Mr [Freddy] McConnell has lived as a man for a number of years and was undergoing a number of treatments, but stopped taking testosterone as he wished to get pregnant.
He transitioned from female to male and was legally recognised as a man before giving birth to his child in 2018. Despite this, when he went to register the birth, the registrar said he could only be registered as the mother.
That’s how to win your first #Wimbledon title… pic.twitter.com/khhebfswej
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 13, 2019
The British Sierra Leonean journalist Isha Sesay led CNN’s Africa reporting for more than decade — covering stories ranging from the Arab Spring to the death of Nelson Mandela.
But now, in her first book, titled Beneath the Tamarind Tree, Sesay has a chance to explore, in depth, the story most important to her career and closest to her heart: the ISIS-affiliated terrorist group Boko Haram’s 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from the northern Nigerian town of Chibok.
Sesay broke the story and followed it for years, despite government obfuscation and waning international interest after a wave of social media activism (remember #BringBackOurGirls?). For two years, 219 of the girls remained in captivity and 112 are still imprisoned.
In Beneath the Tamarind Tree, Sesay combines the released Chibok girls’ stories with her own journalistic experiences to powerful effect.
To author Isha Sesay, American viewers’ ability to forget the Chibok girls’ plight is symptomatic of a dangerous shortsightedness.
She writes that these horrors should be “right at the heart of the conversation about the global threats America is facing.” https://t.co/xHBwf7sN5c
— NPR (@NPR) July 10, 2019
#USA HAVE WON THE #FIFAWWC 2019! #LaGrandeFinale | #USANED🇺🇸🇳🇱 pic.twitter.com/sjDVeuXSXo
— FIFA Women's World Cup (@FIFAWWC) July 7, 2019
Drink it in, America!
The #USWNT will play for its fourth #FIFAWWC trophy on Sunday! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/DRu2n9skuG
— Yahoo Soccer (@FCYahoo) July 2, 2019
5 down. 2 to go. #OneNationOneTeam | #USWNT pic.twitter.com/tpyYhN055B
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) June 28, 2019
The Lionesses got off to the perfect start when Jill Scott tapped home Lucy Bronze’s cutback inside three minutes after a miss-kick from Ellen White, before a wonderful team move was finished off by White – taking her joint top of the World Cup goalscoring charts – five minutes before half time.
Bronze then put the icing on the victory with a fabulous strike from a well-worked free-kick in the 57th minute, with Nikita Parris even having penalty saved well by Norway keeper Ingrid Hjelmseth after England captain Steph Houghton was pushed in the box late on.
England will now face the winners of the match between France and USA in the last four and will fancy their chances after such an impressive showing in Le Havre.
The tournament’s fastest goal – timed at 126 seconds – put England on course for victory as veteran Scott finished after great work from Bronze to create the opening.
ENGLAND ARE BACK IN THE SEMIS! 🦁🏴
The Lionesses dominate Norway to make the final four for the second straight #FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/wcT1RnPsZT
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 27, 2019
At a time of religious tension, they are using their faith to unite their communities.
And tomorrow the work of women from a wide range of faith groups will be celebrated at a reception held by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
As a woman of deep personal faith, the Queen knows how powerful religion can be as a means of bringing people together when it is used for the common good.
Which is why, say aides, she was keen to hold a ‘faith reception’.
The Queen, who is head of the Church of England and holds the title Defender of the Faith, has invited both men and women representing religions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Baha’i.
“History suggests the honeymoon began in England in the 19th century when couples would travel the country visiting family and friends who couldn’t make it to their ceremony,” said Kara Bebell, who owns and operates the Travel Siblings, with her brother, Harlan deBell. (The New York-based company specializes in romantic getaways.)
Then the honeymoon evolved into the first time a couple got any prolonged alone time or to consummate the marriage. The modern honeymoon became more of an opportunity for newlyweds to celebrate alone and reconnect after the stress of a wedding.
