#Office For National Statistics (ONS)

[coochiequeens]

Yes it's form a conservative source. But it's one of the few articles that doesn't focus on reproductive purchasers who felt entitled to a child.

by Emma Waters, @EMLWATERS

Olivia Maurel was 30 years old when an ancestry DNA test confirmed what she had known all along: she is the product of a costly commercial surrogacy contract. In Olivia’s case, the woman that her parents paid to gestate and birth Olivia is also her biological mother. 

In a recent article with Daily Mail, Olivia shared how “becoming a parent myself — entirely naturally, in my mid-20s — has only crystallized my view. The sacred bond between mother and baby is, I feel, something that should never be tampered with.” After going viral for her testimony before the parliament of the Czech Republic, Olivia now campaigns for the universal abolition of surrogacy. 

In the United States, only three states prohibit or do not enforce commercial surrogacy contracts. One of the states, Michigan, is poised to overturn their ban on surrogacy-for-pay through a nine-bill “Access to Fertility Healthcare Package.” Legislators are tying their efforts to the national conversation on in vitro fertilization in hopes of garnering additional support. I detail the concerns with this legislation in detail here, but suffice it to say it undermines motherhood by reducing the intimate relationship between a woman and the child she carries to a highly-lucrative rental agreement. 

Several well-respected researchers and pundits claim that surrogacy does not harm children. Yet we know very little about its long-term impact on a child’s psychological well-being. 

Most of those who assert that surrogacy is psychologically harmless rely on a longitudinal study by Susan Golombok, Professor Emerita of Family Research, and former Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of We Are Family (2020), a synthesis of 40 years of research on non-traditional family structures—same-sex, single parent by choice, and the use of all forms of assisted reproductive technology, including third-party conception. She concludes that such arrangements pose no additional harm and can benefit children.

Professor Golombok’s “Families Created Through Surrogacy” study began in 2003 and assessed parental and child psychological adjustment at ages 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, and 14. The impact of this single longitudinal study on both public opinion and policy cannot be overstated. To date, it is the only study that specifically examines the surrogate-born child’s psychological adjustment, as well as the only study to do so over an extended period. It is also the only research on child psychological well-being that policymakers in New York used to argue for the legalization of commercial surrogacy. 

Professor Golombok’s sample of surrogacy families comes from the General Register Office of the United Kingdom for National Statistics (ONS) and from the UK’s “Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy” (COTS) agency. The original sample included 42 surrogate-born children but declined to a mere 28 children by age 14. The study relied on a group of families formed through egg donation and children born of natural conception to serve as the comparison groups. 

With such a small sample size, and some families participating inconsistently year-to-year, the study itself runs the risk of selection bias and non-representative outcomes. The study lumps both children born through gestational surrogacy and traditional surrogacy together, too. This means some surrogates are both the genetic mother and the child's gestational mother. 

Additionally, only altruistic surrogacy is legal in the UK, so these arrangements do not involve surrogates who legally receive an additional sum of money, beyond generous reimbursements. For context, surrogacy-for-pay brings in an additional $25,000 to $70,000 in the United States, which may affect how a child views his or her conception, gestation, and birth. 

In each study, the scholars rely on the mother’s own assessment of the child’s well-being. It is not until age 14 when scholars begin to directly ask children questions to assess their self-esteem.

Overall, Professor Golombok concludes that children born from surrogacy agreements of any sort do as well, if not better, psychologically than their natural-born peers. 

For ages 1, 2, and 3, Professor Golombok finds that parents in surrogacy families showed “greater warmth and attachment-related behavior” than natural-conception parents. One explanation for this, as Professor Golombok’s notes, is that “parents of children born in this way [may] make a greater attempt than parents of naturally conceived children to present their families in the best possible light.” Such a bias seems likely, given that parents may feel the subconscious desire to justify their uncommon path to parenthood. 

By age 7, both surrogate-born children and donor-conceived children in the control group were doing noticeably worse than their natural-born counterparts. This is the point when many children learned of their biological or gestational origins. The scholars note that this corresponds with adoption literature as the period in a child’s life when they begin to comprehend the loss of one or both biological parents. What goes unnoted, however, is that unlike adoption, surrogacy is the intentional creation of a child for the express purpose of removing the child from his or her gestational and/or biological parent(s). 

Beginning at age 10, scholars report that the child’s psychological adjustment returns to a relatively normal state compared to the natural-born children, but the study itself reports little data compared to previous papers. By age 14, when the study concludes, the remaining 28 children seem to fare about the same as natural-born children, despite slightly more psychological problems reported. 

Despite these methodological limitations, Professor Golombok’s data from this longitudinal study remains the basis of child psychological adjustment research on surrogacy. Examples of this may be found in prominent pieces such as Vanessa Brown Calder's review of surrogacy at the Cato Institute or Cremieux Recueil's widely shared Substack with Aporia Magazine. Their conclusions that surrogacy confers “no harm” to the psychological well-being of the child are premature, to say the least.

In Calder’s article, she cites three studies in her discussion on the psychological well-being of surrogate-born children. A quick review of each study shows that these authors rely solely on Professor Golombok’s longitudinal study data to draw their conclusions. 

In Recueil’s Substack, "Surrogacy: Looking for Harm," he primarily relies on Golombok’s work to claim that “psychological harm appears to be minimal.” Again, this statement is premature and formed on limited data primarily from her longitudinal study. The other five citations in the “Psychological Outcomes for Kids” section tell us little about the psychological well-being of surrogate-born children. 

Recueil twice cites “Are the Children Alright? A Systematic Review of Psychological Adjustment of Children Conceived by Assisted Reproductive Technologies,” from 2022. Of the 11 studies that examine the intersection between surrogacy and child psychological outcomes, they fall into three categories: 

the longitudinal study by Professor Golombok 

child outcomes compared with other children born from assisted reproductive technology, not compared with natural-born children 

studies that examine the impact of non-traditional parenting types, such as lesbian mothers or gay fathers, on the well-being of the child. The impact of surrogacy is not directly assessed; it is simply mentioned as a requirement for male-to-male family formation. Of these three categories, the only studies that directly address the claims that Recueil makes are the research of Professor Golombok, which he already cited before these additional studies. 

