Reject commercial surrogacy as another form of human trafficking

The practice of reproductive surrogacy is in the news in Australia because of the story of a Thai child, Gammy, a twin who was apparently abandoned by the buyers because he was sick. They took his healthy sister. This story should not be seen as just an individual bad news story. It has much to tell […]


The Transgendering of Children: Gender Eugenics

Child image

This article argues that the emerging practice of transgendering children should be seen as a form of gender eugenics which has similarities with the practice of sexual surgeries carried out as a result of eugenics ideas in the early twentieth century. In the earlier period those suffering severe poverty, homosexuals, criminals, people with mental health […]


Comment on harmful practices: the transgendering of children as a harmful emerging practice in Australia –

Child in make-up image

Comment by Sheila Jeffreys addressed to Chairperson of CEDAW and Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, May 2011. “The practice of transgendering children is on the rise in Australia and internationally and should be understood as an “emerging” harmful cultural practice. In this practice children are diagnosed by psychiatrists as suffering […]


The McCarthyism of Transgender and the Sterilization of Transgender Children – April 2011

A brief excerpt from Sheila Jeffreys addressing the McCarthyism of Transgender and the Sterilization of Transgender Children is transcribed below. Podcast available here.    “Radical feminist theory was and is particularly revolutionary because it means a total transformation of male domination. So it means the removal of it at its most basic level. It means […]


Judicial child abuse: The family court of Australia, gender identity disorder, and the ‘Alex’ case

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In April 2004, the Family Court of Australia made the decision that a 13-year-old girl, said to be suffering from gender identity disorder (GID), should be treated as a boy and embark upon a course of female hormone treatment to suppress menstruation. The treatment is expected to change to the administration of male hormones at […]


Challenging the Child/Adult Distinction in Theory and Practice on Prostitution

Child on swing image

This article argues that contemporary concern about ending child prostitution is misdirected in its strategy. Some theorists and activists, even the ILO, are seeking to create a distinction between adult and child prostitution as if child prostitution could be ended whilst adult prostitution remains intact. The motivation for the distinction relies upon trends in the […]