Looking forward to a sun-soaked holiday in Sydney, Sonya, a transgender woman from the Philippines, instead found herself locked in an Australian detention center. What should have been a simple vacation turned into a harrowing ordealâone that has sparked outrage over Australiaâs treatment of transgender individuals and Asian migrants.
Sonya arrived in Australia in February, eager to explore the country as a tourist. But upon landing, she was immediately profiled by the Australian Border Force (ABF). Without consent, her phone was confiscated, and she was subjected to invasive questioning.
âThe environment was highly uncomfortable⊠there was an inmate there that threw hot water on us,â Sonya recalled, detailing the abuse she faced while in detention. Worse still, she was denied a clear timeline for her deportation. Despite offering to purchase her own ticket home, she was left in limbo, with no answers and no way out.
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Villawood has long been criticized for its treatment of detainees, particularly transgender individuals. Sonya, a trans woman, was housed in a male compound, subjecting her to heightened risks of abuse and violence. Trans men, too, have been placed in female compounds, disregarding their gender identities altogether.
Adding to the distress, Sonya was denied access to her luggage and critical hormone medication, which could have had serious medical consequences. Her experience is not uniqueâother transgender detainees have reported being under constant surveillance, sexually harassed during pat-downs, and intimidated by officers.
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Sonyaâs detention is part of a broader, deeply flawed system known as Operation Inglenook. Launched in 2022, this initiative was supposedly designed to crack down on visa fraud, human trafficking, and exploitation within the sex industry. Yet, in practice, it has overwhelmingly targeted migrants from East and Southeast Asia, including many transgender women.
Between November 2022 and August 2024, 165 people were denied immigration clearance under Operation Inglenook, the vast majority of whom were from Asian countries. The initiative has been widely criticized for racial profiling, with border officials reportedly targeting travelers based on their appearance, gender identity, and perceived profession.
âTo implement these laws, border officials look out for migrants whose appearances they believe do not match their gender marker or who fit into the racist stereotype of the âpromiscuous Asian sex worker,ââ said Damien Nguyen, spokesperson for the Asian Migrant Sex Worker Advisory Group (AMSWAG).
âThe government weaponizes the false idea that we are by default victims of sex trafficking to justify mass visa cancellation, torturous detainment, and overpolicing,â he added.
Linkage
Things Katy is reading.
Trapped in Limbo: Australiaâs Detention Nightmare for Trans Women
in TransVitaeTrump is setting the US on a path to educational authoritarianism
in The GuardianOn 14 February, the US Department of Educationâs office of civil rights issued a letter providing notice to American educational institutions, schools and universities of the departmentâs new interpretation of federal civil rights law. The letter lays out new conditions for institutions to receive federal funding, including in the form of student loans or scientific and medical research.
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in federally assisted programs or activities. The education departmentâs âDear Colleaguesâ letter redefines the central targets of Title VI to centrally include supposed discrimination against whites. The letter was followed, on 28 February, with a set of guidelines for its interpretation. The novel understanding of anti-white discrimination in these documents is a chilling manifestation of educational authoritarianism.
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The guidelines for what would count as a Title VI violation are vague. From the guidelines:
"a racially-oriented vision of social justice, or similar goals will be probative in OCRâs analysis of the facts and circumstances of an individual case."
The most straightforward way to read the letter and the guidelines is as defining âschool-on-student harassmentâ as including Black history. The letter treats teaching large swaths of Black and Indigenous history as akin to a white professor consistently referring to all of their Black students with a terrible racial slur.
The âmore extreme practices at a universityâ that âcould create a hostile environment under Title VIâ include âpressuring them to participate in protests or take certain positions on racially charged issuesâ. But reason, rationality and morality are sources of âpressureâ. How does one distinguish the pressure placed on people by moral arguments for racially charged issues from other kinds of pressure?
The guidelines create a culture of fear and intimidation around history. If one discusses Black history, one immediately risks endorsing the view that the United States âis built upon âsystemic and structural racismââ. The guidelines invite students to report their teachers and their school administrators for not adhering to a state-imposed ideology about history, as well as state-imposed ideology about gender, which threatens to make teaching critically about gender identity, or including trans perspectives, into school-on-student harassment. Failure to adhere to state ideologies about history and gender fits this new definition of âschool-on-student harassmentâ. Billions in federal funding is at stake.