Hence, the widespread claim that surrogacy does not harm the psychological well-being of children primarily relies on a single longitudinal study of 42-to-28 surrogate-born children by the intended mother’s own assessment. That’s it. 

This isn’t to say we should discard Professor Golombok’s study. But honest scholars and lawmakers should be far more modest in claiming that surrogacy does not harm the psychological well-being of children. 

The most accurate conclusion regarding the psychological adjustment of surrogate-born children is that we do not have enough data to draw a conclusion either way, especially not in favor of surrogacy itself. When the well-being of children is at stake, lawmakers and researchers should employ the utmost scrutiny before advocating for any form of childbearing. 

Children rightly desire to please their parents, and there are few conversations more complicated than questioning the method one’s parents chose to bring one into the world. There is reason to believe that many surrogate-born children will not have the emotional or mental maturity to understand their conception and gestation until they are much older.

There is a huge difference between no harm and no known harm. Regardless of one’s stance on surrogacy, we should be able to agree that we need more data and reporting requirements to enable researchers to assess the impact of surrogacy contracts on the well-being of children. In my view, a single six-part longitudinal study does not justify this practice. 

Emma Waters is a Senior Research Associate for the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family at The Heritage Foundation.

[bewithus4u]

Rachel Reeves: The Vanguard of UK's Economic Diplomacy with China

Rachel Reeves, the UK Finance Minister, is set to embark on a significant diplomatic mission to China in January 2024. This visit is poised to revive regular economic talks between the two nations and strengthen bilateral relations. With the Bank of England Governor joining her on this key visit, the trip is expected to have far-reaching implications for the UK’s economic strategy and���

[morganablenewsmedia]

UK Economic Woe Continues

UK economic woe continues as economic growth on decline Following recent United Kingdom’s reported economic downturn, stats has revealed major decline in the month of October. This decline has come as a devastating blow to the United Kingdom’s budget proposed by the Prime Minister Kier Starmer. According to reports by the London School of Economics, “The British economy has been stagnating, with…

[genderqueerdykes]

i love when intersex people try to talk about our issues people try to hit us with a "that doesn't count, that would be like 0.01% of the population you're talking about," ahh response, which I have personally received several times at this point.

everyone loves to be confident to pull some bullshit statistic out of their ass to be dismissive, but it's funny because they never do a second of research. the United Nations Human Rights Office estimates 1.7% of the population are born intersex:

even if the numbers were any lower, it would still be worth talking about intersex issues. any amount of people with these experiences are worth representing and discussing. we should not have to be invisible because our conditions are so stigmatized that many of us receive "Corrective" procedures just after birth, during childhood, or puberty. so many of us are swept under the rug, that's part of the reason why the statistics vary depending on which area is reporting the statistics.

you can't weaponize how marginalized someone is against them. if we fight for people with the most specific gender identities that can't be easily explained in one or two words, we must include intersex people. if we include people who use unique pronouns not seen in current common vernacular, we must support intersex people. if we support other queer minorities, we must support intersex people.

it's not an option. you can act like we are a statistic on a page, a number you can't possibly fathom in your mind, but we are all around you. everywhere. existing in real time. we are not fossils. we are not extinct.

you don't have the pleasure of ignoring us anymore. intersex rights are human rights, and sometimes, they're queer rights, too.

[xtruss]

Why Public Trust In Politicians Hits Spectacular Low In The UK

— Mark Blacklock | March 06, 2024

Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

Nobody who has watched British civic life in recent years will have been in the least bit surprised that a recent study by the Country's Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found only 12 percent of the public trust their politicians, a spectacular low.

People feel increasingly alienated from those who are supposed to have been elected to represent their interests. Worse, they feel unable to influence the heedless parliamentary apparatus which seems to be being used to serving the politicians more than it serves the people.

The job of the ONS is to gather, process and analyze data about the United Kingdom's economy, society and population, and is widely regarded as a professional and impartial authority. This makes the findings of its annual Trust in Government survey so striking.

The collapse in trust in political parties is an unimpressive 12 percent this year, which is down from an already lamentable 20 percent in the previous analysis. The proportion of adults trusting the government itself also fell - from 35 percent to 27 percent - and trust in parliament, the institution where the politicians operate, plummeted from 34 percent to 24 percent. These figures echo a study from a market research company last year, which said only 9 percent of people trusted their politicians to tell the truth (the lowest level in 40 years). The inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that most Britons think that the political class that has the power to make decisions that control their lives are liars.

One reason the UK public is so disillusioned with their politics is the prevailing doctrine which favors political centrism. Party leaders are reluctant to appear too leftist or rightist for fear of driving support away, so they gravitate toward the center. These are not the politics of conviction or ideology, but of opportunity for self-serving individuals who are willing to change their policies and even opinions to give themselves the best chance of winning.

A general election is expected in Britain this year, in a country that has essentially been a two-party system for generations. The Conservative and Labour parties are electorally dominant and regularly alternate in government, largely because of the country's outdated, unfair and anti-democratic first-past-the-post electoral system, which works to marginalize and exclude voices outside of the center. This makes it difficult for other relevant parties, such as the Greens and especially smaller groups such as communists, to be represented in Westminster.

This feeling of alienation from the process of government is exacerbated by the closeness of the two main parties. At the election, there will be little to choose between the main party's candidates in important aspects of policy. In fact, Rishi Sunak's Tories and Keir Starmer's Labour have recently accused each of stealing the other's policies and mimicking standpoints. Neither of them spoke out against the war in Gaza, for example, until it had been raging for months. Both parties have declared support for rules that prevent families from receiving a state benefit for more than two children - something that affects many low-income households.

At the other extreme, both parties are prepared to lift a cap on bankers' bonuses - something which was devised to discourage reckless investment behavior - and allow them to make unlimited payments. Both parties have also declared the need to continue with austerity-style policies which are blamed for the declining nature of Britain's economy. Both parties favor cracking down on illegal immigration, and approve of higher defense spending, keeping the Trident nuclear deterrent (despite a recent failed test-firing of one of the ￡17m missiles) and continued support for Ukraine.

