Archive for July 2025

In my analysis of manifestos collected from 1966 to 2025, gender identity-driven violence appeared in nearly 40 per cent of them. These violent beliefs were either the primary or a significant secondary motivation for the attack. This includes direct expressions of hatred toward women, trans and queer people and references to feminist or LGBTQI2S+ movements. The Waterloo attacker did not explicitly identify as an “incel” (involuntary celibate), but the language in his manifesto closely echoes those found in incel and broader manosphere discourse. Feminism is portrayed as dangerous, gender studies as ideological indoctrination and universities as battlegrounds in a supposed culture war.

BASW’s Key Asks: Our manifesto put forward 40 asks for MPs in this parliament, with five ‘priority’ areas which we felt were essential for the government to deliver on.

The recent confrontation in central Kyiv between participants in the Equality March and supporters of so-called traditional values was yet another manifestation of the tensions that are growing amid a full-scale war. Under the slogans of ‘defending the family’ or ‘national morality’, there is increasingly a hidden language of hatred, intolerance and attempts to impose a single ‘norm’. It is particularly worrying that more and more young people are taking part in such actions, often wearing balaclavas, chanting aggressive slogans and showing a tendency towards confrontation.

The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) CEO Cindy Smith and Chair, Victorian Mental Health, Social Work Leadership Network, Kirsty Jungwirt, met with The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) on 27 June 2025 to express concerns with the most recent offer made by the Victorian Hospitals’ Industrial Association (VHIA) as part of the public mental health enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA)…. The most recent offer made by the VHIA continues to entrench pay and recognition disparities between nurses and allied health professionals.