In recent years, honeymoons have regressed, Ms. Bebell said. “Couples want validation from followers and friends,” she said, and oftentimes they do that with photos and hashtags.
Of all the sick social-media things I’ve read lately, this is one of the worst. We are a seriously disordered society.https://t.co/bhxZw75snr
— Fleming Rutledge (@flemingrut) June 24, 2019
The 49-year-old man and the child’s mother, who was single at the time, had been friends when he agreed to donate his semen in 2006.
They arranged to raise the child together but the pair later had a falling out, his lawyers said. The woman’s lawyers argued he was not the father.
However, the man was identified as a parent on the girl’s birth certificate and she called him “Daddy”.
On Wednesday, the High Court of Australia ruled that he had the legal status of a parent, effectively preventing the family from moving to New Zealand.
The judgement said: “To characterise the biological father of a child as a ‘sperm donor’ suggests that the man in question has relevantly done no more than provide his semen to facilitate an artificial conception procedure on the basis of an express or implied understanding that he is thereafter to have nothing to do with any child born as a result of the procedure.
“Those are not the facts of this case.”
Read it all (my emphasis).
Sperm donor is child’s legal father, Australian court rules https://t.co/e7V8MWLR65
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 19, 2019
Champion in Paris.@ashbar96 | #RG19 pic.twitter.com/fdbXlImtUm
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 8, 2019
A cricketer no more, Ashleigh Barty on Saturday confirmed the wisdom of her decision to return to professional tennis by winning the French Open, her first Grand Slam singles title.
She capped her comeback to the sport with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Marketa Vondrousova, an unseeded 19-year-old from the Czech Republic.
On paper, it was a surprise that Barty, a 23-year-old Australian, ended up the champion in Paris. She was seeded No. 8 and has played comparatively little on clay, arriving at Roland Garros with only a 15-13 career record on the surface.
“Today, I just kept telling myself: ‘I may never get this opportunity ever again. Try to grab it with both hands,’” Barty said.
As the battle against the Islamic State (IS) group in eastern Syria enters its final stages, the BBC’s Jewan Abdi says the mood amongst many of the jihadists’ supporters who have left the area, including many women, remains defiant.
The encampment in the village of Baghuz is barely more than a few holes in the dirt covered with blankets. It is squalid and filthy.
But above it flies the black Islamic State flag, fresh and clean. IS fighters had raised it only the day before, an act of defiance in the face of overwhelming odds.
“That’s a sign they will fight,” says a soldier belonging to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the front lines battling the jihadists.
Just 24 hours later the battle resumed. It was the end of a ceasefire that had seen more than 12,000 leave in the preceding few days.
Islamic State women defiant in face of lost caliphate https://t.co/bMUe4XR5zv
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 13, 2019
Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the six-time Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots was charged Friday with soliciting prostitution at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida. Not three days prior, the Martin County Sherriff’s Office hosted a press conference to announce the bust of a human trafficking ring involving numerous spas in three counties, including Orchids of Asia.
The evidence indicates that Chinese women were recruited and transported to the United States under the false promise of securing legitimate jobs, only to be held captive at the spas and coerced to transact for commercial sex. Male clients at Orchids of Day could purchase a female body at the rate of $59 for thirty minutes or $79 for one hour.
Sex trafficking generates annual profits of nearly $100 billion, according to the International Labour Organization, making it the most profitable form of slavery the world has ever seen. Under the United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act, sex trafficking involves the recruitment or transfer of a person; through force, fraud, or coercion; for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.
Churches and faith groups are making an important contribution to efforts to eliminate the global scourge of human trafficking, a UN human rights committee has heard.
Jack Palmer-White, the Anglican Communion’s Permanent Representative to the UN, outlined the many anti-trafficking initiatives being led by churches in a submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) this week.
The CEDAW is considering submissions on the issue of human trafficking as it prepares to make a ‘general recommendation’ to UN member states.