If the people, despairing at the lack of choice among those who seek to govern them, should dare to speak out and protest, the establishment has been devoting a lot of time and effort into devising laws aimed at discouraging and restricting demonstrations. The temperature has been further raised by the politicians themselves complaining that the strength of dissent has put them in danger. They call protest marches "hate marches." If there is one that the people hate, it is being lied to and not being served by those whose job it is to serve them. And that is why so few people trust or believe them.

— The Author is a Journalist and lecturer living in Britain.

[famouslook1987]

ब्रिटेन में हिंदू सबसे सेहतमंद नागरिकों में शामिल, सिखों के पास घर होने की संभावना सबसे ज्यादा

Britain Census Data: ब्रिटेन (Britain) में हिंदू (Hindus) देश के सबसे स्वस्थ और शिक्षित धार्मिक समुदायों में शामिल हैं, जबकि सिखों (Sikhs) के पास खुद का घर होने की संभावना सबसे ज्यादा है. इंग्लैंड और वेल्स में जनगणना के हालिया आंकड़ों से यह बात सामने आई है. ब्रिटेन का राष्ट्रीय सांख्यिकी कार्यालय (Office For National Statistics) मार्च 2021 में की गई ऑनलाइन जनगणना के डेटा का विश्लेषण कर आबादी के…

[antiterf]

Its kind of ridiculous how difficult it is to find critical intersex literature if you don't know where to look.

That said, here are frequently cited things I've found. For the one's that are behind paywalls, I have a Google Drive folder set up to hold them for access. The only things I leave behind a paywall are books by individual authors. They are not organized at all, I'm sorry.

Intersex Variations Glossary by InterACT

Narrative Symposium: Intersex—Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics (NIB) Volume 5, Number 2, Summer 2015.— Trigger warning for intersex genital mutilation (IGM), sexual assault, and medical trauma—it's honestly a lot but incredibly important. (Drive)

A human rights investigation into the medical "normalization" of intersex people - A report of a public hearing by the Human Rights Commission of the City & County of San Francisco

Surgical Progress Is Not the Answer to Intersexuality - Cheryl Chase. - TW for IGM and images of genitalia (Drive)

The Intersex Roadshow, a blog of Dr. Cary Gabriel Costello - Costello is an intersex trans man and tries to bridge the gap between trans and intersex issues

Beyond Binary Sex and Gender Ideology - Cary Grabriel Costello - Chapter 12 of The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Body and Embodiment (Drive)

Transgender and intersex: theoretical, practical, and artistic perspectives (book/textbook) (Drive)

Intersex: Stories and Statistics from Australia (Book) (Open Access)

Fixing sex: intersex, medical authority, and lived experience (Book)

The harms of medicalisation: intersex, loneliness and abandonment (Open Access Article)

Intersex: cultural and social perspectives (Open Access Article)

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) - Technical Note on the Human Rights of Intersex People. Basically, if you want an easy way to say that doctors are going against human rights by performing IGM.

An experimental philosophical bioethical study of how human rights are applied to clitorectomy on infants identified as female and as intersex (Open Access Article) - People were more likely to support the same surgery on infants labeled as intersex than they were on infants labeled as female.

Caught in the Gender Binary Blind Spot: Intersex Erasure in Cisgender Rhetoric by Hida Viloria - About how cisgender often doesn't accurately express the experiences intersex people have. Costello, mentioned earlier with Intersex Roadshow, coined Ipsogender for this reason.

Introduction for Intersex Activism - A guide for allies

Sex, Science, and Society: Reckonings and Responsibilities for Biologists (Open Access Article)

Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis by Georgiann Davis - TW for medical trauma

Spectacles and Scholarship: Caster Semenya, Intersex Studies, and the Problem of Race in Feminist Theory by Zine Magubane (Drive)

Owning Endosex Privilege and Supporting the Intersex Community: WPATH, Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM), and Sex Variant Bodies by Margo Schulter

The Spectrum of Sex by Hida Viloria and Dr. Maria Nieto

A long way to go for LGBTI equality from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights - Before the UK left the EU

If anyone wants to add, feel free! This was the non-medicalized stuff I had saved in Zotero, and definitely not all that's out there.

[reasonsforhope]

"The Netherlands is pulling even further ahead of its peers in the shift to a recycling-driven circular economy, new data shows.

According to the European Commission’s statistics office, 27.5% of the material resources used in the country come from recycled waste.

For context, Belgium is a distant second, with a “circularity rate” of 22.2%, while the EU average is 11.5% – a mere 0.8 percentage point increase from 2010.

“We are a frontrunner, but we have a very long way to go still, and we’re fully aware of that,” Martijn Tak, a policy advisor in the Dutch ministry of infrastructure and water management, tells The Progress Playbook. 

The Netherlands aims to halve the use of primary abiotic raw materials by 2030 and run the economy entirely on recycled materials by 2050. Amsterdam, a pioneer of the “doughnut economics” concept, is behind much of the progress.

Why it matters

The world produces some 2 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste each year, and this could rise to 3.4 billion tonnes annually by 2050, according to the World Bank.

Landfills are already a major contributor to planet-heating greenhouse gases, and discarded trash takes a heavy toll on both biodiversity and human health.

“A circular economy is not the goal itself,” Tak says. “It’s a solution for societal issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, and resource-security for the country.”

A fresh approach

While the Netherlands initially focused primarily on waste management, “we realised years ago that’s not good enough for a circular economy.”

In 2017, the state signed a “raw materials agreement” with municipalities, manufacturers, trade unions and environmental organisations to collaborate more closely on circular economy projects.

It followed that up with a national implementation programme, and in early 2023, published a roadmap to 2030, which includes specific targets for product groups like furniture and textiles. An English version was produced so that policymakers in other markets could learn from the Netherlands’ experiences, Tak says.

The programme is focused on reducing the volume of materials used throughout the economy partly by enhancing efficiencies, substituting raw materials for bio-based and recycled ones, extending the lifetimes of products wherever possible, and recycling.

It also aims to factor environmental damage into product prices, require a certain percentage of second-hand materials in the manufacturing process, and promote design methods that extend the lifetimes of products by making them easier to repair.

There’s also an element of subsidisation, including funding for “circular craft centres and repair cafés”.

This idea is already in play. In Amsterdam, a repair centre run by refugees, and backed by the city and outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, is helping big brands breathe new life into old clothes.