Spaces of preparation: The Acton âHiltonâ and changing patterns of television drama rehearsal
for University of SalfordFor anybody who loves British television from the 1970s and 80s, this is just delightful.
It is only comparatively recently that performance in arenas other than theatre and cinema has begun to receive serious academic attention. The âSpaces of Televisionâ project and the University of Yorkâs âPlaying the Small Screenâ symposium have each opened up discussions regarding the impact of production process and space upon television acting, yet little consideration has been given to those spaces in which performances were traditionally prepared prior to studio transmission or recording. This article attempts to address this by focusing on the BBCâs âTelevision Rehearsal Roomsâ, better known by those who used them as the âActon Hiltonâ, which offers a precise model of the âoutsideâ rehearsal process which characterised multi-camera studio production. A creative hub for not only drama, but also sitcom and light entertainment, the Hilton represented an extended community for the many performers who gathered there to rehearse â a community that has all but disappeared in the modern era of single camera location work, where prior rehearsal of the type conducted at Acton has virtually disappeared. Drawing upon a combination of archive research and interviews with practitioners, this piece examines the important role played by the Acton Hilton in the history of UK television acting.
Hospitals that paused youth gender-affirming care continued controversial intersex surgeries, group says
in The 19thIntersex advocates say that they have been shut out of the conversations about gender and health in the United States and that the January 28 executive order has far-reaching consequences for intersex kids, not just because it allows dangerous surgeries to continue.
âNone of the EOs mention intersex people specifically â they are systematically scrubbing mentions of intersex people from government websites,â the intersex rights group interACT wrote in an email to community members.
Several hospitals and doctors have complied with Trumpâs order, announcing in recent weeks that they have halted gender-affirming care, though some have resumed care based on ongoing litigation. In some cases, those same health centers that have stopped gender-affirming care have also largely continued to perform controversial sex-altering operations in the form of intersex pediatric surgeries, according to interACT.
Intersex advocates say that juxtaposition lays bare the hypocrisy of the order and those following it. Itâs been âstrikingâ to see those same health providers continue non-consensual intersex surgeries, said Sylvan Fraser Anthony, legal and policy director for interACT.
âHospitals have been so reluctant â flat out refusing or taking years before issuing some partial policy about whether theyâre going to be changing practices related to these non-consensual surgeries on intersex children,â Anthony said. âTheyâve taken years, if not decades, to review those [policies] and most have not been responsive at all to calls to review and update their standards and their practices for intersex children to respect their bodily autonomy. Whereas theyâre responding within a matter of days and weeks to this executive order when no one is making them â rushing to make policy moves that harm trans patients.â
What Stops Late Bloomers from Knowing
Utterly brilliant What she said:
A question that tormented me when I first discovered Iâm trans was why I didnât realize it until I was 45 years old. From what I see on Reddit, that question torments many late bloomers who donât figure this out until well into adulthood. The pop-culture narrative says that trans people are supposed to have always known, right?
Well, I didnât, and yet I was also definitely trans.
The torment only increased as I reflected back over my life, discovering one sign after another of my feminine identity. Some of them quite blatant. Why didnât I know? Why didnât I realize? Was I just stupid? A clueless idiot, bumbling my way through life?
That explanation was not dismissed so easily: it aligned with many of the messages Iâd been given about myself over the years. Further, I often felt like a clueless, bumbling idiot because I just didnât understand how boys work or how to emulate what they were doing. So maybe that was the answer.
It took years, but ultimately I came to realize that I was asking the wrong question. I shouldnât have wondered why I didnât know sooner. Rather, I should have been asking âwhat stopped me from knowing sooner?â
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Everyone else gets to play âbe yourself,â while we play âfit in or dieâ. What we need is a disguise. A mask made of carefully-constructed persona that matches the expectations created by our gendered bodies. The better we build this disguise, the better we fit in, the less punishment we receive. The less danger of exile we face.