In his report, Mr Palmer-White asked that the general recommendation ‘reflects the key role that churches and other faith actors can, and do, play in the fight against trafficking of women and girls in the context of global migration’.
Examples of anti-trafficking work detailed in the report include a partnership between the US Embassy to Ghana and the Diocese of Accra which has led to the creation of a community shelter called Hope Village that rehabilitates rescued children, while holding the government of Ghana to account on its progress in eliminating trafficking.
Churches are playing a ‘key role’ in the fight against human trafficking https://t.co/rUjWtKMGUO
— Christian Today (@ChristianToday) February 20, 2019
Rebecca: Yes, they say if you didn’t convert to Islam you wouldn’t get home alive. That’s what they say.
Here are some of the girls two years ago right after they were released, alive but looking like concentration camp survivors, haunted and numb. This is Rebecca, skin and bones.
Lesley Stahl: I heard you were eating grass.
Rebecca: Yeah. Some of us eat that. And we are just be patient and live like that. No food. No anything.
Look at them today, in their 20s. They’re healthy and full of spirit at a school created just for them, paid for by the Nigerian government and some donors, where they are making up for lost time.
They’re from Northern Nigeria, where life can be hard and opportunities for women are limited. Now, in their Wi-Fi-equipped dorms, they have smart phones, and lap tops and their own beds.
They go back to Chibok to see their parents twice a year; over Christmas and during the summer.
Read it all (video highly recommended).
While in captivity, the Chibok girls, many of whom were Christian, were pressured to convert to Islam. They were also deprived of food. Some ate grass to survive. https://t.co/sUqbWBg7cA
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 18, 2019
🏆 C H A M P I O N 🏆@Naomi_Osaka_ #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/Mdgg6BrNCg
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 26, 2019
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, for securing this debate. It is a great honour to be taking part and to listen to the contributions of so many amazing supporters of women and girls. I should also like to draw attention to my interests as set out in the register.
Following previous speakers, I too should like to reinforce what has been said about violence and access to education. As has been said, before, during and after conflict girls face both physical and sexual violence. It is important to note that trauma follows adolescent girls when they flee from conflict, whether they become refugees or are internally displaced. There is a high risk of sexual abuse in overcrowded, unsanitary and unsafe refugee areas. Girls face not only prostitution and the risk of early marriage; they also face isolation and a lack of access to healthcare and psychological support. I would like to ask the Minister: what specific action are the Government currently taking to support girls in these vulnerable places, and how will rebuilding peace after conflict specifically involve support for these girls?
This year, when the Government will host an international meeting on preventing sexual violence, will there be a focus on support for girls in particular? Where a country experiences violence, women and girls also face increased domestic violence in the home. Can the Minister let us know when the Government plan to introduce domestic legislation that will allow the UK to ratify the Istanbul convention? In particular, UK nationals must be able to be tried in UK courts for domestic violence committed against women abroad.
Rachel Treweek is next Bishop of Gloucester, first female diocesan bishop in CofE http://t.co/XuBfFcGl3u pic.twitter.com/ZHGLnMCcvv
— The Church of England (@churchofengland) March 26, 2015
Saudi Arabia drew international plaudits last year when it lifted a longstanding ban on women driving.
However, restrictions on women remain – most notably, the “male guardianship system”, a woman’s father, brother, husband or son has the authority to make critical decisions on her behalf.
These restrictions were highlighted in early January, when a young Saudi woman fleeing her family barricaded herself in a hotel room in Bangkok saying she feared imprisonment if she was sent back home.
A Saudi woman is required to obtain a male relative’s approval approval to apply for a passport, travel outside the country, study abroad on a government scholarship, get married, leave prison, or even exit a shelter for abuse victims.
“This is something that affects every Saudi woman and girl, from birth to death. They are essentially treated like minors,” the Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy told the BBC.