Meanwhile, government ministries aim to aid progress by prioritising the procurement of recycled or recyclable electrical equipment and construction materials, for instance.

State support is critical to levelling the playing field, analysts say...

Long Road Ahead

The government also wants manufacturers – including clothing and beverages companies – to take full responsibility for products discarded by consumers.

“Producer responsibility for textiles is already in place, but it’s work in progress to fully implement it,” Tak says.

And the household waste collection process remains a challenge considering that small city apartments aren’t conducive to having multiple bins, and sparsely populated rural areas are tougher to service.

“Getting the collection system right is a challenge, but again, it’s work in progress.”

...Nevertheless, Tak says wealthy countries should be leading the way towards a fully circular economy as they’re historically the biggest consumers of natural resources."

-via The Progress Playbook, December 13, 2023

[dee-the-red-witch]

Trans Day of Remembrance

(originally posted up over here) I'm so not ready for today. In the wake the elections, with full knowledge of everything that's coming, it makes today's Day of Rememberance hit even harder, just knowing that future ones have a strong likelihood of being so much worse.

But at the same time, here I am writing this anyways, which feels like such an act in impostor syndrome. I didn't lose anyone this last year, happily enough, despite the fact that over 20 trans women were lost to violence in the US alone so far this year, and an estimated 350 worldwide. Almost one a day in a community this small, and you know someone who lost someone. But I'm writing this column anyways, because I know folks expect me to Have A Take. Because writers are supposed to. Because the world at large tends to not go for our art, our happiness, our joys, or our celebrations, but they always line right up to consume our pain, our trauma, our grief, or our anger.

And no, reader, that's not an accusation I'm levelling at you. Not yet, anyways. But when you're two main national event days are the day where we remember our dead and the day when we make ourselves as visible as possible, under the threat of this new administration, it's how it definitely feels from this side of things. We wanted to be seen as people, as human. Instead we got to see a campaign that spent a third of their funds attacking and targeting us get willingly voted into office. So yes, all the anger and grief and fear from that, just two weeks later, gets thrown into today as well.

I don't have a roll of the dead to list for you, may their memories be a blessing. I'll likely be hearing that tonight at the event I'm going to for today. And if you're cis, I don't want you joining in our grief as we mourn our dead and wait for worse to come. I want you remembering us while we're still alive, before we become another statistic or headline. Remember us best by helping us to live, by supporting us in a world gone even more hostile, like all you subscribers currently do, for which I'm very thankful.

But above all of that, remember this- we're people, just like you. We chose to live as who we are and we shouldn't be punished or hated for that. Remember us for our joys in finding ourselves. Remember us in our lives, interacting and sharing with you. Remember us as friends, family, lovers, partners, and just people. That's all I ask.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gloria Oladipo at The Guardian:

For many students of color, access to an equitable education is dependent on the initiatives and programs provided by the Department of Education. Among its various functions, the department provides targeted funding for low-income students, collects data on educational outcomes and investigates potential bias – essential functions that help underserved students. But such services stand to be disrupted or ended entirely as Donald Trump plans to dismantle the department during his second tenure. In addition to nominating for education secretary the former WWE executive Linda McMahon, who served on Connecticut’s state board of education for one year and has no other notable education experience, Trump has pledged to “[close] up” the department and “return” education rights to the states. Though Trump alone cannot eliminate the federal agency, as such an act requires congressional approval beyond a simple majority, experts have warned that any type of overhaul could disrupt the department’s critical roles, especially for marginalized students.

The education department dates back to 1867; the agency was founded to collect data on schools as states crafted their education systems (Congress abolished the department a year later, fearing federal overreach). In 1980, under former president Jimmy Carter, the department was reconceived as an executive agency with the purpose of ensuring equal education access in primary, secondary and higher education across all states. Historically, the department has overseen the implementation of federal civil rights laws in local school districts, such as the desegregation of schools following the supreme court’s Brown v Board of Education decision. Now, the department coordinates “certain services that states receive, protections, and accountability mechanisms”, said Wil Del Pilar, senior vice-president of EdTrust, an education non-profit. The department also “sets priorities” and can use funding incentives to encourage school districts to work around an issue. “[If] teacher diversity is a focus, [the department] can leverage federal dollars to create a competition for folks to apply for dollars to improve the diverse educator pipeline,” he added.

Investigating civil rights violations is a critical function of the department, carried out by their Office of Civil Rights (OCR). In 2023, OCR received a record 19,201 complaints, according to the department’s annual report, with 45% of complaints relating to sex discrimination. Amid an onslaught of legislation targeting transgender youth last year, the OCR fielded several complaints from LGBTQ+ students against their school districts. Eighteen percent of complaints dealt with race and national origin discrimination, including bullying and racist harassment from school officials. In one high-profile example, the OCR investigated the Jefferson county school district, Kentucky’s largest public school district, and found that Black students were punished more often and more severely than white students. As a result, the district is mandated to amend their disciplinary policies by March 2025.

Following an OCR investigation, the department can force a school to make changes by threatening schools in violation of civil rights. “Funding and enforcement go hand-in-hand,” said Rachel Perera, a fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute. “The threat of violating civil rights law is that you will lose federal funding.” Absent these checks, schools would have less incentive to comply with the law. Statistics from the department’s civil rights data collection not only provide insight into potential education disparities, including discipline rates by race, but they also determine what funding a school district is eligible for. Title I and Title III initiatives, which provide funding for high-poverty schools and English learners, respectively, are both dependent on enrollment statistics. Eliminating the department all together is an unlikely outcome, experts argue, especially as many of the offices within the department are themselves enshrined into federal law. Prominent Republicans, including former president Ronald Reagan, have attempted to eliminate the department, all to no avail.

[...] Under Trump, the department could be underfunded or further understaffed, and offices such as OCR already struggle to investigate an increasing number of complaints. Disenfranchised students, including students of color and those with disabilities, who rely on Title I funding, would be affected as Trump could make further cuts to the underfunded program. “About 90% of school funding comes from local and state sources, but 10% comes from the federal government,” said Perera. “That 10% is oriented towards poor communities, communities that are disproportionately of color, [where if] that money were to go away overnight, those schools would be in a very difficult position.”

