In The Guardian

In December, five years later than promised, the Tories finally delivered draft, non-statutory guidance for schools on “gender questioning children”. It provoked criticism and concerns from all sides, and is open for consultation until March. But whatever its final form, one aspect of the guidance has gone largely unnoticed.

The document doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about this government’s hostile stance on trans identities, inclusion and rights; but, unfortunately, what it does do is further solidify in official documentation and language the politicised phrase “gender identity ideology”. The government is attempting to bring into the mainstream this contested term, a creation of rightwing sex and gender conservatism that dates back to the 1990s, and which forms a key part of renewed attacks against the LGBTQ+ community.

As used in this context, the phrase “gender identity ideology” is actually nothing to do with gender, as in masculinity and femininity, and how this shapes our identities. Instead, it is used to imply that trans, transgender and gender non-conforming identities are a new fad, and that the longstanding social justice movement for trans rights is really a recent conspiracy of nefarious elites.

The use of terms such as “gender identity ideology”, “gender identity” and “social transition” serve to obscure the ideology of gender that members of this government, like all sex and gender conservatives, merrily adhere to themselves, and enforce on us all. Gender ideology is real, but it wasn’t invented by trans men or trans women, and it doesn’t just apply to trans or transgender people. The real gender ideology is the binary sex and gender system that requires all of us to be either male-masculine-heterosexual or female-feminine-heterosexual; and which attaches harsh penalties to those who deviate from this script. Almost all of us will have been socialised on to pink or blue paths from birth, if not by our immediate family, then by the books, TV, toys, clothes and adverts that surrounded us in wider society. This socially prescribed gender informs our gender identity.

US senators have defeated a measure, introduced by Bernie Sanders, that would have made military aid to Israel conditional on whether the Israeli government is violating human rights and international accords in its devastating war in Gaza.

A majority of senators struck down the proposal on Tuesday evening, with 72 voting to kill the measure, and 11 supporting it. Although Sanders’ effort was easily defeated, it was a notable test that reflected growing unease among Democrats over US support for Israel.

The measure was a first-of-its-kind tapping into a decades-old law that would require the US state department to, within 30 days, produce a report on whether the Israeli war effort in Gaza is violating human rights and international accords. If the administration failed to do so, US military aid to Israel, long assured without question, could be quickly halted.

Australia has supported the US and UK militaries as they launched more than a dozen airstrikes against sites used by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

The US president, Joe Biden, confirmed the strikes, which are the most significant military response to the Houthis’ campaign of drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, said the decision to launch the strikes “was not taken lightly”.

[…]

Asked if the US-led attacks risked escalating tensions in the region, Marles said defending freedom of navigation and global trade routes was “utterly central to Australia’s national interest”.

Welcome to Vienna, the city that may have cracked the code of how to keep inner-city housing affordable. As other cities battle spiralling rental prices, partly fuelled by inner-city apartments being used as short-term holiday rentals or being kept strategically vacant by property speculators, the Austrian capital bucks the trend. In the place that last year retained its crown as the world’s most livable city in the Economist’s annual index, Vienna’s renters on average pay roughly a third of their counterparts in London, Paris or Dublin, according to a recent study by the accounting firm Deloitte.

Part of the reason Schranz’s apartment is so affordable is simple: it’s owned by the city. In Vienna, that is (almost) the norm. The landlord of approximately 220,000 socially rented apartments, it is the largest home-owning city in Europe (in London, which has more than 800,000 socially rented apartments, they are owned by the local councils). A quarter of the people who live in Vienna are social tenants – if you also include the approximately 200,000 co-operative dwellings built with municipal subsidies, it’s more than half the population.

2023 “smashed” the record for the hottest year by a huge margin, providing “dramatic testimony” of how much warmer and more dangerous today’s climate is from the cooler one in which human civilisation developed.

The planet was 1.48C hotter in 2023 compared with the period before the mass burning of fossil fuels ignited the climate crisis. The figure is very close to the 1.5C temperature target set by countries in Paris in 2015, although the global temperature would need to be consistently above 1.5C for the target to be considered broken.

Scientists at the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (CCCS) said it was likely the 1.5C mark will be passed for the first time in the next 12 months.

As 2023 ends, Britain may not be facing a famine, as people are in north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen or Somalia, but that is a low bar. The UK’s current levels of food insecurity will damage physical and mental health and increase health inequalities for years to come.

The Food Foundation tracks moderate or severe food insecurity in the UK, which is defined as how many people in the past month had smaller meals or skipped meals; had been hungry but not eaten; or had not eaten for a whole day – each because of lack of access or inability to afford food. In June 2023, the latest tracker, 9 million adults in the UK, 17% of households, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity (a massive rise from 7.3% in June 2021). Nearly a quarter of households with children experienced food insecurity.

The French city of Montpellier in southern France became the latest European metropolis to allow all its residents to ride public transport for free.

The entire European country of Luxembourg including its capital of the same name scrapped fares in 2020, after Estonia’s capital Tallinn introduced the policy in 2013.

From Thursday evening, Montpellier residents with a special pass were able to ride trams and buses free of charge in the southern city.

Visitors and tourists will still have to pay 1.60 euro ($1.70) a trip.

Michael Delafosse, the Socialist mayor of the city of 500,000 people, promised free public transport when he was elected in 2020.

England has more than twice as many long-term empty homes this Christmas as there are children living in temporary accommodation, the Liberal Democrats have said, calling this a stark indication of a “broken” housing market.

The numbers of families without a permanent home and in short-term housing, whether hotels and B&Bs or temporary rental properties, has hit a record high this year, with the latest statistics showing it now affects 121,327 children, according to data collated by the House of Commons library.

Other figures, also compiled by the library, show that councils across England have 261,189 homes that are classed as long-term vacant, meaning they have been empty for six months or more.

The Centrelink officer on the end of the phone to Eve* was telling her she was dead. Eve, 74, who receives a carer payment, had called after she noticed an extra $3,000 from Centrelink in her 81-year-old husband’s account in May this year, and she was concerned they had been overpaid.

After calling multiple times, she reached someone from Services Australia who looked up her account history.

“As far as we are concerned you are deceased,” the officer said.

The $3,000 was a bereavement payment made to her husband. It was then followed by a letter to him apologising for his loss, and letting him know she had been overpaid by a small amount, that would need to be returned, and that Centrelink would be contacting her bank.

Within a few weeks, all her records were wiped, her bank accounts were shut down, her energy concessions for the Gold Coast council were withdrawn and she could not even book an Uber.

Future access to physical cash is now under a cloud, according to Australia’s primary cash transit company, amid a sharp decline in the use of notes and coins.

The Linfox-owned Armaguard has warned that its distribution operations are unsustainable due to falling demand, sparking emergency meetings with Australia’s major banks. The Reserve Bank, which prints and issues currency, is also involved in the discussions.

The concern is that if Armaguard, which has a near monopoly over physical cash distribution in Australia, were to reduce or cease deliveries, there would be an immediate shortage.

This would impact its major clients, including banks, post offices, supermarkets and other major retailers, which would curtail the availability of cash for the community.