So, without even noticing that weâre doing it, we pull back from engaging with people. We observe more and do less, trying to figure out the unwritten rules. We over-think the heck out of every situation before we try anything, working out our best guess as to how weâre supposed to behave.
âHe nails it on the first takeâ: how the Beatles helped my autistic son find his voice
in The GuardianSuch a lovely story:
Eventually, Miss Parsons tells us about her departmentâs annual production. Itâs called Oakfieldâs Got Talent, and she wonders whether James might perform? When I ask him, I get a fervent yes; to reduce the chances of anything unexpected happening, she agrees to the suggestion that I should accompany him on an acoustic guitar.
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I reach for a piece of paper that is serving as a cue card, and James reads it out: âThis next song was originally by the Velvet Underground, and itâs calledâ â he then slows down â âIâm. Waiting. For. The. Man.â
When we play it, James sounds like Mark E Smith from the Fall, barking out the words, and rising to the conclusion of each verse â âOh, Iâm waiting for mah manâ â with a loud sense of triumph. A few times, he drifts away from the microphone, and yells the words into the air. We have worked out a procedure for this: I say âMicrophone! Microphone!â out of the side of my mouth, and he returns to the right spot.
I donât know if many of the audience quite understand what they are listening to: a less-than-wholesome song about copping dope in 1960s Manhattan, the grimness of withdrawal, and the rapturous pleasure of yet another hit of heroin. But they like it: we get a second round of applause, and I do that showbiz thing of camply extending my arm in Jamesâs direction. There are a few whoops, and he picks his way down the wooden stairs to the right of us, before taking a seat in the audience.
Ginny and Rosa are there. To us, the meaning of the six minutes James and I have just spent on the stage is pretty obvious. If you are repeatedly told what your child canât do, it starts to eat at you. Certain words hover over you: âsevereâ, âprofoundâ, âimpairmentâ. You miss superlatives; whatever successes your child achieves, they donât tend to feel like the same ones other kids experience. But here is something James can do â brilliantly, fantastically, wonderfully â on the same terms as everyone else. Better still, he loves doing it, and it makes him the centre of attention.
It is a gorgeous summer evening, and everything feels as if it is surrounded by a lovely glow. When we get home, James does not sleep, but I do not mind at all. âI want to do that again,â he says. âI want to do that again!â
I Was In The Women's Restroom When A Man Came In And Called Out A Question That Left Me Nauseated
in HuffPostMy partner and I found a lovely city park with a picnic area and gazebo to eat breakfast in after camping on National Forest land nearby. After a mug of coffee, I visited the public restroom. I didnât expect a stranger to yell at me through the flimsy stall door.
âHello? Are you a male or female?â
I was the only person using the restroom â the kids who had been in there a minute ago had left. I felt this manâs eyes on my sneakers and blue hiking pants under the stall. I was scared this harassment could escalate if I didnât say something to diffuse the situation. I gulped and called back, âHello?â
âOh, youâre a female. My bad.â He sounded reassured by my quavering voice. I heard his footsteps leaving the room. My heart raced as I fumbled with toilet paper, fingers shaking. I felt nauseated.
My voice had immediately identified me as the âfemaleâ I didnât feel myself to be â and all it took was two syllables. But my âfemaleâ voice had also saved me from further harassment. Would that man have dragged me out of the stall if I sounded âlike a manâ or remained quiet? Would he have looked under the stall? Would he have tried to check what was between my legs while my pants were down? Did he have any idea how much of a violation these real and imagined threats were to me?
And why was a man even in the womenâs room, questioning me? Did a kidâs mother report me to her husband for looking too much like a man in the womenâs room? Perhaps they were alarmed that I, with my short hair, had been in the restroom with their young kids. I felt physically ill at the troubling thought that someone would assume I would do anything harmful to children. I hadnât said anything, made eye contact with anyone or done anything other than sit quietly in the stall in the room that matches my assigned sex at birth.
I felt bad for looking masculine to make myself more comfortable, because I didnât want to make anyone else uncomfortable. Some part of me longed to return to my habit of looking more like a woman, but I also felt sick from not feeling right in my body.