Donald Trump’s plans to abolish the DoE could have very disastrous consequences for students with disabilities, POC, low-income, and/or LGBTQ+.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Many long COVID patients adjust to slim recovery odds as world moves on - Published Nov 14, 2024

By Jennifer Rigby and Julie Steenhuysen

Summary Long COVID symptoms can persist for years, with slim chance of full recovery Funding and attention for long COVID research are dwindling in many wealthy countries Long COVID symptoms can include extreme fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and pain

LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - There are certain phrases that Wachuka Gichohi finds difficult to hear after enduring four years of living with long COVID, marked by debilitating fatigue, pain, panic attacks and other symptoms so severe she feared she would die overnight.

Among them are normally innocuous statements such as, "Feel better soon" or "Wishing you a quick recovery," the Kenyan businesswoman said, shaking her head.

Gichohi, 41, knows such phrases are well-intentioned. "I think you have to accept, for me, it’s not going to happen."

Recent scientific studies shed new light on the experience of millions of patients like Gichohi. They suggest the longer someone is sick, the lower their chances of making a full recovery.

The best window for recovery is in the first six months after getting COVID-19, with better odds for people whose initial illness was less severe, as well as those who are vaccinated, researchers in the United Kingdom and the United States found, opens new tab. People whose symptoms last between six months and two years are less likely to fully recover.

For patients who have been struggling for more than two years, the chance of a full recovery "is going to be very slim," said Manoj Sivan, a professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Leeds and one of the authors of the findings published in The Lancet.

Sivan said this should be termed "persistent long COVID" and understood like the chronic conditions myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or fibromyalgia, which can be features of long COVID or risk factors for it.

WANING ATTENTION Long COVID, defined as symptoms persisting for three months or more after the initial infection, involves a constellation of symptoms from extreme fatigue to brain fog, breathlessness and joint pain.

It can range from mild to utterly disabling, and there are no proven diagnostic tests or treatments, although scientists have made progress on theories about who is at risk and what might cause it. One British study, opens new tab suggested almost a third of those reporting symptoms at 12 weeks recovered after 12 months. Others, particularly among patients who had been hospitalized, show far lower rates of recovery.

In a study, opens new tab run by the UK's Office for National Statistics, two million people self-reported long COVID symptoms this past March. Roughly 700,000, or 30.6%, said they first experienced symptoms at least three years previously.

Globally, accepted estimates have suggested between 65 million, opens new tab and 200 million, opens new tab people have long COVID. That could mean between 19.5 million and 60 million people face years of impairment based on the initial estimates, Sivan said.

The United States and some countries like Germany continue to fund long COVID research.

But more than two dozen experts, patient advocates and pharmaceutical executives told Reuters that money and attention for the condition is dwindling in other wealthy countries that traditionally fund large-scale studies. In low- and middle-income countries, it was never there.

"The attention has shifted," said Amitava Banerjee, a professor at University College London who co-leads a large trial of repurposed drugs and rehabilitation programmes.

He says long COVID should be viewed as a chronic condition that can be treated to improve patients' lives rather than cured, like heart disease or arthritis.

'PROFOUNDLY DISABLING' Leticia Soares, 39, from northeast Brazil, was infected in 2020 and has battled intense fatigue and chronic pain ever since. On a good day, she spends five hours out of bed.

When she can work, Soares is a co-lead and researcher at Patient-Led Research Collaborative, an advocacy group involved in a review, opens new tab of long COVID evidence published recently in Nature.

Soares said she believes recovery seldom happens beyond 12 months. Some patients may find their symptoms abate, only to recur, a kind of remission that can be mistaken for recovery, she said.

"It's so profoundly disabling and isolating. You spend every time wondering, 'Am I going to get worse after this?'" she said of her own experience.

Soares takes antihistamines and other commonly available treatments to cope with daily life. Four long COVID specialist doctors in different countries said they prescribe such medicines, which are known to be safe. Some evidence suggests they help.

Others have less success with mainstream medicine.

Gichohi's illness was dismissed by her doctor, and she turned to a functional medicine practitioner, who focused on more holistic treatments.

She moved out of her hectic home city of Nairobi to a small town near Mount Kenya, policing her activity levels to prevent fatigue and receiving acupuncture and trauma therapy.

She has tried the addiction treatment naltrexone, which has some evidence of benefit for long COVID symptoms, and the controversial anti-parasitic infection drug ivermectin, which does not but she says helped her.

She said shifting from "chasing recovery" to living in her new reality was important.

A piecemeal treatment approach is to be expected while research progresses, and perhaps longer-term, said Anita Jain, a long COVID specialist at the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, long-haulers face a new challenge with each spike in COVID cases. A handful of studies have suggested re-infection can exacerbate existing long COVID.

Shannon Turner, a 39-year-old cabaret singer from Philadelphia, got COVID in late March or early April of 2020.

She was already living with psoriatic arthritis and antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, autoimmune diseases for which she regularly took steroids and an immunotherapy. Such conditions may increase the risk of developing long COVID, researchers say.

This past summer, Turner got COVID again. Once again, she is extraordinarily tired and uses a walker for mobility.

Turner is determined to pursue her music career despite ongoing pain, dizziness and a racing heart rate, which regularly land her in hospital.

"I don't want to live my life in bed," she said.

[mariacallous]

Donald Trump has once again evoked Nazi rhetoric.

At a rally in Aurora, Colorado, on Friday, the Republican presidential nominee weaponized violent and dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, referring to them as the “enemy from within” while advocating for harsher criminal punishments for the vulnerable demographic, including promising the death penalty.

“But I protect you from outside enemies. But you know I always say, we have the outside enemies, so you can say China, you can say Russia, you can say Kim Jong Un … if you have a smart president it’s no problem,” Trump said. “It’s the enemy from within.

“All the scum we have to deal with that hate our country,” he continued. “That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia.… Everyday Americans like Cindy are living in fear all because Kamala Harris decided to empty the slums and prison cells of Caracas, and many other places. Happening all over the world.”

That is, on its face, untrue. But according to Trump, that (falsely) means crime is down in the rest of the world as a result.

“Every country, you know, prison populations all over the world are down. Crime all over the world is down. Because they take the world’s criminals, gang members, drug dealers, and they deposit them into the United States. Bus after bus after bus,” Trump said to a cacophony of boos from the crowd of his supporters.

