'You carry it all your life': What it's like coming out as transgender in your seventies

Uma Ahmed

Aug 01 2021

NEW ZEALAND

Late 2019, Jean Smale privately started to transition from male to female at the age of 73.

These days Jean Smale can look at herself in the mirror without discomfort at who stares back at her.

The name ‘Pamala’ had been picked out for Jean before her birth, as her mother was absolutely sure she was having a girl. However, on April 14, 1946, when Jean arrived in south Waikato, it was in the wrong body, she says.

In late 2019, Jean privately started to transition from male to female at the age of 73.

As she sits happily in her Southland home, all dressed up, her nails freshly painted pink, she tells the story of her life.

“I didn’t just get up one morning and decide I wanted to be a girl. It’s been... you carry it with you all your life. You have it in your heart and in your head, it’s right there all the time.”

Growing up in the 1940s and 1950s was tough, especially for those who were different.

“You just couldn’t go out and say ‘oh mum, look I feel like I should be a girl’ because mum probably would have picked up the kindling and given you a hiding to start with.

“And if the police had caught you, well you would have been put in jail... if you were caught wearing women’s clothes, well that would put you in an institution,” she explained.

KAVINDA HERATH/STUFF
Jean Smale has been loving experimenting with different shades of pinks since she came out. Before, in fear of being found out, she stuck to greys. “I’m wearing colours, I’ve got jerseys and things like that, that are all bright colours and what have you ... which I would never have done before.”

It was because of these fears, Jean always stayed silent.

Jean’s parents have long passed away, and she does not think they ever had an inkling that she felt she was in the wrong body.

When asked what their reactions would be if they saw her today, Jean said: “I think they’d be horrified. Um yeah, I don’t think they’d understand at all.”

So, during the years she carried on with her life and tried to do “blokey things” because she looked like one and that was what was expected of her, she said.

“You didn’t talk about these things, they were all kept behind, you know, the closed doors.”

She never felt like she fitted in and there were a few things especially that made her feel uncomfortable, such as using the men’s urinals: “It just embarrassed me. I always did and for many years I’d just gone to the nearest cubicle I could find,” she recalls.

Jean always felt an affinity with females.


KAVINDA HERATH/STUFF
“I decided that for people to take me seriously, I should dress appropriately, so I probably over-dress a little bit maybe, but I like doing that.”

“People don’t realise what transgender actually is. We’re actually the people that are stuck in the middle. So, you have boys here, and you have girls there, and we’re stuck here in the middle. So, we’re a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. And it doesn’t matter which way you’re coming from, whether you’re a boy going to a girl or a girl going to a boy.”

She never felt comfortable in any of the clothes she wore and would simply resort to admiring from afar.

“It was just a longing, every time I saw adverts for women’s clothes and stuff like that, I would look at them and... you wouldn’t be able to say anything.

“In your mind you’d be saying ‘that’s a nice dress, I'd like to be able to wear that’. And you see girls getting their earrings or their ears pierced, their hair-dos and things like that, and you’d long for that sort of thing, but you just weren’t allowed to say anything.”

At age 17, Jean met 15-year-old Tina and fell in love. The couple married on November 23, 1968, and had a marriage of 50 years.

Jean and Tina went through many phases in their marriage. They moved various times, changed jobs, faced financial difficulties, and had problems with conceiving.

They went on to adopt two children in 1971 and 1973 before Tina gave birth to their youngest child in 1983.

Sometime in the 1980s, the family was living in the Bay of Plenty. Their two oldest children had left home and only the youngest was left in the coop. Tina had decided to become a nurse at that time and would be off for training sessions out of town. On occasion, she would be away for whole weeks at a time.

Jean would hold the fort while Tina was away. After the youngest would be off to school in the morning, Jean would have the house all to herself.

“And so I had these clothes and I just used to cross-dress... I’d come home from the cowshed and do the wee girl’s hair and... I would take her off to school, and I’d dress up and spend the day doing housework and spending my time dressed up,” Jean reveals.

Eventually, Jean confided in a good friend about what she had been up to while Tina was away, and she convinced Jean to tell Tina.

When Jean told Tina, her wife accepted her truth.

“She just knew that I had female feelings, and we just left it at that,” Jean said.

So, there was never really any discussions about Jean transitioning, probably because of the societal climate they were in.

“Because once you’ve got a family you don’t want to hurt them.”

Tina arranged an appointment with a hospital psychologist for Jean. The psychologist suggested Jean try and work at a female-oriented industry.

KAVINDA HERATH/STUFF
Jean Smale: “I have always hated mirrors. I would hate having to sit in front of a mirror while I had my hair cut. I didn’t like to look in the mirror because I couldn’t see the person I wanted to see in there.”

Tina was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Jean stayed with her until her death in 2019.

“We were co-dependent right from the very beginning,” she explains.

Jean felt lost afterward and decided to “run away” soon after Tina’s death.

She stocked up with extra fuel and headed north.

“As I was going along, I had this picture of Cape Reinga in my head and I didn’t know why.”

