Female UN expert calls for ban on men in women’s sports, gets accused of ‘demeaning language’

“Giving men so-called hormone blockers so they can compete with women – as some sports leagues do – doesn’t work”

United Nations Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem, in a recent report, called on countries and sporting organization authorities not to allow “men who identify as women” to compete in female sports competitions.

The U.S. representative to the UN accused Alsalem of using “degrading language” and of “bullying and gender misinformation.”
Delegates from Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Mexico, Colombia, and other Western countries raised similar objections.
“Gender should be understood in its ordinary sense as biological sex,” Alsalem said during the report’s presentation, citing the agreement from the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing.
Alsalem’s approach challenges the assumptions of Western and UN-backed gender policies, which are based on gender as a social construct unrelated to biological sex.

In her latest report to the General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Reem Alsalem, called on countries to stop allowing “men who identify as women” to compete against women and girls in sports. The U.S. representative to the UN, wearing a badge on his jacket with the colors of the LBGT and trans lobbies, accused her of using “degrading language” against trans athletes, as well as spreading “gender misinformation” and “bullying.” Delegates from Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Mexico, Colombia, and other Western countries made similar accusations.

READ: Women’s sports are under siege by male participants, and no one seems to be stopping it

According to the report, allowing men declaring female gender into women’s competitions also leads to women and girls experiencing “extreme psychological distress,” due to physical imbalance with rivals, loss of fair competition and educational and economic opportunities, and violations of privacy (e.g., in locker rooms). Alsalem says that, in recent years, more than 600 female athletes have lost some 890 medals in more than 400 competitions, in 29 different sports, due to policies allowing men to compete against women.

“Giving men so-called hormone blockers so they can compete with women – as some sports leagues do – doesn’t work,” Alsalem said. It does not reduce men’s natural advantage, and strong hormone drugs can even harm an athlete’s health.

“Human rights language and principles must continue to be consistent with science and facts, including biological ones,” the expert argued. “Multiple studies have given evidence that athletes born males have a performance advantage in sports throughout their lives although this is most apparent after puberty.” Alsalem also mentioned the risk of injury to female athletes, which is knowingly increased when competing with biological men, whether they identify as men or women, the physical harm suffered by women against male athletes can be characterized as violence, according to the special rapporteur.

“Sex must be understood in its ordinary meaning to mean biological sex,” Alsalem said, citing a declaration from the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing. She continued by stating that “sex based on biology” has been established in the international human-rights catalog, as opposed to the concept of “gender.” According to Alsalem, the two categories should not be confused.

Julia Książek, of the Ordo Iuris Center for International Law, stated:

Reem Alsalem identified a major problem that became fully apparent at the Paris Olympics this year, when it became evident that women were no longer competing against women, but also men who ‘identify’ as women. The UN expert rightly noted in her report that athletes’ mental identification does not in any way affect their biological predisposition, which they have by being men. This type of situation is the result of lobbying in international law for the concept of ‘sex with social context’ – gender. The first event raising questions about the use of the ‘gender’ construct was the 1995 World Conference on the Rights of Women in Beijing. The debate around its final declaration stirred controversy precisely because of the definition of gender, listed in the text as ‘gender’ rather than ‘sex.’ Under pressure from a large group of UN member states, the conference chairman clearly stated that the word gender was used in the ordinary, generally accepted sense in which it appears in UN documents, recalling the non-binding declarations attached to the final declarations of UN conferences in the early 1990s. He also stressed that there was no intention to give a new meaning to the term that would differ from the generally accepted one. Reem Alsalem also noted this in her report.

The Ordo Iuris Institute has long opposed the gender lobby in sports. In 2020, the Institute’s experts prepared an analysis of a draft UN resolution, which maintained that athletes should be allowed to participate in competitions according to their subjective feelings about gender.

This article was originally published on Ordo Iuris’ English-language page. Edited and reprinted with permission.