The world’s prison population has, statistically, gone up by more than 25 percent since the year 2000, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

“They took the criminals out of Caracas, and they put them along your border, and they said if you ever come back, we’re going to kill you,” Trump said.

“Think of that!” he continued. “We have to live with these animals. But we won’t live with them for long!”

At that, one person in the crowd shouted, “Kill them!”

In the same speech, Trump called for the expeditious “removal of these savage gangs,” promising that, if elected, he would appoint “elite squads” to conduct mass deportations. He also vowed to enforce the death penalty for “any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”

Last year, the MAGA leader leaned on appalling language that immediately echoed Adolf Hitler’s fascistic rhetoric designed to dehumanize his enemies. Trump referred to his political rivals—the GOP-anointed “Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs”—as “vermin,” and claimed that immigrants are “destroying the blood of our country.”

[eco-lite]

My favorite moments from David Mack's Control. Most of them are Garak, even though he's barely in this book...

[Text ID: “’I'm well aware that you're all fugitives of the highest order in the Federation. Nothing new for you, Doctor, or for your inamorata"—he let contempt drip off that last word—"though I have to imagine being the target of an interstellar dragnet must be something of a new experience for your friends.’” End ID]

Okay this is hilarious. David Mack establishes that Sarina Douglas (the genetically-engineered woman Julian helps in "Statistical Probabilities." Remember her?) and Julian have been in a relationship for a while, but he's also clearly a garashir shipper who loves to make Garak suffer. Jealous!Garak my beloved.

[Text ID: “Garak shot a wary look at his bodyguards, then he moved closer to Bashir. ‘Are you asking as a Starfleet officer? As a doctor? Or as a man in need of asylum?’ ‘I'm asking as your friend.... Help us, Elim.’ It might have been nothing more than Bashir's imagination, but he thought he saw the faintest hint of jealousy in Garak's eyes when the castellan glanced at Sarina. But then Garak looked back at Bashir and smiled. ‘Very well, Julian. For an old friend... anything is possible.’” End ID]

Poor Garak. This is truly painful. Especially since Julian recognizes his jealousy and doesn't ever address it.

[Text ID: “’Executions without judicial oversight? It's an obscenity masquerading as national security.’  ‘Yes. And it's also how the Obsidian Order kept total control over the Cardassian Union for nearly a century.’ That put an end to Bashir's perambulation. ‘Wait, no. I didn't mean to say—' ‘That any part of the Federation could ever have anything in common with the Obsidian Order? Or with the Tal Shiar? Oh, how I envy your naïveté, Doctor. To believe that any nation state could ever endure without having an appendage willing to stain itself in blood—what a luxury it must be to live in the arms of such delusion.’ He expected a tirade from Bashir. A red-faced defense of the Federation's principles, its integrity, its virtue. Instead the doctor reined in his dudgeon and approached Garak's desk. He set his knuckles on the polished wood and bowed his head while he drew a calming breath. ‘I can't deny there's rot in the core of Starfleet. In the heart of the Federation. I've seen it.’ He looked up at Garak, and his eyes had the hard, unyielding focus of a man ready to go to war. ‘I came to you because I need to know how to stop it. How to end it. How to destroy it.’ ‘Well, that's simple, Doctor. What worked for Cardassia will work for the Federation. To excise this cancer from your body politic, all you need to do is kill the body, burn it down to ash, then resurrect and rebuild it with wiser eyes and a sadder heart.’ Bashir's brow creased with scorn. ‘You mock me.’ ‘Not at all, Doctor. You saw what happened to this world at the end of the Dominion War—to all the planets of the Cardassian Union. The Dominion burned us to the ground. Slew all but a fraction of our population. Left us with nothing but cinders and cenotaphs. That is what it took to free Cardassia from the grip of the Obsidian Order. Are you ready to pay that price so the people of the Federation can bask in the purity of their liberty? Is it worth the blood of billions? Is it worth seeing your worlds on fire?’ ‘You make it sound as if there's no middle ground,’ Bashir protested. ‘No choice besides surrender or slaughter.’ Garak saw no reason to blunt the truth's cutting edge. ‘Why else would such programs exist, Doctor? What is the value of intelligence if it doesn't lead to action?’ This time Bashir rose to Garak's challenge. ‘What is the value of action if it betrays all that we stand for?’ His shoulders slumped as if they bore a terrible weight. ‘Garak, I didn't come here to be lectured, or to be told I'm too idealistic. I came here for advice.’ ‘Of what sort?’ ‘The kind that will help me stop Thirty-one. Permanently.’ Maybe the doctor was foolhardy. Perhaps his mission was doomed to fail. But there was no denying the man possessed the courage of his convictions. Garak tried to remember what that had felt like in his long-ago squandered youth—and then he realized, to his shame, that he had never known the sweet sting of such passions. ‘If you want to kill Section Thirty-one,’ he said, ‘you'll need to turn their greatest strength against them—transform it into their most dire weakness. They thrive on secrecy, on anonymity, just as the Obsidian Order once did. Take that away from them. Expose them and they'll be vulnerable—and that's when you strike the killing blow.’ He set his palms on the desktop and leaned forward to emphasize his final piece of counsel. ‘But make sure you leave nothing of your enemy intact. When your work is done, don't try to turn their assets to your advantage. Destroy them all, every last one—or else the monster will simply rise again.’” End ID]

Although the concept and plot of this book is really interesting, I was generally not impressed by the characterization in this book. But Garak is an exception. I love this passage because it's a brief return to Garak and Julian's cherished philosophical debates. And it so perfectly encapsulates Garak's world-view after all he's been through. He's under no delusions of how far a society will go to "protect itself." Or how hard it can be to dismantle a broken system. He's experienced both tragedies first-hand.

[Text ID: “’The codicil concerning Doctor Bashir indicated a ninety-four percent likelihood that he would seek the aid of his former lover and Deep Space Nine crewmate, Captain Ezri Dax. Instead, he ran to Castellan Elim Garak.’" End ID]

Ha. That's telling, isn't it...