On her way, a stranger saw she was in distress, and they prayed together.

That night she realised why Cape Reinga had got stuck in her head: “My wife’s spirit. Because Māori legend has it that when a person dies, their spirit leaves from Cape Reinga, and so I thought right, that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

She held a ceremony with a kaumātua to farewell Tina’s spirit, and had a long cry afterwards. She stayed away for two months and when she returned to Southland, she was ready to transition.

Jean met up with a psychologist who told her there was nothing

 wrong with who she was, and put her in touch with Chroma, the LGBTQIA+ initiative for Southland.

KAVINDA HERATH/STUFF
Jean’s reasons for hiding her secret: “Because once you’ve got a family you don’t want to hurt them.”

“They’ve kind of become my family a bit. Because they’re all lovely caring people,” she says.

After that, she started to wear whatever caught her fancy, but in private. In September last year, after visiting a doctor regarding the future of her transition, she was ready to present herself to everyone.

“I just decided if I was going to do this, I had to go the whole hog, and so I’ve just put myself out in the community.

“I made it my job that I should go and train the village,” she says.

Jean has been pleasantly surprised with people's reactions, especially the women in her life who have taken her in, she says.

“People have got used to me, so I’m quite happy to go to town now.”

If there is one gripe Jean has with people’s reactions, it is that some people seem to think she decided to become a woman overnight because it is 2021, and she is trying to be “in” with the times.

“They think that I’m just dressing up to have an exciting feeling from wearing women’s clothes, but that’s not the case. I feel really comfortable; I feel like I belong in them,” she says.

Meeting the rainbow community, she has realised she was not the only one who tried to hurt herself during the years because she was ashamed of her own body.

Her psychiatrist informed her it was not unusual for transgender people to try and hurt themselves.

Things such as this are why Jean believes it is important to educate those around her and “train the village” as she likes to call it, to make it easier for others like her.

Jean is grateful that times have changed due to the younger generation being more accepting and open-minded.

She admits it has been hard for her children to accept her transition, but says they are starting to understand she did not make her decision on a whim.

“I was a good person before, and I’m still a good person," she says. “I’m just in a different package.”

READ MORE:
* 13 Reasons Why's Tommy Dorfman comes out as transgender
* Weighing up the emotional side of transgender sporting debate
* Shame, secrecy and medical distrust: What it's like to be intersex in Aotearoa

Bacon May Disappear From San Francisco Bay Area Breakfast Menus

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/AP) 
July 31, 2021 

Thanks to a reworked menu and long hours, Jeannie Kim managed to keep her San Francisco restaurant alive during the coronavirus pandemic.

That makes it all the more frustrating that she fears her breakfast-focused diner could be ruined within months by new rules that could make one of her top menu items — bacon — hard to get in California.

“Our number one seller is bacon, eggs and hash browns,” said Kim, who for 15 years has run SAMS American Eatery on the city’s busy Market Street. “It could be devastating for us.”

At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing Proposition 12 approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves.

National veal and egg producers are optimistic they can meet the new standards, but only 4% of hog operations now comply with the new rules.

Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to regain a key market.

Animal welfare organizations for years have been pushing for more humane treatment of farm animals but the California rules could be a rare case of consumers clearly paying a price for their beliefs.

With little time left to build new facilities, inseminate sows and process the offspring by January, it’s hard to see how the pork industry can adequately supply California, which consumes roughly 15% of all pork produced in the country.

“We are very concerned about the potential supply impacts and therefore cost increases,” said Matt Sutton, the public policy director for the California Restaurant Association.

California’s restaurants and groceries use about 255 million pounds of pork a month, but its farms produce only 45 million pounds, according to Rabobank, a global food and agriculture financial services company.

The National Pork Producers Council has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to help pay for retrofitting hog facilities around the nation to fill the gap. Hog farmers said they haven’t complied because of the cost and because California hasn’t yet issued formal regulations on how the new standards will be administered and enforced.

Barry Goodwin, an economist at North Carolina State University, estimated the extra costs at 15% more per animal for a farm with 1,000 breeding pigs.

If half the pork supply was suddenly lost in California, bacon prices would jump 60%, meaning a $6 package would rise to about $9.60, according to a study by the Hatamiya Group, a consulting firm hired by opponents of the state proposition.

At one typical hog farm in Iowa, sows are kept in open-air crates measuring 14-square-feet when they join a herd and then for a week as part of the insemination process before moving to larger, roughly 20-square foot group pens with other hogs. Both are less than the 24 square feet required by the California law to give breeding pigs enough room to turn around and to extend their limbs. Other operations keep sows in the crates nearly all of the time so also wouldn’t be in compliance.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture said that although the detailed regulations aren’t finished, the key rules about space have been known for years.

“It is important to note that the law itself cannot be changed by regulations and the law has been in place since the Farm Animal Confinement Proposition (Prop 12) passed by a wide margin in 2018,” the agency said in response to questions from the AP.

