Musk reportedly spent a whopping $288 million to Trump's reelection campaign, while Zuckerberg donated $1 million to seemingly curry Trump's favor. Facebook has abandoned fact checkers because they're 'too politically biased,' Zuckerberg has said, while X has become a force-fed stream of alt-right content, hate speech, and Trump merchandise. Several major corporations, including Comcast, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Lionsgate Entertainment have resumed spending their ad dollars on X after leaving in 2023 due to antisemitic content on the platform, Adweek reported. But a number of big brands are publicly bucking Trump's fervent MAGA takeover of corporate America. Chief among them is Costco, perhaps the most famous example of a mega-retailer refusing to roll back its DEI initiatives, even in the face of massive political pressure. Earlier this month, Walmart heiress Christy Walton was lauded by progressives for taking out a full-page ad in The New York Times to promote the anti-Trump 'No King's Day' protests nationwide. Walmart had faced public and investor scrutiny for its flip-flopping position on DEI but recently announced its shareholders had voted down anti-DEI proposals with a 99 percent majority vote. Vermont-based Ben and Jerry's has famously called out corporate America for reneging on DEI, has protested the genocide in Gaza, and has spoken out about the climate crisis, joining other brands like ELF Cosmetics, Delta Airlines, Cisco, Levi's, Apple, Salesforce, JPMorgan, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs in defying Trump's sweeping anti-woke attacks. Reibstein says the onus is also on consumers to support brands 'willing to take a stand.' 'It makes it incumbent on customers to sort of follow not just their product needs, but also their political needs,' he says. 'For example, Costco [being] willing to take a stance, that has made me feel better.' A call-to-action he coauthored after the November election argues that advertising agencies and marketers can heal our fractured political landscape through unifying messages and 'constructive dialogue over inflammatory content.' If we don't, Reibstein tells WIRED, 'it's going to narrow our creativity and narrow our perspective because we can't look at things from various angles.' So far, it looks like Trump's anti-woke measures are limiting the industry from thinking expansively enough to subvert the right-wing new world order currently emerging. But the MAGA threat facing advertising isn't just aesthetic, or even creative—it's existential. Brands, whether we like them or not, help shape public consciousness by transmitting cultural attitudes and political tastes. Which is why brand CEOs, agency executives, and creative decision makers of all levels must start getting comfortable placing moral imperative over political deference; progressive ideals over short-term gain. Or the American imagination won't just turn MAGA. It will cease to exist at all.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Trans women barred from women's toilets in parliament, prompting claims of ‘knee-jerk response'
The Commons has updated its guidance for single-sex bathroom facilities for visitors. Under the new guidance, visitors to parliament are advised to use toilets corresponding to their biological sex or gender-neutral facilities, leading to accusations of a 'knee-jerk response' to a recent legal ruling. This policy change follows a complaint about a trans woman using women's facilities and a Supreme Court ruling on the interpretation of 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010. The updated guidance does not apply to parliamentary staff, who can continue to use facilities appropriate for their gender. Critics argue the new rule is a human rights violation, will cause distress for trans people, and underscores the need for clear, workable guidance from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
New York Times
19-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
What to Know About the Transgender Rights Movement's Supreme Court Gamble
The Supreme Court's decision on Wednesday allowing Tennessee and other states to ban gender-affirming care for minors was a crushing blow for the trans rights movement. For some trans activists and their allies, the case, known as United States v. Skrmetti, was the culmination of a powerful Trump-era backlash against trans people, artfully stoked by right-wing politicians and abetted by biased media coverage. But some civil rights experts and veterans of the L.G.B.T.Q. movement view the Skrmetti case as a tragic gamble built on flawed politics and uncertain science. An examination by The New York Times found that over the last decade, the movement was consumed by theories of sex and gender that most voters didn't grasp or support, radicalizing and calcifying its politics just as the culture wars reignited. The decision by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Biden administration to take Skrmetti to the Supreme Court was 'one of the biggest mistakes in the history of trans activism,' said Brianna Wu, a trans woman who serves on the board of Rebellion PAC, a Democratic political-action committee. Here are six takeaways from the full Magazine article: Some L.G.B.T.Q. activists and legal experts have long expected a defeat in Skrmetti. In private meetings of L.G.B.T.Q. legal-advocacy groups, many lawyers expected a loss almost from the moment the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, according to one person briefed on the conversations. On the outside, many experts considered the case an extraordinary risk. Not only was there little chance that the conservative-dominated court would expand heightened constitutional protections to trans people; a defeat in Skrmetti could open the door to other losses. 