What’s Current: Report calls Twitter ‘world’s biggest dataset of online abuse targeting women’

  • A report by Amnesty International and Element AI, an artificial intelligence software company, shows that women are subjected to widespread abuse on Twitter, compiling a database of over 1.1 million abusive or threatening tweets sent to just 778 women over the course of a year.
  • The Scottish National Health Service advises staff to call people “they,” instead of “he,” or “she,” in order to avoid potentially offending a trans-identified person. A freedom of information request made to NHS Lothian has also revealed that the service can no longer guarantee any female-only care provision. The Times reports:

“One health board, NHS Lothian, said that it was unable to guarantee that female-only care would not be undertaken by a transgender doctor. It said in response to a freedom of information request: ‘Unless the practitioner consented, to exclude them from carrying out female-only care would be a breach of section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and a criminal offence. There are also restrictions under the Equality Act 2010 around requiring staff to disclose their gender identity and staff selection on this basis.

For these reasons, NHS Lothian does not have any policy to guarantee that a legally female member of staff carrying out female-only care as requested by a patient, will be biologically female.'”

  • The Japanese health ministry is ending what’s been called a “pregnancy tax” surcharge added to pregnant women’s medical appointments, starting this April, after it proved unpopular.
  • Experts on women’s issues, including programmers and city planners, have been working to make cities safer for women through mobile apps, public space redesigns, and active security measures.
  • Victims of sexual violence claim that the NYPD has been forcing some women to sign paperwork declaring their cases “unfounded,” or describing themselves as “uncooperative complainants,” allowing police to close their cases without performing an investigation.
Natasha Chart

Natasha Chart is an online organizer and feminist living in the United States. She does not recant her heresy.