The pork industry has filed lawsuits but so far courts have supported the California law. The National Pork Producers Council and a coalition of California restaurants and business groups have asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to delay the new requirements. The council also is holding out hope that meat already in the supply chain could be sold, potentially delaying shortages.

Josh Balk, who leads farm animal protection efforts at the Humane Society of the United States, said the pork industry should accept the overwhelming view of Californians who want animals treated more humanely.

“Why are pork producers constantly trying to overturn laws relating to cruelty to animals?” Balk asked. “It says something about the pork industry when it seems its business operandi is to lose at the ballot when they try to defend the practices and then when animal cruelty laws are passed, to try to overturn them.”

In Iowa, which raises about one-third of the nation’s hogs, farmer Dwight Mogler estimates the changes would cost him $3 million and allow room for 250 pigs in a space that now holds 300.

To afford the expense, Mogler said, he’d need to earn an extra $20 per pig and so far, processors are offering far less.

“The question to us is, if we do these changes, what is the next change going to be in the rules two years, three years, five years ahead?” Mogler asked.

The California rules also create a challenge for slaughterhouses, which now may send different cuts of a single hog to locations around the nation and to other countries. Processors will need to design new systems to track California-compliant hogs and separate those premium cuts from standard pork that can serve the rest of the country.

At least initially, analysts predict that even as California pork prices soar, customers elsewhere in the country will see little difference. Eventually, California’s new rules could become a national standard because processors can’t afford to ignore the market in such a large state.

Kim, the San Francisco restaurant owner, said she survived the pandemic by paring back her menu, driving hundreds of miles herself through the Bay Area to deliver food and reducing staff.

Kim, who is Korean-American, said she’s especially worried for small restaurants whose customers can’t afford big price increases and that specialize in Asian and Hispanic dishes that typically include pork.

“You know, I work and live with a lot of Asian and Hispanic populations in the city and their diet consists of pork. Pork is huge,” Kim said. “It’s almost like bread and butter.”

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M
Cryptocurrency transfer led to money laundering conviction, but experts say a boom in underworld use unlikely

Libby Wilson05:00, Aug 01 2021

JACK TAYLOR/GETTY IMAGES
Rayon Mohi Williams – who was arrested as part of an investigation into a methamphetamine operation – had made a $5000 transfer to show an associate how cryptocurrency transactions work.

Police on a methamphetamine operation uncovered a $5000 cryptocurrency transfer that led to a money laundering conviction.

But a boom in underworld uses of encrypted currency is unlikely, according to academics with an interest in the area.

Cash is still simpler, and one academic warned any would-be criminal users that cryptocurrency isn’t as anonymous as initially touted.

A recent court decision shows police picked up a transfer made by Rayon Mohi Williams – one of 29 people arrested after a methamphetamine investigation spanning Auckland and Waikato.


READ MORE:
* Cryptocoins are proliferating wildly. What are they all for?
* Volatility in price of bitcoin raises tax questions
* Ex-Cryptopia staffer admits stealing almost $250,000 of cryptocurrency
* Cryptomining attack prompts password changes at Massey University


From January 2020, police began investigating a “highly organised and lucrative drug dealing business”.

Williams sent $5000 to an associate, as a cryptocurrency transaction demonstration for another person, according to a recent Court of Appeal decision.

That earned him a money laundering conviction – but his cryptocurrency wallet was not found, so the court couldn't know how much he’d bought or held.

Williams also faced another money laundering charge, for paying $26,750 cash for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle in June 2020.

UNSPLASH
Authorities never found Williams’ wallet, so couldn’t say how much cryptocurrency he’d bought or held.

The court believed Williams laundered more, despite not having evidence of how much.

It noted he worked closely with the operation’s central figure, “in particular discussing and demonstrating the purchase and balance of cryptocurrency accounts”.

The judge was satisfied that Williams’ offending was “not insignificant”, basing that on “the sums Mr Williams had received and disbursed and from the steps that Mr Williams had taken to conceal his activities”.

CHRIS SKELTON/STUFF
Cryptocurrency is often more traceable than cash, University of Auckland associate professor of commercial law Alex Sims says.

Cryptocurrency would likely only be used in a very small percentage of laundering situations because cash was much simpler, University of Auckland’s Alex Sims told Stuff.

“You’ve got to find someone who’s willing to accept [the cryptocurrency] from you, and it’s hard to turn it back into NZ dollars,” the commercial law associate professor said.

“You would basically have to prove where you got it from”.

Encrypted currency is often more traceable than cash, if law enforcement agencies discover who is behind a public key, used for identification.

“If you are incredibly sophisticated there are ways around it, but that’s very hard.”

However, as cryptocurrency use becomes increasingly common in society, it follows that it’ll be used more for crime, she said.

University of Otago’s Dr John Williams warned any would-be criminal users: “it’s not as anonymous as you might think”.

Williams is a business school senior lecturer who himself owns cryptocurrency.

123RF
Cryptocurrency is “not as anonymous as you might think”, University of Otago business school senior lecturer Dr John Williams says.

And he wasn't surprised the law hadn't managed to track down Williams’ wallet.

