Power in society needs more attention

Mick Lynch, right, faced bizarre questions in TV interviews

"Power isn't something you're supposed to talk about in polite society." 

That stirring statement comes in an article taking a quick look at the power play at work in society, especially between ordinary working people and their representative organisations such as unions, and those big business and its followers like the media and financial industry.

The article was by Australian journalist Gareth Hutchens who noted the treatment meted out by the media to the leader of British rail workers who went on strike for three days late last month.

Two of the TV interviews the union leader Mick Lynch had to endure can be found here, and here.

Hutchens concludes from what transpired that the interviewers did not want to get to the central issues affecting the working people whereas Lynch wanted to explain why his workers needed to strike to force their employer to improve their pay and conditions, and that workers had to assert whatever power they could muster by a show of solidarity in withdrawing their labour in the face of their employer's refusal to enter into negotiations based on good faith.

Hutchens finds Lynch's experience has wider implications:

What's this got to do with Australia?

Here's the point.

When Mr Lynch did so many interviews in quick succession last week it reminded us, in real time, how certain voices are usually suppressed in the daily conversation, and what tactics are employed against them when they do find themselves on air.

If Mr Lynch had given three interviews over six months we may not have noticed them, or noticed how he was being treated by his interviewees.

But since he gave so many interviews within 48 hours, it compressed time.

Suddenly, here was someone who spoke clearly, in simple language, who was fighting for pay rises for working people, and who made a laughing stock of the media elites trying to put him in his place.

And it exposed how parts of the media work.

We saw how successive interviewees goaded him, ridiculed him, and condescended to him, with one asking Lynch to confirm that he wasn't a Marxist.

And what was Mr Lynch's crime? Ostensibly, his planned train strikes were going to be disruptive.

But there was clearly another dynamic at play.

Mr Lynch was comfortable talking about power, about who wields power in the labour market and who doesn't, and apparently, some people find that unnerving.

Power isn't something you're supposed to talk about in polite society.

A further application to the Australian scene can be made, Hutchens writes, by considering the attitudes expressed by economists discussing the rise in the national minimum hourly pay. He says:

Some of them dismiss questions about whether or not a higher minimum wage increase would be just, or equitable, or necessary, for being "normative" and therefore beyond the expertise of economists.

They say they prefer to stick to the question of how a specific increase in the minimum wage will impact inflation, employment and growth.

But that's a cop-out, isn't it?

Economists deal in value judgements all the time, whether consciously or not.

Think of how prices are set.

Prices are rarely set by a pure interaction between the demand for a good and its supply.

The "price" of many things, especially when talking about the price of labour (i.e. hourly wages), also reflects how much power is held by different groups in a market. 

The experience of Australia in arriving at a point where the setting of a minimum hourly pay rate became law says a lot about how power is wielded in society. Hutchens states that the matter is "wrapped in questions about what constitutes a 'living wage', and that relies on value judgements".

He continues:

Some politicians and business groups hate the idea of a minimum wage. Others like it. But after a protracted political struggle over decades, our institutions enforce and maintain one.

Or consider the question of the necessity or otherwise of jacking up interest rates to pull inflation down.

If it's agreed that large increases in interest rates could cause damaging job losses, but it's decided that it would still be warranted to lift rates to get inflation back down, isn't there a value judgement being made?

And who's making those judgements? Economists. 

Even in annual wage negotiations, value judgements are asserted all the time.

Over the last decade in Australia, when inflation was low, plenty of workers were told during wage negotiations that there was no point increasing their nominal wages by much because it wasn't necessary — inflation was so low.

And now, with inflation rising, workers are being told that this also isn't the time to increase nominal wages by much — because it will make inflation worse.

You can't win.

One of the interesting things about listening to Mr Lynch's contribution to the public debate in the UK is how familiar some of his observations sound about the state of modern labour markets, including where power lies, and who makes the decisions. 

The principle of what is just, or equitable, or necessary must be given more attention in considering the welfare of working people, meaning attention to where power lies in society's relationship, and how that power is exercised.