I can empathize with these strangers viewing me and my body as a threat because I have also viewed my body as a threat. I have been unhappy with the shape of my body, my appearance in the mirror and the tone of my voice. And to have that thrown back in my face in such a vulnerable moment â pants down, defenseless, forced by my bodyâs very personal needs to be in this gendered room â hit close to home.
Disney, Christianity and the erasure of transgender people
in Baptist News GlobalTwenty-five years ago, trans women (those transitioning from male to female) outnumbered trans men (transitioning from female to male) two to one. Today, those seeking hormonal treatment for gender dysphoria are trending younger and are primarily trans men.
Yet, Trumpâs first executive order was titled âDefending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.â The text of the order repeatedly states its intent is to protect women from âmen (who) self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women ⊠(which) attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety and well-being.â
If the majority of those seeking treatment for gender dysphoria today are primarily trans men (females transitioning to males), then why do womenâs spaces need protecting? Nowhere in the executive order or in any of the various state legislative efforts claiming to protect women has there been any concern expressed for protecting menâs spaces from the trans men who will be entering them.
Thatâs because the language around protecting women is really about asserting dominance over the bodies of individuals classified as female at birth â whether they are cisgender or transgender. Itâs about keeping the female body pure, normalizing bodily oppression and perpetuating rape culture.
The language used is also rooted in racism.
There is a reason those who study the rise of Christian nationalism in America emphasize its connection with white supremacy. The language around protecting women from predatory men has an unsavory history in the United States. It isnât that long ago that Black men in America were lynched regularly, and far too often the reason given was to protect some white womanâs body.
Why Housing âEfficiencyâ Isnât Making Homes Affordable
in Strong Towns for Strong TownsEach financial crisis â Savings & Loan in the 1980s, the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 â led to even greater centralization of housing finance, as short-term fixes reinforced the dominance of national lenders and government-sponsored entities. The repeated cycle of risk, collapse and bailout has made housing a primary vehicle for financial speculation rather than a stable, accessible market for homebuyers.
Today, the product isnât a home; itâs the promise to pay contained in the mortgage note. The buyer isnât an individual or a family; itâs a financial institution acquiring that mortgage note and the decades of promised payments.
The innovations and efficiencies of scale we see in the housing market today are innovations in finance, not in home construction. These financial innovations have not been good for homebuyers or for affordability.
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Ironically, the one-dimensional efficiency of financialization has created a massive gap in the real market for homes. Large financial institutions are eager to fund single-family homes in bulk or large apartment complexes that fit their investment models, but they have no interest in small-scale, entry-level housing. A so-called "efficient" housing finance system has, in reality, left little to no capital available for small, incremental projects â like converting single-family homes into duplexes, adding backyard cottages, or financing small starter homes. This is despite the overwhelming demand for entry-level housing.
Trump Makes Supporting Trans People Ineligible For Public Service Loan Forgiveness Via EO
in Erin in the MorningOn Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order drastically limiting public service workersâ ability to obtain student loan forgiveness. Under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, workers at government agencies and 501(c)(3) nonprofits are eligible for loan forgiveness after 10 years of service. But Trump's order threatens to strip that benefitâspecifically targeting employees at organizations that support transgender rights or diversity initiatives. If enforced, the order could have sweeping consequences, cutting off loan relief for workers at countless nonprofits, civil rights organizations, hospitals, and schools across the country.
âThe prior administration abused the PSLF Program through a waiver process, using taxpayer funds to pay off loans for employees still years away from the statutorily required number of payments. Moreover, instead of alleviating worker shortages in necessary occupations, the PSLF Program has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means,â says the order.
Organizations that would be barred from the order include what the order calls âsubsidization of illegal activities, including illegal immigration, human smuggling, child trafficking, pervasive damage to public property, and disruption of the public order, which threaten the security and stability of the United States.â Further down in the order, this includes organizations that support âchild abuse, including the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children or the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary States for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents, in violation of applicable lawâ as well as organizations that are âengaging in a pattern of aiding and abetting illegal discrimination.â
Both of these are common administration euphemisms for supporting transgender people and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.