[Text ID: “’Have you considered the possibility that you've chosen the wrong side?’ The question felt to Bashir like a vote of no confidence. He hoped he had heard Garak wrong. ‘What do you mean, the wrong side?’ ‘I merely mean to ask, Julian, if you've ever stopped to entertain the notion that perhaps Section Thirty-one serves a valid purpose?’ The question itself offended Bashir. ‘Don't be absurd, Garak. Thirty-one wields deadly power with absolutely no legal accountability or oversight. It commits countless crimes against Federation citizens and foreign peoples. It steals, defrauds, counterfeits, murders. It acts in the name of the Federation while betraying every principle for which we stand. Its continued existence is an insult to our entire civilization.’ Garak struck an imperious pose. ‘Really? An insult? What if that insult to your Federation is the only reason it still exists?’ He prowled forward, crossing Bashir's imaginary boundary of personal space. ‘Every nation-state in history has relied, at one time or another, on the services of such organizations for their very survival. Why should yours be any different?’” End ID]

Devil's advocate as always. But Garak has a point. Cardassia was only able to maintain it's strictly military society--the status quo--because of the Obsidian Order. Based on his own experience, it's reasonable to think that Section Thirty-one may be the only thing holding the Federation together. No matter how much its actions go against the holier-than-thou principles the Federation claims to uphold.

[Text ID: “’Beliefs are dangerous things, Julian. Once we invest in them, it can be hard to challenge them without invoking cognitive dissonance. But in this case, I suggest you try. Because if I'm correct, going to war with Section Thirty-one can only end badly for you. Either you will lose, and you and all your friends will suffer gruesome fates I'd rather not imagine; or you will win—and in so doing, end up inflicting more harm than good upon your beloved Federation.’" End ID]

Not Garak trying to predict the ending of the book. Somehow the real ending was a mix of both. And that "beliefs are dangerous things" line... Yeah.

[Text ID: (Referring to the décor of the Federation Headquarters in Paris, which is scientifically constructed to be soothing and discourage potential violent behavior) “Like the Federation's pervasive imperialism, the lobby's social controls were subtle and hideously effective.” End ID]

Damn, you said it, not me. I do love this book's determination to deconstruct every charitable feeling the reader might have about the Federation.

[Text ID: “Alone with Bashir, Garak looked at his friend. He circled in front of him. ‘Are you still with me, my dear doctor?’ He squatted in front of the hoverchair and tried in vain to make eye contact with his friend. ‘Are you blind to the sight of me? Deaf to the music of my voice?’ Bashir's silence and his wounded stare into an empty distance disturbed Garak in ways he feared to confront. This was not the man he remembered from Deep Space 9, or the confidant with whom he had trusted his private musings in the aftermath of the Dominion War. This man was detached from the world, in it but separated from it by a barrier as unbreachable as it was intangible. This was the shattered husk of a good man, the sorry remains of one who had refused to bend to the cruelties of the world and ended up broken instead.” End ID]

I didn't realize this book leads directly into Una McCormack's Enigma Tales (excellent book, go read it!) until this point. That knowledge makes this moment hurt more, I think.

[Text ID: “There was naught left for Garak to do now but keep his friend safe, in a clean and well-lit place, and give him whatever time he needed to heal himself—or at least to die in peace, with his last measure of privacy intact and jealously guarded by someone who loved him.” End ID]

Time to curl up in a ball and stare into the middle distance for a while...

[awkwxrdapple]

[Before anyone says anything, yes I have a life. I just happen to be an autistic person in STEM so I love stats and any excuse to do an analysis I'm there.]

So let's see how "affordable" $5.99 is a month in the US and then around the world...

[Post comparing Watcher Entertainment's 5.99 US Dollar monthly subscription to different world currencies and what they mean in terms of food (example used is a standard loaf of bread).]

All conversions are correct as of:

US Dollar

According to the United States Department of Labor website in March 2024 a loaf of bread is, on average, $2.00. So that's three loaves of bread for one month's subscription.

Pound Sterling

(My home currency)

According to the Office of National Statistics in March 2024 a loaf of bread is, on average, £1.39 a loaf. So that is three and a half loaves per monthly Watcher subscription price.

Australian Dollars

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2023 a loaf of bread, on average, was $4.04. So that is two loaves of bread per monthly subscription.

Canadian Dollars

According to this living costs and moving website in March 2024 a loaf of bread, on average, cost $3.02. So that is just over two and a half loaves per monthly subscription.

Indian Rupees

According to The Times of India in September 2023 a loaf of bread, on average, costs Rs 38. That is THIRTEEN loaves of bread per monthly subscription. THIRTEEN!

Euros

So as Euros are used in various European countries I've picked the country with the highest GDP (Germany) and the country with the lowest GDP (Malta), that both use Euros.

In Germany, a loaf of bread costs €1.91 in 2024 according to this cost of living website. That is three loaves of bread per monthly subscription.

In Malta, a loaf of bread costs €0.94 according to this cost of living website. That is SIX loaves of bread per monthly subscription.

I'm not going to make any conclusions. You can all make your own 😅

[evidence-based-activism]

I know you’ve found before that intimate partner violence against men isn’t underreported to police in comparison to violence against women, but has there been any research on police responses to domestic violence calls specifically? MRAs and misogynists always claim the man is automatically arrested just because police assume only men can be aggressors even if he is the victim (which is very rare in the first place even though they insist otherwise). But a lot of anecdotal evidence I’ve heard from female victims is that the police either did nothing or in some cases threatened to arrest her instead of her abusive partner, which makes sense considering the low conviction rate for domestic violence. Is there any data to debunk this idea that women are automatically taken seriously while men’s allegations are ignored?

There has been some work on this (and on tangentially related topics)!

Police response to domestic violence victims

First, a 2015 survey was conducted by the National Domestic Violence Hotline. It interviewed women who either had or had not had contact with the police about their victimization [1].

Of the women who had interacted with the police:

~80% felt either no safer or less safe than before they contacted them.

~67% felt somewhat or extremely afraid to call the police in the future.

~25% had been arrested or threatened with arrest during a partner abuse incident or while reporting a sexual assault incident.

This report had the advantage of being detailed, but was unfortunately not nationally representative. This special report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics [2] helps fill in that gap.

However, it does report on domestic violence by both an intimate partner and "other relations", which is an important caveat when interpreting the results.