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Women will thrive without abortion, but work needs to be done to renew society

Cherilyn Holloway, founder of Pro-Black Pro-Life...condemns 'the shedding of future generations'

Denise Burke, a woman at the centre of the latest Roe v. Wade abortion decision, gives strong reasons why women will thrive in the post-Roe era. 

As a senior counsel, she was part of the legal team that argued the Dobbs case before the US Supreme Court leading to its declaration that there is no constitutional right to abortion.

Writing at The Hill news website, Burke clears away some of the myths that have clouded society's understanding of how abortion affects women. She starts this way:

Nearly 50 years of abortion-on-demand has incalculably harmed women and their families. And now we have the opportunity to right the wrongs that Roe wrought.

Truth was one of the first casualties of Roe. To secure and advance their radical agenda, abortion rights proponents repeatedly and brazenly misled Americans. We must advance a comprehensive, life-affirming agenda, while correcting the falsehoods still being peddled by abortion supporters.

Many claim that abortion does not kill a baby, but simply terminates a “clump of cells” or a “potential life.” As the legislative findings supporting Mississippi’s law protecting life after 15 weeks’ gestation recognized, an unborn child’s heart begins beating by six weeks, the child begins to move about in the womb at eight weeks and all of his or her basic physiological functions are present by nine weeks. Anyone who has ever viewed a pregnancy-related ultrasound recognizes its striking images as a living, developing human being. 

 Abortion rights advocates imply that women are not strong enough or capable enough to manage motherhood and a job, school or other interests. But Americans never fully believed this. In a 2018 Marist poll, 52 percent of respondents acknowledged that in the long run abortion “does more harm than good,” while only 29 percent believed that it improves a woman’s life.

They also argued that American women wanted unrestricted and unregulated access to abortion paid for at taxpayer expense. This bold assertion purposely ignores that many vulnerable women only reluctantly “choose” abortion after the financially incentivized abortion lobby convinces them that abortion is their only choice. 

It is worth dwelling on this matter of "choice". A letter to the BMJ (the British Medical Journal) from a British doctor and colleagues makes manifest how it is mostly poverty that pushes women into deciding to abort their child. In other words, if Planned Parenthood and like organisations had mobilised public opinion to institute policies to reduce poverty the practice of abortion would have faded away. The doctor's BMJ letter tackles the catchcry of abortion as a "women's right to chose":

However, the evidence has consistently shown that the vast majority of women request abortions due to a lack of financial resources. A Guttmacher Institute study reported that 73% of women cited this as the motivating factor for abortion. Under these circumstances there is no way abortion can be called a “choice”. Indeed the Guttmacher Institute went on to expressly state in the wake of their study that:

“Qualitative data from in-depth interviews portrayed women who had had an abortion as typically feeling that they had no other choice, given their limited resources and existing responsibilities to others.”

It is in many ways an affront to suggest to women, who are compelled to have an abortion out of poverty and an inability to afford childcare; that they have "chosen” their abortion. It is sadly ironic that in the same issue that the BMJ calls for greater socio-economic diversity in medicine(6), it then only engages in the abortion debate from the vantage point of the privileged.

As the journal recognises, doctors tend to come from affluent backgrounds and thus can fail to empathise and relate to women who literally have to “choose” between abortion and sufficient financial resources to survive or continue the pregnancy with a precarious and uncertain future.

This may be inconceivable for the privileged but the evidence suggests that this is a reality for many, if not the vast majority of women who seek termination of pregnancy. 75% of women requesting abortion in the US are in poverty or in the low income bracket. The poorest 12% of women account for almost 50% of abortions and the poorest 30% for 75% of abortions.

Abortion cannot be a solution for poverty; thereby surreptitiously allowing those in authority to abdicate responsibility of tackling socio-economic inequality. 

Burke highlights another myth:

Proponents of abortion tout it as beneficial to women’s health, often hiding evidence that the procedure carries significant physical and psychological risks, and that these medical risks increase as the pregnancy progresses. This lie continues today as these proponents aggressively market dangerous chemical abortions to American women. A 2009 Finnish study revealed that complications were nearly four times more frequent after chemical abortions than surgical abortions. 

Rather than abortion, American women need laws that protect them and their families. They need more social and financial support, better access to life-affirming care and the perceived ability to say “yes” to life.