At the height of her fame, Sayers was asked to write a play to be performed in Canterbury Cathedral for an annual festival. Having spent 15 years writing about a sexually adept aristocrat who entered churches more for aesthetic contemplation than spiritual renewal, Sayers hesitated. She finally accepted the commission, due, most likely, to the prestige of her predecessors in the job, T. S. Eliot and Charles Williams.
However, in writing a play about the 12th-century architect who rebuilt part of Canterbury Cathedral after its fiery destruction, Sayers experienced her own baptism by fire. As though a hot coal had touched her lips, she began speaking, through her characters, about the relevance of Christian doctrine to the integrity of work. Intriguing even professional theologians, her play ends with an angel announcing that humans manifest the “image of God,” the imago Dei, through creativity. After all, the Bible chapter proclaiming the imago Dei presents God not as judge or lawgiver but as Creator: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27).
Even more radically, Sayers’s angel suggests that creativity is Trinitarian. Any creative work has three distinct components: the Creative Idea, the Creative Energy “begotten of that Idea,” and the Creative Power that is “the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul.” Indeed, Sayers’s angel says of Idea, Energy, and Power, “these three are one.”
Called The Zeal of Thy House, Sayers’s 1937 play ran for 100 performances, having moved from Canterbury to London’s West End. Audiences valued its unusual communication of Christian belief. Rather than endorsing pietistic practices, it celebrated the sanctity of work; rather than obsessing over sexual sins, it denounced arrogant pride as the “eldest sin of all.” The play’s self-aggrandizing protagonist, a womanizer who believes he alone can make the cathedral great again, is humbled by a crippling fall. Only then does he abandon his narcissistic need for mastery and acclaim, telling God, “to other men the glory / And to Thy Name alone.”
Perhaps too subtle, but masterful @CTmagazine article about Dorothy Sayers as a reluctant prophet being relevant at time when “political passions have become the new piety”. Well done @crystalldowning. https://t.co/6vgVQl8PMR pic.twitter.com/0aiEtGxXBM
— Tom Long (@Tom4Surfing) June 14, 2018
During her final speaking tours, she joked about black Catholics kneeling at altars carved out of fine Italian marble. These black Catholics gazed at sacred images carved by European artists many centuries after the lives of numerous early church saints who lived and worshipped in the lands already being called “Africa.”
“I know that people are looking for sources of hope and courage and strength,” she told me, clasping a warm robe with hands thinned by cancer. “I know that it’s important to have special people to look up to. … But, see, I think all of us in the church are supposed to be that kind of person for each other.”
In her 1989 talks, she constantly returned to images of faith, family and the ties that bind through the generations. Bowman talked about workaholic parents who give their children toys – but little of their own time. She talked about broken homes and marriages. She praised parents that set a strict, but loving, example – showing children they “aren’t fools … who will tolerate insanity.”
“Remember the old days? … Remember those old family stories? You didn’t know they were telling you WHO you are and WHOSE you are,” she said, urgently. “Hard times test us. … This is family business, people. This is the church and we are the family and we have to take care of family business. … I am not talking about the way of the WORLD. I am talking about the way of the CHURCH.”
All the people said, “Amen.”
Iconic Xavier Faculty Member Thea Bowman Recommended for Sainthood in Catholic Church #hbcu #saintthea #xula #catholic https://t.co/DfSDQxteCe pic.twitter.com/VHsVPRwUkZ
— HBCU DIGEST (@HBCUDigest) November 30, 2018
Dorothy grew up with a secret longing for spiritual truth which she successfully ignored for a number of years in which she had an affair, was deserted by her feckless lover, had an abortion – “the great tragedy of her life” – twice attempted suicide, made a brief unsuccessful marriage and then entered into a common-law relationship which, paradoxically (God can use any circumstance to effect transformation, however seemingly unpropitious) was the direct cause of her conversion.