According to this report:

Male and female victimizations were equally likely to be reported to the police, except that male victimizations involving "serious injury" were more likely to be reported than female victimizations involving "serious injury".

The offender was similarly likely to be arrested during the initial report for incidents involving a female or male victim across incident categories.

Women were more likely than men to sign a complaint (or have one signed on their behalf).

Police were more likely to follow-up on incidents or arrest an offender at follow up when there is a signed complaint. This is relevant because women were more likely to sign a complaint, which makes it appear as though police follow up on female victims more often. This is an example of a factor that can correlate with sex, resulting in an illusory gender difference.

Notably, despite the fact that men were less likely to sign a complaint for serious injury than women, the police were still equally likely to follow up with male and female victims with serious injury.

Together, these reports suggest that police response to male and female victims in domestic incidents is similar. Further, women report many of the same negative police reactions as men do, including being arrested or threatened with arrest. In other words, men are not uniquely discriminated against by the police in domestic violence incidents; police officers are just disturbingly unqualified to deal with domestic violence victims.

Male police officers

And, to be completely clear about the problem, 73% of American police officers are male [3]. Furthermore, other work [4] states, "female officers were more likely than male officers to provide support to citizens involved in domestic violence".

Together, this indicates that the poor police response to victims – both male and female – is primarily the result of other men's actions.

Differences in men's and women's domestic violence

As you indicated, I've discussed this many times. However, it stands repeating that violence from male and female perpetrators is both quantitatively and qualitatively different [5-7].

For example, this review [5] describes how "women’s physical violence appears to be more in response to violence initiated against them". (In other words, women's physical violence is responsive or defensive.) They also describe how "the type and quality [of emotional abuse tactics] appears to differ between the sexes", where men "threaten life and inhibit partner autonomy" and women's tactics "consist of yelling and shouting". They also note that men are the "predominant perpetrators of sexual abuse”.

Other work [6] indicates "men generally did not consider physical violence to be threatening when it was perpetrated by women" and men were "not subjected to the multiple control tactics".

In this study [7], men are more frequent perpetrators of domestic abuse and commit more severe acts, and yet women were "three times more likely to be arrested per incident".

I mention all of this to highlight how it would be completely reasonable for police officers to assume the woman is the primary victim. (More data on this can be found in this post, this post, and this post, among many others in my #male violence tag and this website [8].) Despite this, police do not appear to be making this assumption. Instead, they take a “gender-neutral" approach to domestic violence. This is, therefore, evidence of police discrimination against women (i.e., unfairly treating them as equally likely to be the aggressor).

The impact of DARVO

Why does all of that matter? Because we have substantial evidence that perpetrators of domestic violence employ the principles of DARVO (i.e., Defend, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) [9-10].

According to this principle, some perpetrators of domestic violence claim to be the "actual" victim of their partner. Often, they convince critical people (e.g., police officers, juries, etc.) for long enough to cause severe harm (e.g., convince the police to arrest the victim, find the abusive defendant not guilty).

This is of particular relevance to this discussion, given the frequency with which women who employ self-defensive or responsive violence are misidentified as the primary aggressor [11-13]. (Also see this post for a hypothetical description of the issues involved.)

This facilitates their abuser's use of the legal system to extend their coercive control of these women [9-11, 14-15].

What I find most striking about this work is that it shows how the abuses Men's Rights Activists claim are frequently and uniquely happening to male victims actually feature prominently in many women's abuse histories and have for decades.

Perhaps this is best described as the employment of DARVO on a group level. Either way, it clearly indicates that there is no systemic bias against men in the legal system. Quite the opposite, research indicates a substantial bias against women.

Conclusion

In conclusion, research suggests:

Men are not "automatically" arrested in domestic violence cases

Police response is similarly poor to both male and female victims

Most police officers are male, and male police officers tend to be less supportive in domestic violence incidents

Men's and women's violence in relationships is very different both in quantitative and qualitative terms

Women are more often misidentified as the primary aggressor than men and the principles of DARVO play a significant role in this (and other) legal abuse of female victims

References under the cut:

National Domestic Violence Hotline, Who Will Help Me? Domestic Violence Survivors Speak Out About Law Enforcement Responses. Washington, DC (2015). http://www.thehotline.org/resources/law-enforcement-responses

Reaves, B. A. (2017). Police response to domestic violence, 2006-2015. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

FBI. (2019). Table 74 – Full-time Law Enforcement Employees . https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-74

Sun, I. Y. (2007). Policing domestic violence: Does officer gender matter?. Journal of Criminal Justice, 35(6), 581-595.

Hamberger, L. K., & Larsen, S. E. (2015). Men’s and women’s experience of intimate partner violence: A review of ten years of comparative studies in clinical samples; Part I. Journal of Family Violence, 30, 699-717.

Nybergh, L., Enander, V., & Krantz, G. (2016). Theoretical considerations on men’s experiences of intimate partner violence: An interview-based study. Journal of family violence, 31, 191-202.

Hester, M. (2013). Who does what to whom? Gender and domestic violence perpetrators in English police records. European Journal of criminology, 10(5), 623-637.

Domestic abuse is a gendered crime. (n.d.). Women’s Aid. Retrieved from https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/

Quinonez, A. A., & Kuennen, T. (2023). Turning the Tables: How Those Who Are Accused Deny, Attack, and Reverse. Wis. JL Gender, & Soc'y, 38, 64.

Harsey, S. J., & Freyd, J. J. (2022). Defamation and DARVO. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 23(5), 481-489.

Reeves, E. (2020). Family violence, protection orders and systems abuse: views of legal practitioners. Current issues in criminal justice, 32(1), 91-110.

Henning, K., Renauer, B., & Holdford, R. (2006). Victim or offender? Heterogeneity among women arrested for intimate partner violence. Journal of family Violence, 21, 351-368.

Nancarrow, H., Thomas, K., Ringland, V., & Modini, T. (2020). Accurately identifying the “person most in need of protection” in domestic and family violence law. Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety.

Douglas, H. (2018). Legal systems abuse and coercive control. Criminology & criminal justice, 18(1), 84-99.

Dichter, M. E. (2013). “They arrested me—and I was the victim”: Women’s experiences with getting arrested in the context of domestic violence. Women & Criminal Justice, 23(2), 81-98.