A 2005 study from the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute found that more than 93 percent of abortions were motivated by social and economic concerns. Other studies have placed this number at nearly 97 percent. 

The Supreme Court has given state legislatures permission to protect the unborn and promote a culture of life. But this historic decision won’t end the circumstances that drive women to seek abortion. Some women will still fear that abortion is their only option. These women need financial, material and other resources, as well as the unequivocal life-affirming support of American churches and social agencies.

The pro-life community must seize this opportunity to demonstrate that abortion is a false answer to a real difficulty, that choosing life is the answer and that pro-life policies going forward will set the conditions for women and their babies to truly flourish. 

Another myth, one that Burke does not mention, is that of abortion being a "right". Courts and governments have made abortion available to their populations, but they have not recognised a "right". Rather, they have granted permission for those who abort to escape penalty. An equivalent to the "right to abort" is the slave-owners' claimed "right" to own certain humans; for the "owners" to decide on the fate of another human. 

Burke's argument comes through clearly - the majority of women who seek an abortion don't want to destroy their child. That large majority resort to the ultimate act act of abortion because they carry the burden of poverty, with all the life-complicating factors that poverty brings with it. 

All women should unite in ensuring that society makes it possible for all babies to thrive in the womb and out of it, no matter whether the mother is a "party-girl", or is a woman wanting a career, or someone in perilous financial circumstances. This kind of campaign will entail drawing up that "comprehensive, life-affirming agenda" that Burke urges. Such policies would involve fresh support for education, the reining in of corporate power, and the overthrow of bland individualism for the beauty of solidarity. 

In a second article from The Hill website we read:

Cherilyn Holloway, founder of Pro-Black Pro-Life, said her heart grieves for the women who feel they are being attacked and their rights stripped away. However, she also said she feels a sense of responsibility to her community now.

“I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility and opportunity to do more work in these communities to uplift the Black woman in a way that she feels liberated through the community that’s around her and not through the shedding of future generations,” Holloway said.

Holloway said her organization focuses on community and letting women, especially Black women, know that abortion is not their only option.

“The idea that more Black women are going to die because our maternal mortality rate is so high … we’re not saving more Black women by allowing them to have abortions,” said Holloway. “No Black women should be dying in childbirth.”

That’s why she’s focused on combating systemic inequities, like implicit bias in the medical community and economic inequity. 

There's a lot of work to be done by way of creating a just society to enable the lives of children of all ages, and their parents, to flourish.  

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Life in the womb…spectacular! pic.twitter.com/i2HxzlfZdY

— Obianuju Ekeocha (@obianuju) June 21, 2022

Ethical state of fertility industry under scrutiny

The instinctual imperative to know our family connections

Technologies relating to birth such as sperm donation and in vitro fertilization are the source of psychological distress and physical suffering, a fact which needs to be considered when weighing the value to society of the various elements of what has become the booming fertility industry.

For a start, children of sperm donors have a big lack in forming their personal identity, given reports such as this one from Australia, which opens with... "After years of desperately searching for their sperm-donor fathers..."

The two women at the centre of the report were, indeed, desperate in their search, which took years of independent research and the tortuous process of exploring all possible sources of information about their fathers. Fertility clinics were, at best, uncooperative.

Having children of their own intensified their desire to learn more about their biological heritage.

Both women turned to science — and an American direct-to-consumer DNA testing company and database — to continue the search.

So-called ancestry databases allow people to compare their own DNA against other publicly available genetic profiles to help them find blood relatives and to build a family tree.

In the cases of Kate Drysdale, 30, and Kerri Favarato, 39, it allowed them to identify their biological fathers even though neither man had registered a DNA sample on a consumer database at that time.  

Soon after giving birth to her daughter, Brisbane-based Favarato spent five months of painstaking work piecing together her family tree after finding on a database a fourth cousin — a woman she shared great, great, great grandparents with.

"It was exhausting and really hard work but I needed it to be done," she said.

"I was so sick of going through the process of trying to find information and getting the door slammed in my face.

"I just went: 'This is my chance, I have to do this'."

By this stage, Favarato had already spent about two decades looking. 

Her detective work paid off and she located her biological father, who greeted her warmly.