“The authorities will have increasing cases to deal with but also will have increasingly capable tools to combat it as well, as the law enforcement agencies share the strategies and tactics they use to be anonymised.”

Still, the issue of ransomware attacks well overshadowed money laundering through cryptocurrency, he said.

Rayon Mohi Williams appealed the original sentence for his two money laundering charges, and the Court of Appeal changed it to 10 months of home detention, with special conditions.

Police were approached for comment on cryptocurrency and money laundering but did not respond before publication.

NEW ZEALAND THE SEVENTIES

The dawn raids explained: What drove the Government to target Pasifika people

Keith Lynch Aug 01 2021

Once a Panther is a Stuff podcast about the Polynesian Panther Party, a group of young New Zealand-born Pacific Islanders who stood up to institutionalised racism and helped change the course of history in Aotearoa.

In the 1970s, New Zealand governments (both Labour and National), migration officials and police targeted Pasifika overstayers. Homes were raided late at night and people were stopped in the street.

What happened has prompted a formal apology from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government, which will take place in Auckland today.

This is what led to the raids and how they came to an end.
The boom

In 1945, there were about 2000 Pasifika people living in New Zealand.

READ MORE:
* A Dawn Raids apology is worthless without an overstayer amnesty, says 'Tongan Robin Hood'

* Once a Panther: The revolutionary Polynesians who stopped the dawn raids

* Dawn raids on overstayers still happening, despite Government apology to Pasifika

After World War II, Aotearoa’s economy enjoyed an unprecedented boom, fuelled mostly by agricultural exports – the likes of meat, wool and dairy – primarily to Britain. Wool was particularly lucrative.

These industries needed workers, so the Government actively sought to attract people from a range of nearby Pacific countries. Most arrived from the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji.

At the time, those from the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau were automatically granted New Zealand citizenship which, of course, meant they could come and go as they pleased. (This changed in 2006).

Those from Tonga, Samoa and Fiji were not citizens. But they were still granted access to New Zealand through the likes of temporary short-term visas and other migration schemes.

According to this Te Ara piece: “Programmes brought young men over as agricultural and forestry workers, and young women as domestics.”

ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF
Minister Aupito William Sio gets emotional during the press conference as he talked about his Dawn Raid experiences.

By 1976, there were almost 65,700 Pasifika people in the country, 2.1 per cent of the total population.

As New Zealand badly needed workers, it essentially turned a blind eye to Pasifika people coming into the country and staying on when a visa expired.
The bust

Life was pretty good in 1960s New Zealand. The country had a high standard of living. Nearly everyone had a job and there was almost no inflation.

Then came December 14, 1966, when the auction price for wool collapsed by 40 per cent overnight. It caused a 16 per cent drop off in our export revenue, according to this Radio New Zealand report.

On January 1, 1973, Britain joined the European Economic Community, which has since morphed into the European Union. This severely impacted a New Zealand economy reliant on exports. The terms of the game had changed.

LISTEN NOW

Worse was to come. The price of oil soared, rising from about US$3 a barrel to nearly US$20 in the early 1970s. The hikes were prompted by Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposing an embargo on oil production, retaliating against western nations for supporting Israel in the 1973 war. Higher oil prices made it more expensive to do business.

These economic shocks rocked New Zealand to its core.The good times were over. Jobs were harder to come by. And some media and politicians began to demonise certain groups of people.

The blame

A 1968 amendment to the Immigration Act helped lay the groundwork of what was to come. The law change allowed the deportation of those who had overstayed their work permits. It also required people to produce a work permit or passport to prove their immigration status, if asked.

If you didn’t have a passport you were in trouble. The problem was, as Joris de Bres, a former Race Relations Commissioner, wrote: “Often, their passports were held by travel agents as a bond against repayment of their borrowed fares.”

Dr Melani Anae, an associate professor of Pacific studies at the University of Auckland, explained what this meant in her book: The Platform: The Radical Legacy of the Polynesian Panthers. (This excerpt was published on E-Tangata.)

“Those who did not comply on the spot could be arrested, kept in a holding cell without a warrant, and in some cases deported…”

The law allowed officials to target Samoan and Tongan people who stayed on after their permit expired. Police also created task forces targeting overstayers and dealing with violence in inner-city Auckland.

Massey University’s Professor Paul Spoonley says the Labour government of the time was unusual and somewhat divided on the issue. On one hand, they made conciliatory remarks about the Pacific. On the other hand, they ordered a crackdown on overstayers.

In 1974, the year before New Zealand's next general election, the raids began.

SUPPLIED.

Telesia Topping tells her story during the Dawn Raids.

The raids

A young policeman, about 22 years old, came into my room . . . I asked him what he was doing in my bedroom. He did not answer. I was really frightened.

He went to the bathroom, inspected it, came back and pulled the covers off my bed . . . He pulled open the wardrobe, fiddled with the clothing, checked everything. The same policeman went into the adjoining room where my two nephews, aged 19 and 20 years, were asleep. The policeman shone the light into their eyes, saying “get up and get out”...

