Author: Brian Carnell

UK Court Rejects Transsexuals Lawsuit Over Bathroom Privileges

A British judge this month rejected a lawsuit by a group of transsexuals who argued they suffered sexual discrimination at a pub. The five transsexuals were asked to leave a pub after they used the women’s restroom.

The men sued and were backed up by the UK’s Equal Opportunities Commission. The transsexuals each sought 2,000 pounds from the pub owner.

But a judge ruled that the UK’s Sex Discrimination Act does not provide protection specifically for transsexuals. The judge ruled that since the transsexuals were biologically men, that the pub owner was well within his rights to ask them to leave if they could not refrain from using the women’s restroom.

Source:

Landlord right to treat transsexual customers as men. Nick Britten, Daily Telegraph (London), August 15, 2003.

Transsexuals Lose Case. Sky news, August 14, 2003.

Should Older, Lonely Women Considering Becoming Lesbians?

Australia’s government-funded Relationships Australia has a bit of advice for older single women having trouble finding companionship — give lesbianism a try! Seriously.

The Herald Sun quoted Relationships Australia spokesman Jack Carney as saying,

As they get over 60, opportunities [for women] to get a man diminish substantially. Men marry younger women and they die about eight years younger, so there is a real male shortage.

And as women get even older it gets much worse, so we ask them to entertain the idea of lesbian relationships.

Source:

Older women urged to become lesbians. Herald Sun, August 10, 2003.

UK Children, But Not Parents, Given Right to Sue for False Child Abuse Claims

A Court of Appeals in Great Britain in July rejected claims of parents who wanted to sue doctors and social workers over false claims of child abuse, but it did rule that children involved in such cases could sue doctors and social workers.

In the UK doctors and social workers are legally obligated to report any suspected abuse. The Court of Appeals heard the claims of three couples who wanted to sue health care and social workers for negligence for falsely accusing them of abuse and, in one case, taking a child away from parents for almost 9 months.

In one case a woman was accused of Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, but ultimately it turned out that the child in question simply had severe allergies. In another case a father was accused of abusing his daughter, but it later turned out that she had a rare skin disease. Finally, an infant daughter was removed from the home of a couple for more than nine months after the girl’s parents were accused of breaking her leg. The girl was later diagnosed with a rare genetic condition which renders the bones extremely brittle.

The Court of Appeals ruled that although parents had no grounds to sue, that the children did under the Human Rights Act which requires the state to protect the rights of children. The court’s decision will likely be appealed.

Sources:

Children can sue over abuse claims. The BBC, July 31, 2003.

Victims of child care errors win right to sue. Clare Dyer, The Guardian, August 1, 2003.

Domestic Violence Advocate Convicted of Second-Degree Murder

Oregon domestic violence advocate Lorraine Netherton was convicted in July of second degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Desiere Rants. Rants was literally caught in the middle of a custody battle that Netherton was trying to resolve.

Until last year, Netherton was chair of the Federal Way Domestic Violence Task Force. She was forced out in a vote of the members of the task force, however, who were concerned about “her violent temper and her penchant for carrying handguns.”

Netherton, 40, had agreed to help a neighbor with her child custody battle. Netherton was trying to serve the father of the child, William Rants, with court papers. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Netherton spotted William Rants in a car with his daughter, and engaged in a car chase of William Rants.

At the end of that car chase, William Rants and his daughter exited the driver’s side door of the car and Desiere Rants, his sister, exited from the passenger side. Desiere got between William and Netherton apparently to try to keep them apart. Netherton claimed that Desiere hit her, and so she fired two shots into the woman’s upper body, killing her.

Both witnesses and physical evidence contradicted her claims, however. Although Netherton testified that Desiere Rants had hit her 6-8 times in the head and face, there was no evidence of any injury and even Netherton’s makeup remained undisturbed. Moreover, witnesses testified that Netherton fired without provocation at Desiere and then stood over her and fired at her again as she lay on the ground.

The jury settled on a conviction for second degree murder after spending two days debating and ultimately rejecting a conviction for first degree (premeditated) murder. Netherton plans to appeal, and could face 16-25 years for the murder if her conviction is not overturned.