Five years on, they have what Favarato describes as an "undefinable" relationship with "reasonably regular" contact.

They visit each other's homes and she introduces him to people as "my biological father".

"He doesn't call me his daughter or anything like that," Favarato said.

"We don't have the same relationship that I have with the dad who raised me. It's not like that, but it's an undeniable connection.

"We just don't bother labelling anything. It is what it is." 

Kate Drysdale has known she was donor-conceived since the age of seven:

By then, her mother and her non-biological father had divorced and he was no longer in their lives.

"My legal father and my mother disagreed as to whether or not I should be told. She'd always wanted me to know.

"She has a social work background. She understood the importance of knowing one's identity." 

It was torturous getting the information she desired so strongly. However, with successes and failures in turning up information along the way, she achieved finally her goal.  

"I always thought I looked like my mother until I met that man. He is the male version of me, just 21 years older."

Drysdale and her biological father are both employed in the social science field, but more important to her is his personality.

"I had a negative view of what a father was growing up," she said.

"It's just really nice to find out that he is a positive, empathetic, kind human being that thinks about the world and wants to have a positive influence on it.

"So it's nice that that's the personality that I come from."

Meeting her biological father took years of trauma and heartache. 

"I experienced many months living in a state of near panic that I would not get any information or would ultimately be rejected by the person I had been searching for for so long."

The trauma has led to Drysdale making submissions to a Queensland parliamentary committee inquiry into matters relating to donor conception information.

She wants all donor-conceived people to also be able to access identifying information relating to donors and donor-conceived siblings, regardless of when they were conceived.

Drysdale would also like to see the birth certificates of donor-conceived people include a notation indicating they are donor conceived, with contact details for how to access further information.

Given that some people source donor sperm, eggs or embryos from overseas, she is also calling for a ban on the importation of reproductive tissue if the international clinics involved cannot be held to Queensland standards.

Another sperm-donor child, now in her thirties, similarly wants higher standards for the fertility industry, according to a second report related to the Queensland official inquiry:

Eleni McIlroy has known her whole life she was conceived through sperm donation. But when she talks about her experience, her eyes still well with tears.

She does not blame her parents for the challenges she has faced as a donor conceived person – instead, the ever-growing assisted reproductive technology industry has earned her ire.

McIlroy has had a loving upbringing and said her parents' honesty about her conception has spared her much of the trauma other donor conceived people have faced.

But her heartache began when she embarked on an investigation into her biological origins, discovering the fertility clinic her parents had engaged had intentionally destroyed records.

"There are no records of how many siblings might've been created for me. So, I will never know.

"Some [donor conceived people] get told they have three siblings… and feel that they can stop searching… and then four years later, another three pop up."

One amazing piece of the puzzle has been the response by her biological father's family to McIlroy's approach for information about him.

McIlroy reached out to her donor's family. They said they did not "see a version of events where my donor could have possibly consented" to donating his sperm at the time.

"So how do I deal with that?"

"How do I deal with the fact that he might not even know he was a donor?"

She has shared her story to put pressure on lawmakers to crack down on the assisted reproductive technology industry.

 McIlroy has pleaded with the Australian Capital Territory government to act to ensure others do not have to suffer the same lack of belonging and closure she has experienced.

"You're always looking for something that indicates to you where the truth is but it's impossible to figure it out," she said.

"An embryo grows into a baby which grows into a human being which has rights."

Of like mind is Helena Seagrott, who began volunteering as the lead representative for Donor Conceived Australia in the ACT after she discovered two years ago that she was sperm-donor conceived.

She found out that her biological father had donated sperm once or twice a week for five years when a medical student. He was paid $10 for each donation. Seagrott says:

"There's eight of us so far, but counting, and I expect for the rest of my life… to get the random email: 'You've got another half sibling.'"

Seagrott, 38, has two children of her own with a third on the way, and has become dedicated to ensuring the assisted reproductive technology industry undergoes legislative change to become more ethical.

"Currently there is no counselling provided by the governments or clinics, and what we're finding is that people do need that support."

She has called for a national, independent support service staffed by professionals who have been trained to deal with the complexities faced by donor conceived people. 