My nephews were very frightened. The police then started dragging them out to their van.

This was the account of Telesia Topping, a Tongan woman who had lived in New Zealand for 10 years. She told the story to the Auckland Star.

Police and immigration officials targeted Pasifika people in a bid to remove alleged overstayers. They went to homes and churches, and targeted factories and hotels. They used dogs. New Zealand citizens were, of course, also caught up in the raids.
The election

Spooked by protests and potentially realising the economic necessity of migrants, Labour acted. Immigration Minister Fraser Colman called a halt to the raids in 1974. Prime Minister Norman Kirk introduced an amnesty allowing migrants to register themselves and gain a two-month extension of their work visa. Kirk died later that year.

Labour’s shift was seized upon by the National Party, led by Robert Muldoon. He took the party leadership in July 1974 and immediately promised to cut migration. His rhetoric was populist and nationalistic.

The National Party ran an extremely controversial campaign ad, animated by Hanna-Barbera (which was behind Scooby Doo and The Flintstones) directed at migrants.

SUPPLIED
A still from National's controversial campaign cartoon before the 1975 election.

Muldoon won and the raids became more intense in 1975. Now people were being randomly stopped in the streets.

When asked about whether the police were targetting Pasifika people, the then Police Minister Allan McCready said they were not. He explained: “If you have a herd of Jerseys and two Friesians, the Friesians stand out.”

News reports also emerged that some police were angry at being used as political pawns. The Government’s position was simple. The raids were justified to catch illegal migrants.
The Polynesian Panthers

An activist group called the Polynesian Panthers was formed in 1971 to fight discrimination. They grew throughout the 1970s with members in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Sydney.

As Stuff’s Brad Flahive and Alex Liu reported, the Panthers responded to the raids by supporting their community but also by “raiding” government ministers outside their homes in the early hours of the morning.

The group has gone on to successfully campaign for a state apology, which will happen at a commemoration event in the Auckland Town Hall on August 1.

***To mark the party’s 50th anniversary, Stuff released its latest major podcast funded by NZ On Air. Once a Panther chronicles their stories. You can find it here.

SUPPLIED.
The Immigration Minister defended the raids

.
The wind-down

Ultimately the raids became untenable. In 1977, the Immigration Department changed up overstayers' processes.

The NZ History website provides an insight into the political motivations that ended the raids.

While some point to the work of the Polynesian Panthers and other advocacy groups, author Sharon Alice Liava'a believed the public condemnation of the raids did not in fact lead to them coming to the end.

“Rather, she claims that it was Muldoon’s own realisation that things had gone too far that led to the raids ending," reported NZ History.

There were also tangible economic changes. While the police went after Pasifika people, the economy wasn’t getting much better. And in 1977 people were leaving New Zealand – about 12,000 a year.

The public, business leaders and trade unionists were not necessarily happy with this.

“The Government came under pressure from employers, many of whom had stayed silent during the campaign, even though they had been directly benefiting from Pasifika labour,” Spoonley said.

KEITH LYNCH • EXPLAINER EDITOR
keith.lynch@stuff.co.nz
The data

This Canterbury University thesis cites a 1977 computer printout of expired visitors and work permits that showed that “of the 3641 persons who stayed beyond their allotted time in the preceding 12 months, 40 per cent of them were other than Pacific Islanders”.

According to the then Immigration Minister Frank Gill, the reasons Samoan, Tongan and Fijian people were targeted was because they “tell tales on each other” and were easy to detect as they worked.

Spoonley’s book Racism and Ethnicity outlines that the “discriminatory” behaviour continued after the raids.

Between August 1, 1985, and March 31, 1986, there were 313 prosecutions against illegal migrants.

“Although Pacific Island overstayers only constituted one-third of all overstayers, 86 per cent (270) of prosecutions involved Pacific Islanders. Overstayers from the US and UK comprised 31 per cent of all overstayers, but only 5 per cent of those prosecuted.”

Stuff contacted Immigration New Zealand to source numbers that would better illustrate the disproportionate targeting of Pasifika people. The data was not available.

In her formal statement announcing the raids, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: “There is clear evidence the raids were discriminatory and have had a lasting negative impact.”

The first five episodes of Once a Panther can be found on Stuff or through podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or via an RSS feed.

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/08/new-zealands-pm-ardern-apologises-for.html

Pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners hold separate protests in Belfast

People hold up placards and banners as they take part in a pro-choice rally in Belfast's Writer's Square. Pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners have held separate protests in Belfast amid the deepening political row over the commissioning of services in Northern Ireland. Picture date: Saturday July 31, 2021. PA Photo. See PA story ULSTER Abortion. Photo credit should read: David Young/PA Wire


David Young
July 31 2021 

Pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners have held separate protests in Belfast amid the deepening political row over the commissioning of services in Northern Ireland.

The small-scale demonstrations in the city centre came after DUP First Minister Paul Givan threatened to block the Government move to formally direct Stormont to fully roll out abortion services in the region.