Living in a beach house on Staten Island during her last relationship, she unexpectedly became pregnant and felt that God had given her a second chance at motherhood. Not yet a Catholic she wanted baptism for her baby daughter, Tamar, while knowing that it would mean the end of her relationship to the anarchist and free spirit, Forster Batterham, with whom she had set up home.
Dorothy wrote later that it only slowly dawned on her that “worship, adoration, thanksgiving, supplication – these were the noblest acts of which men were capable in this life.” From her earliest years she had had a strong social conscience; now her Catholic faith gave her the spiritual underpinning to live out this deep humanitarian impulse and to love those at the bottom of the social heap for the rest of her life.
For Dorothy the acute question was, was it possible “to promote and live according to the ideas of Catholic Social teaching and philosophy in a way that would serve others and promote the common good?”
"Love casts out fear, but we have to get over the fear in order to get close enough to love them".
~Dorothy Day
8 Nov. 1897-29 Nov. 1980
Painting by Ruben Ferreira#dorothyday #thecatholicworker#thedutyofdelight pic.twitter.com/wKDtGVbeIl— Marlinda Stull (@binkyboo42) November 29, 2018
Thank you @BethMooreLPM for using your voice to help pave a better path for those of us called to teach and preach and everything in between! https://t.co/MMuKqFRrVR
— Jenny Jones (@jennyjones76) November 14, 2018
The much-maligned but longstanding idea that women enjoy discussing their emotions while men are mostly excited by cars may be true after all.
Scientists conducting the world’s largest study of sex differences in the brain found men were more likely to prefer “things” and “systems”, while women were more interested in people and emotions. Men were almost twice as likely as women to be “systems-orientated” rather than empathetic and vice versa.
Scientists at Cambridge University surveyed more than 650,000 people and said that their results confirmed two theories: first, the empathising- systemising theory of sex differences, which predicts that, at the population level, men will be more excited by coding, for instance, while women will be more attuned to feelings; second, the extreme male brain theory, which predicts that the brains of autistic people are more “masculine” than is typical for their sex, in that they are more systems-focused.
The twin theories, from the Cambridge scientist Simon Baron-Cohen, are controversial and have previously been described as “neurosexism”.
Read it all (subscription required).
Men and women really do think differently, say scientists https://t.co/XjITQHPa2O #science #anthropology #gender #gognition #pyschology
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 13, 2018
A Christian gynecologist who has dedicated his career to caring for victims of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been awarded a 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.
Denis Mukwege, nicknamed “Dr. Miracle” for his specialized procedures, was a co-recipient for the annual honor alongside Nadia Murad, a Yazidi activist who survived rape and kidnapping by ISIS in Iraq. The Nobel committee said both winners modeled “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.”
Over the past 20 years, Mukwege has treated tens of thousands of women in Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, many of who had been gang raped by militants in the midst of the country’s conflict, left scarred and stigmatized.
His faith influences his approach to caring for patients holistically, “not only to treat women—their body, [but] also to fight for their own right, to bring them to be autonomous, and, of course, to support them psychologically. And all of this is a process of healing so women can regain their dignity,” he told NPR.
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner says his faith inspires him to treat women not only physically, but “to support them psychologically. And all of this is a process of healing so women can regain their dignity” https://t.co/zFGEX8JPsZ
— Morgan Pomaika’i Lee (@Mepaynl) October 5, 2018
Heterosexual couples in England and Wales will be able to choose to have a civil partnership rather than get married, Theresa May has announced.
The government says the move will provide greater security for unmarried couples and their families.
And it will address the “imbalance” that allows same-sex couples to enter a civil partnership or get married – a choice denied to heterosexual couples.
The current system was found in June to be in breach of European law.
There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of bell hooks, or recognize the name only vaguely. But if you follow the turmoil on American college campuses, you’re indirectly aware of her influence. Leftist scholars—and nonscholars too, increasingly—put her in the pantheon of thinkers whose names every educated person should recognize: Plato, Descartes, Marx.