To see from these women such expressions of concern about a lack of ethical procedures in this area relating to human life is disturbing. They also highlight how there is an instinct in each person that demands full connection with forebears and siblings in order to achieve mental balance and inner peace over one's identity, and confidence when it comes to forming close relationships.  

💢  See also The pain of contraception

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Miracles – 'they occur more often than we realise'

Joanna Watson...there's always a purpose to life events. Photo: Source 

They don't have to be wildly dramatic events, but sometimes they are. Often they are events where the outcome could have gone another way, with serious consequences, but they didn't. I am talking, of course, about miracles, which I define as God's action in the here and now to preserve our life, and to achieve so many other purposes.

I consider it due to God's protective action that my car carrying my wife and my niece and her husband on one occasion was not struck by a heavy vehicle when I made a stupid mistake while driving. I got confused at traffic lights where I waited to make a turn across a highway. When the traffic going straight ahead started to move, I thought I was supposed to make my turn as well. There didn't seem to be separate traffic lights.

When we started across the four-lane highway a lorry came on quickly but it slowed so I moved out into the lanes to clear it. But I could not see what was on the other side of the lorry. This is where the miracle occurred. The next lanes were clear! If the lanes beyond the lorry had been occupied, we would have certainly been struck, with injury to life and limb much more than a mere possibility. 

When a busy road has a clearing in the crucial few seconds for us to cross in front of the oncoming traffic, I think I am justified in crediting God for this miracle, saving us from a serious accident.   

That God is still in the miracle business is the message Englishwoman Joanna Watson wants to share. As well as describing her own experience, she has collected accounts of wonderful experiences of others. 

Of her own case, Watson writes:

Strictly speaking, I could be dead.

While on holiday in the USA, the car I was in plunged over the edge of a mountain. It hurtled down about 50 metres into pitch-black darkness, flipped and ended up on its roof. Upside down and held in by my seatbelt, I fractured my spine in two places.

Put simply: God saved my life.

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, God provided for all my medical, physical and spiritual needs. In a series of incredible ‘God-incidences’, he brought help through a succession of strangers – including a doctor and a Christian – orchestrating exactly who needed to be there in my moment of need.

And in the months that followed, as I found myself encased in a back brace and heading slowly towards recovery, I was acutely aware that things could have turned out very differently. Today, I am alive, walking, and here to tell the tale.

The awareness of God active in her life, led Watson to take stock:

Surviving a near-fatal car accident changed my life. It led to a redirection in my career and a relocation. But, over the subsequent years, it also led to more miracle stories – of provision, protection, healing, and even resurrection – landing in my lap. 

I published ten true tales of miracles in my book Light through the Cracks: How God breaks in when life turns tough (Malcolm Down Publishing). United by a common theme, they all reveal how ordinary people have encountered God in extraordinary ways in the midst of tough times; how God has broken into some very dark and difficult situations; how he has brought his light in through the cracks.

Cancer disappearing without trace. A man defying death, multiple times, following life-threatening injuries incurred in a head-on road collision. A baby born prematurely, only to confound the medical predictions about his prognosis. Cash appearing out of nowhere to keep a church from closing. A teenager seeing her chronic debilitating illness disappear in an instant. Plus the full story of my own car accident.

Not all of these stories have happy endings. I don’t sanitise or sugar-coat any aspects of them; they are written as they really happened—raw, real and messy. But, in the middle of each one, God showed up for us when we were praying in utter desperation, not knowing what the ending would be.

The reality is that our unchanging God is still in the miracle business today - not just in the dim and distant past or in some far flung part of the world – but here, at home, in the 21st Century. He is still supernaturally performing acts that shouldn’t be able to happen according to the laws of nature or science. They are relatively rare, but they occur more often than we realise.

Miracles are possible because God is at work in the spiritual realm as well as the physical realm; in the extraordinary, as well as the ordinary. He heals through medicine, but also miraculously. He provides financially through a steady income, but also out of thin air. He expects us to heed warning signs, but also sends angels to protect us from danger. He speaks through the Bible, but also through dreams and visions.

These things don’t happen routinely and are impossible to predict in advance; they are always about God, never about us; and they always have a purpose.

Read Watson's article in full here. 