Northern Ireland’s once strict abortion laws were liberalised in 2019 following legislation passed by Westminster at a time when devolution had collapsed.

The Government introduced regulations to give effect to those law changes the following year.

However, more than a year on, Stormont’s Department of Health has yet to centrally commission full services due to an impasse within the devolved administration.

Early medical abortions have been offered by individual health trusts on an ad hoc basis since last year but the limitations on service provision have seen many women continue to travel to England to access surgical abortions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The anti-abortion DUP has blocked consideration of central commissioning at the Stormont Executive.

This forced the Government to introduce new powers to allow Secretary of State Brandon Lewis to intervene on the devolved issue to formally direct Stormont to roll out the services.

While Sinn Fein has welcomed the Government intervention as a means to break the impasse, Mr Givan has sought legal advice on how to “resist” Mr Lewis’s orders.

Belfast city councillor Fiona Ferguson helped organise the pro-choice rally at Writer’s Square on Saturday afternoon.

“We’re here because of the Executive first of all dragging its feet for this long after decriminalisation,” the People Before Profit representative told the PA news agency.

“But now that we know they’ve been given a directive from Westminster, frankly and understandably a lot of activists in Belfast don’t trust the Executive to act.

“That’s been reinforced by Paul Givan coming out very swiftly to say he will try to block abortion services.”

Councillor Ferguson added: “I think that the DUP may well try to take this to court and, if they do, the (pro-choice) movement is prepared to mobilise to make it clear what the vast majority of people want here.

“Those who try to block abortion, they’re not just moving against women’s rights, it’s also against democracy, because the vast majority of people here have said time and again we need abortion services, we want abortion services and we won’t stand for no abortion services for much longer.”

Across Writer’s Square, a number of activists from Abolish Abortion NI held a counter-rally.

Mark Lambe from the Christian anti-abortion group said the DUP should be prepared to walk out of the powersharing administration if the Government forced through services.

He said Mr Lewis had taken “extreme” powers that were without precedent in devolution settlements across the UK.

“The powers that he has taken give him the ability to direct any department or any minister in the Executive, so in fact he can, without a single vote or without a mandate, appoint himself as a minister on the Executive,” said Mr Lambe.

“What we’re calling for is Robin Swann (Health Minister) to issue an immediate counter-direction to undo the directions that he (Mr Lewis) has given and we are also then calling on the First Minister (Mr Givan) to consider his position on the Executive if the Secretary of State seeks to implement any further abortion regime in Northern Ireland.”

At nearby Cornmarket in the city centre, the anti-abortion group Precious Life created a temporary artwork using pairs of baby shoes to form 1,556 – signifying the number of abortions carried out in Northern Ireland since the regulations were introduced last year.

LIBERTARIAN CAPITALI$M

Blockchain Is Democratising Art for Everyone

by Susana MendozaJuly 28, 2021

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The days of the starving artist myth may be over soon, as the figure of the blockchain savvy artist-entrepreneur seems to be emerging in recent months. A host of artists, including well-known singers and performers, are jumping on the blockchain bandwagon thanks to the increasingly popular Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

One of them is the singer and digital artist Grimes, who last March made over $6million in one day after she put up some digital artwork for auction on Nifty Gateway, an NFT marketplace. Another digital artist known as Beeple, sold $3.5million on the same platform.

But what is an NFT and why is it important for the art world? Non-Fungible means that it cannot be replaced, just like art. An NFT is a unit of data that certifies a digital asset to be unique and can be traced to help prevent fraud. That’s something appealing to artists, who are always concerned about fakes, copies, and plagiarism. But the main appeal is the end of the galleries as the sole gatekeepers of who gets to access the fame and money of the artists’ Olympus.

“Traditionally you’d take your art to a gallery and they would represent you and bring in clients,” Elissa Waverly, an artist selling her artwork in NFTs told The Fintech Times.  “There’s a lot of things happening in the world of art galleries that don’t make sense to me as an artist. They’re not built for the average person to go in and buy art. Artists are also told ‘don’t make a lot of art’, because it would drive down the price for their artwork. So the outcome is there’s less art for the art world and buyers,” she said.

But now, according to Waverly, we can jump over the middleman and buy a piece of the artwork itself thanks to NFTs, which act like assets. “You can codify what would be a traditional contract you sign with the gallery, but this way people represent themselves with this code, this smart contract,” Waverly said. For this artist, the first layer of the digital revolution that allowed creatives to ditch the middleman were places like Instagram and other platforms to showcase and sell artwork, like Etsy. Now, with NFTs buyers can have a stake in the artist’s work, which may increase in value over time and also allow creators to continue selling royalties of their art, in perpetuity.

There are already some popular platforms where artists can sell their art, including songs or poems, like opensea.io and rarible.com, but for most of them, you need to have a digital wallet and cryptocurrency to shop. You can even tokenise yourself on Bitclout and create your own crypto coin, which users can buy, determining its value. “Many artists and famous people are tokenising themselves so when you buy, you’re investing in them, hoping their value will increase,” Waverly said, adding she has her own coin in Bitclout too.