'If you can't win a challenge to strike down a gender-affirming-care ban, it's going to be hard to win other cases around trans rights,' said Michael Ulrich, a professor of health law and human rights at Boston University. Underlying Skrmetti was a broader cultural battle over how to understand — and describe — human identity. In recent years, many L.G.B.T.Q. activists came to believe that gender identity should supplant older understandings of physical sex. In this view, all people have the right to determine their own gender, regardless of how they dressed or whether they opted for medical transition. This self-identified gender — not your physical body — should determine what appears on your driver's license, which bathrooms you could access and what sports teams you could play on. When Joe Biden was elected in 2020, his administration embraced much of that worldview, directing government agencies to interpret old civil rights laws against sex discrimination to include this more novel — and more contested — concept of gender identity. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Telegraph
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Green Party accused of silencing gender critical voices
A former Green Party spokesman who was expelled for raising concerns about transgender ideology has accused the party of silencing gender critical voices. Dr Pallavi Devulapalli learnt earlier this month that she had been removed from the party following an investigation into comments she made at a hustings event a year ago. It comes after the party was found to have discriminated against Dr Shahrar Ali, its former deputy leader, over his belief that 'biology is real and immutable'. Campaigners in the party told The Telegraph that the decision to expel the spokesman exposed an 'authoritarian rot' at the heart of the Greens. Speaking at an event in June 2024, Dr Devulapalli showed support for sex-based rights and questioned whether trans activists were behaving 'mischievously' in the debate. The King's Lynn and West Norfolk councillor, who now sits as an independent, was subsequently suspended after also showing her support for the Cass report into self-identification. 'Purge' against gender critical politicians In an interview with the Guardian, Dr Devulapalli accused her party of launching a 'purge' against gender critical politicians and members. She said: 'They don't like my stance on trans self-ID and the trans women policy. They didn't come out and say that so they expelled me on a technicality.' Dr Devulapalli added: 'We've seen the Greens veer away from its original founding culture towards a much more Left-wing authoritarian culture. 'If you say or think the wrong thing, then you're out – that's really worrying.' She has joined 24 fellow former party members in the new Greens in Exile group, who have been suspended or removed from the party largely because of their gender critical views. In its ruling expelling Dr Devulapalli, the party said she was being removed to 'avoid or reduce the likelihood of further harm to the party'. Dr Devulapalli said in response that she was 'disappointed and infuriated' by the decision. It comes after Dr Ali was awarded more than £9,000 in damages in February 2024 after a judge ruled that the Green Party discriminated against him and that he had been improperly dismissed. In remarks after his court victory, Dr Ali called for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the Green Party over how it handles trans rights debates. The Mayor's and City County Court had ruled that Dr Ali's removal was 'procedurally unfair' because the Green Party identified no code breaches at his dismissal. In papers submitted to the court, lawyers acting for Dr Ali claimed that officials in the Green Party 'collaborated' to remove him from his post because of his beliefs about gender, which include the view that 'biology is real and immutable'. 'Kafkaesque charges' Speaking to The Telegraph on Wednesday, Dr Ali said: 'The Green Party is using weaponised disciplinary complaints processes to continue to persecute, exclude and betray sex realist members who have built the party up for over a generation. 'Not content to lose a gender critical discrimination case against me in a landmark protected belief case last year, at an estimated total cost to them of £450,000, they have now expelled our health spokesperson on Kafkaesque charges. 'As a medical practitioner, Pallavi well understood the importance of Cass for protecting children and youth from unsafe 'gender affirming' medical malpractice. 'True Greens are not ones to stand idly by and abide by unlawful discrimination against themselves, when they have been fighting all their lives to end discrimination against others. We have been seeking remedy through the courts to expose the authoritarian rot and will continue to do so.' A Green Party spokesman said: 'We don't comment on individual cases.'