A last thought: Any study of miracles comes to the conclusion that our hearts have to be big enough to appreciate what has happened; our eyes have to be clear enough to see the source of our deliverance; we have to be free enough from distractions to be able to acknowledge the other party involved, and to be able to express our gratitude. Finally, we need to have a prayerful attitude to life so that we are open to the world in all its dimensions. 

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Anti-woke LGBTQ+ group forms in Denmark

Some in the LGBTQ+ community are waking up. The following is a Google translation of a statement from the Danish Rainbow Council, which finds some organisations which purport to represent the gay and transsexual groupings have gone far down the path to fallacy. See the original statement here.

[[[[[[[[[[[[[

Press release

New anti-woke, pro-human association for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals in Denmark.

Copenhagen, Thursday 9 June 2022

“There has been a serious, existential threat to all of us—and to the continued wellbeing of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. The LGBT world has, catastrophically, created the threat itself: An ideological gender extremism that in recent years has attacked everything from the rights of biological women, to the mental well-being of our children. The extremists deny established science, and subjugate our freedom of speech—the phenomenon is called ‘wokeness’. In the Danish Rainbow Council, we call it madness. The fight against this ‘politically correct’, deeply intolerant ideology will be the next big value struggle. It's not just about LGBT people—it's about all of us. About you. About your children. About lies and about truth. And about which human vision Denmark should be driven by in the future. ”

           —Marcus Dib Jensen, transsexual, chairman of the Danish Rainbow Council.

The Danish Rainbow Council was recently founded by a group of gays, lesbians and transgender people who have long felt a growing concern about the influence of extreme gender activism, so-called wokeness, in the Western world—and in Denmark. Wokeness today challenges the well-being, common understanding, and basic, cherished freedoms of our society.

Our association is a cross-political, anti-woke alternative to LGBT + Denmark, which a few years ago was taken over by extreme gender activists. The organization thus dedicates itself today to the spread of e.g. the ideology of the innumerable sexes. They believe that gender and sexuality are solely so-called 'social constructions'—something we decide for ourselves, biology unnoticed. LGBT + Denmark, therefore, works actively for both more and younger children to be able to change gender, just as they also seek to limit the biological women's rights in sports and remove the right to women's safe-spaces in the public space etc. 

Wokeness is particularly hard on children and young people, who are mentally more vulnerable than ever. They are influenced by the extreme gender ideology they are constantly bombarded with from all sides. Things have now become so unreasonable that it can and will erode the support of heterosexual citizens for the rainbow cause. This is understandable, but by its very nature very dangerous for us. 

The cohesiveness of Denmark is under pressure because all the knowledge and experience we have gained in modern times, in subjects such as biology, medicine, didactics, pedagogy and ethics, has been kicked into a corner—without a fight—in favor of a radical gender ideology, that emerged a few years ago at elite American universities. It is an extremism that has gradually infiltrated all walks of life with deeply intolerant ideologies so that many feel great fear of speaking out against them.

All this we will simply no longer accept as rainbow people—not in our name. Enough is enough!

The Danish Rainbow Council is a forum where you can express yourself confidently if you do not want the woke extremism to triumph over humanity, reason and science—and everyone is welcome to fight the battle with us, regardless of party color and sexuality.

However, it is us rainbow people who must take the lead in the battle—because if we do not dare to do so, we cannot expect others to fight. 

On our facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/DanskRegnbueraad) and via this video link (https://vimeo.com/718174107) you can e.g. meet our chairman, Marcus Dib Jensen, and read about the association's attitudes and the political goals that the Danish Rainbow Council will work purposefully and hard on getting implemented in the Folketing [Parliament].

Let us conclude, for those who are a little in doubt: There are only two sexes. It's a biological fact, and it should be completely uncontroversial to say—but it's suddenly no longer the case. The intolerance, the cancel culture and the politically correct madness, we hereby challenge through our new association.

We want to rid society of extreme, socially harmful, ruthless gender ideology and restore humanity, tolerance, reason and reasonableness, for the benefit of all—not least Denmark's many rainbow citizens.

Here we are. Our struggle begins today.