For Dr. John C. Edmunds, an economist who teaches at Babson College, the key is access to a much wider audience without the limits imposed by galleries. “Think of NFTs like you’d think for example, of a lithograph,” Edmunds told The Fintech Times. “You can make 200 copies and sign them, and the gallery pays you let’s say, $500, but sells each one of them for thousands. With NFTs you don’t need to have a limited number and it’s harder to get ripped off,” he said.

Edmunds, who’s written about NFTs and art in one of his books, thinks that it also attracts creators because it makes forgery much more difficult. “With NFTs I can create an image and send you a copy, but I can code it so that you can’t post it anywhere unless I give you a key,” he explained.

But new ways to sell work means new ways to market it and let audiences know about it. And though the gatekeepers may have fallen, this means the brunt of the marketing side is left to the artist, who may not have the savvy or time to bring their creations to the millions of eyeballs hungry for NFTs. The competition is tough, and it’s only getting tougher as NFTs popularity increases, despite the brutal fluctuations of cryptocurrencies.

Of course, some Silicon Valley companies have also jumped on the NFT cryptowagon, though most of them are investing on metaverses. In these metaverses, users and companies can invest in virtual real state and experiences and Silicon Valley heavyweights like Gemini Frontier Fund (funded by the Winklevoss twins), Galaxy Interactive and others, are backing many NFT-based virtual ventures. One of the most famous ones is Sandbox, where gamers, artists and performers can gather to create or contribute to virtual worlds. The expectation with Sandbox is that users will be able to buy and sell their virtual properties and goods using blockchain.

Author

• Susana Mendoza

  Susana Mendoza is a tech journalist based in Silicon Valley, with a background in broadcast and coding. She reports on startups, finance, science and politics for various international media outlets. She is also a conversation designer (aka robot whisperer).

 MIND READING AT WORK

EDF: How Can Employee-Centric AI Support Financial Firms To Meet Their Future Expectations?

by Francis BignellJuly 31, 2021

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Most financial organisations are by now aware of the financial benefits of deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve process efficiency and reduce fraud; but are they aware of the benefits it can have on their employees and governance practices too?

Artificial Intelligence (AI), often cited as the foundation of the 4th Industrial Revolution, has transformed, at pace, entire systems of management, productivity, governance, and consumer engagement within the financial sector.

The regulator is committed to improving the culture of firms in the sector and, with the launch of the Conduct Rules fast on the heels of SM&CR, it is clear the regulator expects higher standards from both employees and management. 

Firms should look to Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist them in improving their focus on employee-centric competence and governance provisions. After all, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been “hoovering” up all the top maths graduates as they themselves step away from a traditional face-to-face approach and instead embrace a data-driven, policing and enforcement strategy explains Adrian Harvey, CEO of Elephants Don’t Forget. 

“Employee engagement and continual evidential assessment that staff on the frontline are understanding key regulatory and consumer themes for the future is absolutely paramount for financial firms.Harvey stated:

Whilst some publications have expressed that the themes in the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) latest Business Plan 2021/22 can be viewed as extensions of the previous year. The activities that the regulator is looking to implement in the future remain inherently linked to meeting the objectives of embedding purposeful culture and providing evidence of positive consumer outcomes.

There is also more of a direct relationship to evidential employee competence and governance application too. How will firms ensure that they meet consumer priorities and demonstrate that they are helping their customers make informed choices? How will firms improve customer service levels? Employee competency has a primary role to play in meeting these objectives.

The rhetoric of the Business Plan – especially the new Consumer Duty – reiterates that firms need to put their customers’ interests at the centre of their business models.

Firms now need to look at how they make these regulatory priorities a reality and bring them to life within their organisations through their training provisions.

When you look at ‘vulnerability’ as an escalating issue due to covid-19 for example, it has tested the foundations of culture and governance practices across the sector. It has also directly impacted frontline advisors, as their respective firms rely on their ability to recognise and act on their own knowledge to navigate the myriad of policies and primary key drivers of vulnerability to ensure positive outcomes.

‘Purposeful cultures’ was championed as a way for firms to demonstrate to the regulator how they are helping to respond to the challenging circumstances faced by their customers.

Increased support and training provisions, accountability, encouraging long-term behavioural change, and maintaining a wider appreciation of new consumer frailties in a covid-19 world are likely to be the key indicators of how positive cultural change will be assessed by the FCA.

Increasing positive consumer outcomes is a primary focus then, and firms will also need to learn from their previous mistakes during the pandemic – especially if they are going to meet the requirement of ensuring robust operational resilience in the new normal too.”

Artificial Intelligence provider, Elephants Don’t Forget, who commissioned a three-year study to assess the baseline competency of employees within the financial sector, analysed the responses to over 72 million competency assessment interactions between 2017-19. The study found that the average level of tenured employee competency within many firms stood at just 52%, pre-pandemic.