Sources:

Domestic-violence foe guilty of second-degree murder. Tracy Johnson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 19, 2003.

Woman charged in fatal custody-case shooting. Hector Castro, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 28, 2002.

Domestic violence worker guilty of murder. Kathleen R. Merrill, King County Journal, July 19, 2003.

Ex-advocate for violence victims is charged in slaying Maureen O’Hagan, Seattle Times, November 28, 2002.

Human Rights Watch Report on Nigerian Riots

Nigeria erupted into riots in November 2002 after a reporter opined that Mohammed would likely not only have approved of the Miss World beauty pageant, but would likely have taken one of the contestants for his wife. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and others castigated the woman who made that remark, causing her to flee the country for her own safety.

Now a Human Rights Watch report on the incident claims that the Nigerian police and military, among others, fanned the flames of the riots and used the outbreak of violence as cover for extrajudicial killings of political and ethnic opponents.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, Nigerian police did nothing to restrain Muslim protesters who reacted with violence to the newspaper article,

<blockquote.A group of protesters composed primarily of young Muslim men, believed to include students from Kaduna Polytechnic, arrived at the Kaduna office of ThisDay in three buses; others used motorcycles. They attacked and burned the newspaper?s regional office on Attahiru Road Malali, ransacked the newspaper depot and distribution centre and made bonfires out of piles of newspapers. There were no casualties, as the newspaper staff were not on the premises at the time. At no point did the police intervene to stop the violence by the protesters or make any arrests, despite the fact that the office of ThisDay was attacked in broad daylight and in full view of many residents and passers-by.

As to the extra-judicial killings by police and military, the Human Rights Watch report alleges,

Human Rights Watch uncovered detailed information on extrajudicial killings of civilians by both the police and the military during the three days of rioting in Kaduna. Instead of restoring law and order, in several instances members of the security forces turned against the very people they were supposed to protect. In some cases, the victims were boys or young men who were shot because they were caught breaking the curfew; in other cases, people were killed or injured when the police or military fired to deter rioting; other people were hit by stray bullets. In a number of instances, the police or military, taking advantage of the general chaos, targeted particular individuals with the specific intention of killing them. Overall, however, it was difficult to ascertain the exact reasons why members of the security forces shot particular individuals or groups of individuals. Despite several efforts, Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm the level at which orders were given for the police and the military to use lethal force. However, these cases form part of a well-documented pattern of extrajudicial killings by the security forces in the context of attempts to restore law and order in Nigeria.

Despite promises by Obsanjano that the perpetrators of the violence would be brought to justice and compensation paid to the victims of the violence, Human Rights Watch reports that neither promise has come close to being fulfilled. Not a single person, for example, was ever arrested in connection with the attack on ThisDay.

Source:

Nigerian police ‘fanned riots’. Alistair Leithead, The BBC, July 21, 2003.

The ?Miss World Riots?: Continued Impunity for Killings in Kaduna. Human Rights Watch, July 3, 2003.

British Gov’t Workers Required to Report Inter-Office Sexual Liasions

UK newspaper The Observer reports that fears of sexual harassment lawsuits have prompted many government agencies in Great Britain to require employees to report any sexual relationships they are having with their colleagues to their respective human resources department.

And such fears appear to be well-founded. According to The Observer,

Research by academics at the University of Sydney suggests that almost a quarter of failed office relationships end in sexual harassment cases, and a survey in America by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 52 per cent of companies believe they suffer in some way because of romance in the workplace. Nearly a third of employees quizzed said they feared office affairs would end in claims of sexual harassment. Small wonder then that 95 per cent of personnel managers said they believed office romances should not be allowed or, at least, should be discouraged.

Which, of course, takes further along the road to where Daphne Patai predicted the sexual harassment industry was eventually headed — to stigmatizing heterosexual relationships as inherently suspect.

Are two of your coworkers sleeping together? Well, clearly, somebody should be watching that situation to make certain it doesn’t get out of hand. As Patai put it, “Two fundamentally opposing world views are currently in collision. One of them sees sex (especially male sexuality) as a perpetual danger. The other sees sex as primarily a source of pleasure for both women and men.”

Clearly the former are in charge in the UK.

Source:

Personnel affair. The Observer, July 20, 2003.