Yours sincerely

Danish Rainbow Council

CONTACT

Jesper W. Rasmussen

Media contact & vice chairman

Email: presse@danskregnbueraad.dk

M: +45 3137 5547 

]]]]]]]]]]]]

If you are wondering why this blog gives so much attention to matters relating to sexuality and transgenderism, the reason is that the ideology that has erupted in this area of life is an extremely corrosive agent affecting individual wellbeing and therefore the psychological health of society as a whole. 

This ideology, which extends the philosophical bounds of Critical Theory, aims to be generationally transformative, expressing the extremism that the Rainbow Council identifies, removing the family from its special category of protection, and instituting unrestricted self-invention as a new domain for uncritical respect, and in that regard, pouring condemnation on any scientific scrutiny of matters of importance to the shape of human society.

It is not only women who are threatened by such a brutal mindset. In addition, by way of permitting full-scale paedophilia, children are in line to be incorporated further within the sexual hedonistic movement beyond the confusion already sown among the young over sexual identity. 

Transgender ideology and its coercive companions must be fought, and it's great that allies such as Danish Rainbow Council are now joining in the formation of a united effort to protect the vulnerable.

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Fina gets the science right, say top swimmers

Cate Campbell in sizzling form at the Tokyo Olympics. Photo Source

Fina, the International Swimming Federation, voted at the weekend to stop transgender athletes from competing in women's elite races if they have gone through any part of the process of male puberty.

It means that transgender American college swimmer Lia Thomas, who has expressed a desire to compete for a place at the Olympics, would be blocked from participating in the female category, the BBC reports.

The decision was welcomed by former Great Britain swimmer Sharron Davies and Australia's four-time Olympic gold medallist Cate Campbell, who both refer to the scientific reality of the differences in male and female bodies.

The new policy, which was passed with 71% of the vote from 152 Fina members, was set during an extraordinary general congress at the ongoing World Championships in Budapest.

Fina members received a report from a transgender task force made up of leading figures from the world of medicine, law and sport.

Campbell, 30, told the congress before the vote was taken that she knows first-hand what it means to feel being an outsider. Her family migrated to Australia from the southern African country of Malawi when she was nine years old and one way the family integrated into their new community was through sport. 

"We see you, value you and accept you," Campbell said [addressing transgender athletes].

"My role, however, is also to stand up here, having asked our world governing body,  to investigate, deliberate and uphold the cornerstone of fairness in elite women's competition.

"And it pains me that this part of my role may injure, infuriate and, potentially, alienate people from an already marginalised [transgender] community.

"Believe me, I have wrestled long and hard with myself, with what to say and do. I am aware that my actions and words, no matter what I say, will anger some people — whether they are from the [transgender] community or from the cisgender female community.

"If inclusion is one of the cornerstones of sport, then the other would be fairness, fairness in regards to competition, especially elite, professional competition.

"The incongruity that inclusion and fairness cannot always work together is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to talk about this topic.

"Usually, they are terms of absolutes which work together, yet science now tells us that, in this issue, they are incompatible."

Campbell will later talk about how the reality of science must stand in judgment of "feelings" about perceived rights. She continues, providing insights into the world of competitive sport:

Unlike in community or amateur sport, in elite sport, winning and losing goes hand in hand with politics, money and power.

Creating a place where men and women can come up against the best of their contemporaries and battle it out — down to 100ths and 10ths of a second. This battle, this standing up and comparing of wills and physique is what draws people to watch sport — to see who can squeeze the very last ounce out of their bodies and minds and emerge victorious. Without fair competition, sport in its elite sense, would cease to exist.

Usually, inclusion and fairness go hand in hand. To create a place that is inclusive, is to create a space that is fair. Transgender, gender-diverse and non-binary athletes' inclusion in the female category of elite sport, is one of the few occasions where these two principles come into conflict.

The incongruity that inclusion and fairness cannot always work together is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to talk about this topic.

Usually, they are terms of absolutes which work together, yet science now tells us, that in this issue, they are incompatible.

I stand before you, as a four-time Olympian, a world champion and a world record holder. I stand before you, as a beneficiary of fair, elite competition. Yet my job today is not to explain the nuances of Fina's transgender policy. Nor is it to defend the conclusions reached by medical and legal professionals of much greater intellect than mine.