Born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952, Ms. hooks uses a lowercase pen name “to focus attention on her message rather than herself,” the Encyclopaedia Britannica reports, not altogether plausibly. That message begins with the “intersectionality” theory—the claim that racism, sexism and similar types of oppression compound each other’s effects—and advises social-justice warriors (or SJWs) on how to respond.
SJWs often resemble religious fundamentalists, and faith and spirituality are central to Ms. hooks’s vision. “Truly, there can be no feminist transformation of our culture without a transformation in our religious beliefs,” she writes in “Feminism Is for Everybody” (2000). She describes “fundamentalist patriarchal religion” as a barrier to “the spread of feminist thought and practice.”
She reserves particular vitriol for Christianity, “which condones sexism and male domination” and “informs all the ways we learn about gender roles in this society.” But Ms. hooks’s take on Christianity draws more from experience than scholarship….
Moore was flying home from a ministry event in October 2016 when she decided to compose the tweets that changed her life. That weekend, she had glimpsed headlines about Donald Trump’s 2005 comments on the now infamous Access Hollywood tape. But it wasn’t until that plane ride, with newspapers and transcripts spread out in front of her, that Moore learned the full extent of it—including the reaction of some Christian leaders who, picking up a common line of spin, dismissed the comments as “locker-room talk.”
“I was like, ‘Oh no. No. No,’ ” Moore told me. “I was so appalled.” Trump’s ugly boasting felt personal to her: Many of her followers have confided to her that they’ve suffered abuse, and Moore herself says she was sexually abused as a small child by someone close to her family—a trauma she has talked about publicly, though never in detail.
The next day, Moore wrote a few short messages to her nearly 900,000 followers. “Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power,” she said in one tweet. “Are we sickened? Yes. Surprised? NO.” Like other women, Moore wrote, she had been “misused, stared down, heckled, talked naughty to.” As pastors took to the airwaves to defend Trump, she was trying to understand how “some Christian leaders don’t think it’s that big a deal.”
The tweets upended Moore’s cheerful, feminine world. Breitbart News claimed that Moore was standing “in the gap for Hillary Clinton,” borrowing a turn of phrase from the Book of Ezekiel. Moore did not support Clinton; she told me she voted for a third-party candidate in 2016. But she was horrified by church leaders’ reflexive support of Trump. To Moore, it wasn’t just a matter of hypocrisy, of making a deal with the devil that would deliver a Supreme Court seat, among other spoils. Moore believes that an evangelical culture that demeans women, promotes sexism, and disregards accusations of sexual abuse enabled Trump’s rise.
The Tiny Blond Bible Teacher Taking on the Evangelical Political Machine | Interesting article in @TheAtlantic https://t.co/GG09ygg5oN pic.twitter.com/fYBhobJUdr
— Sean McDowell (@Sean_McDowell) September 18, 2018
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
You need to take the time to watch it all. If you cannot handle it visually please read the transcript there.
From here:
The sexual revolution, universally assumed to be a boon for randy men, has turned out to be in at least one respect much more conducive to satisfying women’s preferences than men’s. Men may have started it, or at least egged it on, hoping that with the old restraints gone, they would be free to indulge. But they forgot or never understood a fundamental law of nature: throughout the animal kingdom—up to and including Homo sapiens—males merely display; females choose. When a woman’s choice is completely free of all social, legal, familial, and religious boundaries, she prefers to hold out for “the best.” Hence a constrained-supply problem arises.
Four years ago, a University of North Carolina co-ed lamented to the New York Times that the sex imbalance on college campuses (nationally, 43% male, 57% female as of fall 2014) is even worse for girls than it looks. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent.”
(Hat tip:AR)
Angelique Kerber: "It means a lot to me, knowing I’m a member here, that’s something huge, I can say that’s forever. Even in 30 years I can come here and watch the tennis" #wimbledon https://t.co/c2XCk59Sl7
— Reem Abulleil (@ReemAbulleil) July 15, 2018