Related Topics:#LifeSiteNews #MenInWomen'sSports OrdoIuris ReemAlsalem SpecialRapporteurReemAlsalem

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California planning to double film tax credits amid industry decline

Published on April 3, 2025

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Kenneth Schrupp

California legislators have unveiled a bill to follow through with the governor’s plan of more than doubling the state’s film and TV production tax credits to $750 million.

The state’s own analysis warns it’s likely the refundable production credits generate only 20 to 50 cents of state revenue for every dollar the state spends, and the increase could stoke a “race to the bottom” among the 38 states that now have such programs.

Industry insiders say the state’s high production costs are to blame for much of the exodus, and experts say the cost of housing is responsible for a significant share of the higher costs.

The bill creates a special carve-out for shooting in Los Angeles, where productions would be able to claim refundable credits for 35% of the cost of production.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his proposal last year and highlighted his goal of expanding the program at an industry event last week.

“California is the entertainment capital of the world – and we’re committed to ensuring we stay that way,” said Newsom. “Fashion and film go hand in hand, helping to express characters, capture eras in time and reflect cultural movements.”

With most states now offering production credits, economic analysis suggests these programs now produce state revenue well below the cost of the credits themselves.

“A recent study from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation found that each $1 of Program 2.0 credit results in $1.07 in new state and local government revenue. This finding, however, is significantly overstated due to the study’s use of implausible assumptions,” wrote the state’s analysts in a 2023 report. “Most importantly, the study assumes that no productions receiving tax credits would have filmed here in the absence of the credit.”

“This is out of line with economic research discussed above which suggests tax credits influence location decisions of only a portion of recipients,” continued the state analysis. “Two studies that better reflect this research finding suggest that each $1 of film credit results in $0.20 to $0.50 of state revenues.”

“Parks and Recreation” stars Rob Lowe and Adam Scott recently shared on Lowe’s podcast how costs are so high their show likely would have been shot in Europe instead.

“It’s cheaper to bring 100 American people to Ireland than to walk across the lot at Fox past the sound stages and do it and do it there,” said Lowe.

“Do you think if we shot ‘Parks’ right now, we would be in Budapest?” asked Scott, who now stars in “Severance.”

“100%,” replied Lowe. “All those other places are offering 40% — forty percent — and then on top of that there’s other stuff that they do, and then that’s not even talking about the union stuff. That’s just tax economics of it all.”

“It’s criminal what California and LA have let happen. It’s criminal,” continued Lowe. “Everybody should be fired.”

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, housing is the single largest expense for California households.

“Across the income spectrum, 35–44% of household expenditures go to covering rent, mortgages, utilities and home maintenance,” wrote PPIC.

The cost of housing due to supply constraints now makes it nearly impossible for creatives to get their start in LA, said M. Nolan Gray, legislative director at housing regulatory reform organization California YIMBY.

“Hollywood depends on Los Angeles being the place where anybody can show up, take a big risk, and pursue their dreams, and that only works if you have a lot of affordable apartments,” said Gray to The Center Square. “We’ve built a Los Angeles where you have to be fabulously wealthy to have stable and decent housing, and as a result a lot of folks either are not coming, or those who are coming need to paid quite a bit higher to make it worth it, and it’s destroying one of California’s most important industries.”

“Anybody who arrived in Hollywood before the 2010s, their story is always, ‘Yeah, I showed up in LA, and I lived in a really, really dirt-cheap apartment with like $10 in my pocket.’ That just doesn’t exist anymore,” continued Gray. “Does the Walt Disney of 2025 not take the train from Kansas City to LA? Almost certainly not. If he goes anywhere, he goes to Atlanta.”

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Trump orders 10% baseline tariff on imports, closes de minimis loophole

Published on April 2, 2025

Todayville

From The Center Square

By Brett Rowland

Reciprocal tariffs higher on many nations

President Donald Trump on Wednesday put the biggest piece of his new trade policy in effect by signing executive orders that place a 10% baseline tariff on all imports and much higher rates on nations that put taxes on U.S. products.

It could be the opening salvo in a global trade war, or, as Trump sees it, the beginning of a “Golden Age” for U.S. trade.