My role is to stand before you, as an athlete who has enjoyed many, many years in this sport and who hopes to continue to enjoy a few more years. To stand here and tell the transgender and gender-diverse community that we want you to be part of the broader swimming community.

We see you, value you and accept you. My role, however, is also to stand up here, having asked our world governing body, Fina, to investigate, deliberate and uphold the cornerstone of fairness in elite women's competition.

However, I am asking everyone to take a breath, to absorb before reacting. Listen to the science and experts. Listen to the people who stand up here and tell you how difficult it has been to reconcile inclusion and fairness.

That men and women are physiologically different cannot be disputed. We are only now beginning to explore and understand the origins of these physiological differences and the lasting effects of exposure to differing hormones. Women, who have fought long and hard to be included and seen as equals in sport, can only do so because of the gender category distinction. To remove that distinction would be to the detriment of female athletes everywhere.

The creation of this policy did not stem from "feelings", what we "felt" was the right thing to do. The policy was created with the inclusion of medical professionals, legal professionals, athletes, coaches and people from the transgender community. It is a policy that pays attention to inclusion, but prioritises fairness.

Ultimately, this not about winners and losers, it is about investigating and developing a policy which accurately represents the science and draws a line to protect the fairness of the female category distinction in elite sport.

Not community sport, not amateur sport — elite, professional sport. I want the broader swimming community to be a place of safety and acceptance for the gender-diverse — and I call on all the federations sitting within this room to examine your own policies to ensure the world of swimming remains inclusive.

It is my hope that young girls all around the world can continue to dream of becoming Olympic and World Champions in a female category prioritising the competitive cornerstone of fairness.

However, it is also my hope that a young gender-diverse child can walk into a swimming club and feel the same level of acceptance that a nine-year-old immigrant kid from Africa did all those years ago.

 The BBC's report states.

Fina will also aim to establish an 'open' category at competitions for swimmers whose gender identity is different than their birth sex.

British swimmer states 'They've done the science'

Sharron Davies states:

Four years ago, along with 60 other Olympic medallists, I wrote to the International Olympic Committee and said 'Please just do the science first' and no governing body has done the science until now.

That is what Fina has done. They've done the science, they've got the right people on board, they've spoken to the athletes, and coaches.

Swimming is a very inclusive sport, we love everyone to come and swim and be involved. But the cornerstone of sport is that it has to be fair and it has to be fair for both sexes.

"Sport by definition is exclusionary—we don't have 15-year-old boys racing in the under-12s, we don't have heavyweight boxers in with the bantamweights, the whole reason we have lots of different classes in the Paralympics is so that we can create fair opportunities for everybody.

So that is the whole point of having classifications in sports and the only people who were going to be losing out were females—they were losing their right to fair sport."

What did the panel of experts say?

Dr Michael Joyner, a physiologist and leading expert in human performance

Testosterone in male puberty alters the physiological determinants of human performance and explains the sex-based differences in human performance, considered clearly evident by age 12.

Even if testosterone is suppressed, its performance enhancing effects will be retained."

Dr Adrian Jjuuko, an activist, researcher and lawyer

The policy emphasises that no athlete is excluded from Fina competition or setting Fina records based on their legal gender, gender identity or gender expression.

[The proposed open category] should not become a category that adds to the already existing levels of discrimination and marginalisation against these groups.

I see this policy as only the first step towards full inclusion and support for the participation of transgender and gender-diverse athletes in aquatic sports, and there is a lot more to be done.

Dr Sandra Hunter, an exercise physiologist specialising in sex and age differences in athletic performance

By 14 years or older, the difference between boys and girls is substantial. That's due to the advantages experienced due to the physiological adaptations in testosterone and the possession of the Y chromosome.

Some of these physical advantages are structural in origin such as height, limb length, heart size, lung size and they will be retained, even with the suppression or reduction of testosterone that occurs in the transition from male to female."

Summer Sanders, of the US, former Olympic and world champion in swimming

This is not easy. There must be categories—women's, men's and of course a category for trans women and trans men.

Fair competition is a stronghold and staple of our community—this approach safeguards the integrity of the existing sports process in which millions of girls and women participate annually.