Trump also closed the small value packages loophole that allowed China to avoid taxes on packages valued at less than $800. Companies such as Temu and Shein used the loophole to ship billions of dollars worth of products directly to U.S. consumers and avoid paying the tax, as The Center Square previously reported.

President Trump speaks about tariffs at a Make America Wealthy Again event

White House

Trump’s moves on Wednesday, which he termed “Liberation Day” for U.S. trade, marked the most significant shift in U.S. trade policy since the end of World War II.

In a speech from the White House’s Rose Garden, Trump said foreign nations for decades have stolen American jobs, factories and industries. He said the tariffs would bring in new jobs, factories and industries and return the U.S. to a manufacturing superpower.

“Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years,” Trump said. “But it is not going to happen anymore.”

Trump’s supporters praised the trade overhaul. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said it was time for foreign nations to pay up.

“If you want to do business in America, you need to play by our rules,” she said. “For too long, American businesses, big and small, have been ripped off by bad trade deals and unfair competition. President Trump is putting a stop to it. He’s standing up for our workers, our companies and our consumers.”

Critics slammed Trump’s trade plans.

“Donald Trump may want to call this ‘Liberation Day,’ but there is nothing liberating for working families who are grappling with the high costs of food, housing, and utilities,” said Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat. “Tariffs are a tax. They are a tax on working families, a tax on groceries, and a tax on other everyday necessities.”

Other countries planned their own responses. The European Union plans to retaliate with its own measures.

“Europe has not started this confrontation,” EU boss Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech. “We do not necessarily want to retaliate but, if it is necessary, we have a strong plan to retaliate and we will use it.”

She said tariffs are taxes “paid by the people.”

“But Europe has everything to protect our people and our prosperity,” she wrote on X. “We will always promote & defend our interests and values. And we will always stand up for Europe.”

China, the world’s second-largest economy, said Monday that it was planning to coordinate its response to U.S. tariffs with Japan and South Korea.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Tuesday that he was willing to fly to the U.S. to meet with Trump to get an exemption for Japanese vehicle makers. He also said the government will take steps to minimize the impact of U.S. tariffs on Japanese industries and jobs.

Trump will impose a 10% tariff on all countries that will take effect April 5, 2025 at 12:01 a.m. EDT. Trump will impose an individualized reciprocal tariff on the countries with which the United States has the largest trade deficits, including China, India and Vietnam, among others. All other countries will continue to be subject to the 10% tariff baseline, according to the White House.

“These tariffs will remain in effect until such a time as President Trump determines that the threat posed by the trade deficit and underlying nonreciprocal treatment is satisfied, resolved, or mitigated,” according to a White House fact sheet.

Trump’s executive order also gives him authority to increase the tariffs

“if trading partners retaliate” or “decrease the tariffs if trading partners take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements and align with the United States on economic and national security matters,” according to the White House.

“Foreign cheaters have stolen our jobs, ransacked our factories and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream,” Trump said in the Rose Garden.

For China, the tariff rate will be about 34% on imports from the world’s most populous nation. For European Union countries, it will be 20%. For Japan, the duty will be 24%. Imports from India will get a 26% tariff. Cambodia will get hit with a 49% tariff, among the highest Trump outlined on Wednesday.

For months, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has warned that tariffs could increase costs for U.S. consumers and hurt businesses. Neil Bradley, the chamber’s chief policy officer, said businesses large and small don’t want tariffs.

“What we have heard from business of all sizes, across all industries, from around the country is that these broad tariffs are a tax increase that will raise prices for American consumers and hurt the economy,” he said.

Last week, Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported automobiles and auto parts, duties that he said would be “permanent.” The White House said it expects the auto tariffs on cars and light-duty trucks will generate up to $100 billion in federal revenue.

Trump said he hopes to bring in $600 billion to $1 trillion in tariff revenue in the next year or two. Trump also said the tariffs would lead to a manufacturing boom in the U.S., with auto companies building new plants, expanding existing plants and adding jobs.