The provider also conducted several polls throughout the pandemic, directly questioning firms on their covid-19 response practices. The findings indicated that some financial organisations did not make any updates to their competence and governance practices until as late on as February 2021.

Further analysis of the responses also suggested that there could be a potentially concerning misalignment issue between some Risk and Compliance professionals and Senior Management bodies regarding the efficacy of assessing and evidencing competency within some firms.

Harvey explained:

“As we entered the first lockdown on the 23rd of March 2020, 47% of senior management individuals polled stated that they had not implemented or provided any new Training and Competence (T&C) provisions to upskill their employees and protect against work from home (WFH) governance risks.

Then, in our February 2021 poll, 40% of respondents stated that they were still yet to make any updates. 66% of Compliance and Risk professionals also asserted they were not entirely confident that their Senior Managers could demonstrate a consistent approach and application to T&C, with attaining, maintaining, and evidencing employee competence being recorded as the primary issues.

Finally, in our latest poll – conducted in April 2021 – 64% of Senior Managers stated they would be confident in evidencing employee competency to the regulator if required.

The disparity in the responses between the Risk and Compliance and Senior Managers polled at this juncture was surprising, calling into question what Senior Management individuals deem to be appropriate and satisfactory evidence of employee competency, as over half of the Risk and Compliance professionals polled the previous month had stated that evidencing this successfully was still a major issue for their firms.”

Harvey stresses that evidence-based AI solutions should be advocated to resolve any subjective opinions regarding employee competence and compliance.

“The common obstacles shared by most financial firms to embed a purposeful culture – one that is underpinned by competence and compliance – are being solved, at pace, by technology advances in the Fintech space; chiefly through employee-focused AI.

Where there was once an inability to attribute improved business performance to competency and compliance, AI is providing financial firms with the Management Information (MI) they need to produce a forward-facing risk radar that highlights – and automatically repairs – critical employee knowledge gaps, replicate star performer behaviours, and improve critical customer service metrics.

It is cost-effectively revolutionising the way employees engage and retain critical subject matter like compliance – which can often be codified as boring – by providing tailored assessments at an individualised level, based upon the unique requirements of every employee.”

Harvey contends that firms which continue to rely exclusively on traditional training methods, often characterised by annual refresher training, e-learning and ‘classroom-style’ presentations, cannot evidence objective, real-time competency and compliance of their employees, as these models often only demonstrate competency levels at a single point in time.

He also asserts that these modalities of training can indirectly fuel negative improvement of culture within firms, as they can propagate training resentment and inadequate knowledge retention, as employees are subjected to alienating, ‘one-size-fits-all’ training approaches that fosters disenfranchisement with critical subject matter.

Instead, Harvey urges that more financial firms should understand the behavioural science behind employee learning and assess the benefits that space learning, repetition, and individual regular micro-assessments can bring to their organisations through AI.

Harvey concluded:

“The most effective cultural change initiatives in 2021 will not be tick-box exercises, but long-term, continual change programs that are supported by regular assessment and committed Senior Managers.

Employee-centric AI – like our very own Clever Nelly – is habitually considered by the leading financial organisations we support to play an integral role in helping their firms to meet and evidence their purposeful culture objectives. These organisations recognise that employee competence and capability is inherently linked to positive culture change, and it plays a primary role in their culture framework.

Financial firms that fail to champion individual employee competency as one of the primary culture influencers within their 2021 culture framework will find it extremely difficult to meet increasing regulatory expectations. Employees must possess the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver their firms’ – and the regulator’s – ambitions for the future.”

Author

• Francis Bignell

  Francis is a junior journalist with a BA in Classical Civilization, he has a specialist interest in North and South America.

Canada border guards vote to go on strike just days before reopening the border with U.S.


By Karen Graham
Published July 28, 2021

Vancouver, Canada - United States, Customs and Border Protection CBP) and Vancouver, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) work together for border crossing efficiency. United States and Canada Customs work together in the Vancouver International Airport

 NEXUS office processing passengers. (CBP Photographer: Donna Burton). Source - U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Public Domain

In a move that is sure to cause disruptions and hurt businesses, Canadian border guards and customs officials voted on Tuesday to go on strike on August 6, just days before the U.S.-Canada border was set to reopen to fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

CTV News Canada is reporting the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and its Customs and Immigration Union (CIU) announced Tuesday nearly 9,000 Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSC) employees “may strike August 6,” just three days before the proposed reopening of the border.

PSAC-CIU represents 5,500 border services officers, 2,000 headquarters staff, and other workers at Canada Post facilities and in inland enforcement jobs.

It seems negotiations between the unions and the employer, CBSC, have been going on for three years, finally reaching an impasse in December 2020, according to Reuters. This means the union members have been without a contract since June 2018.

The CBSC has deemed most border guards as being “essential” workers, meaning they will still be manning the borders, however, CBC Canada is reporting that the unions said strike action could slow down commercial traffic at the border and ports of entry.

RCMP and CBSA officers in Vancouver, British Columbia. Source –
https://www.flickr.com/people/2010observers/ – 2010 Legal Observers. BB SA 3.0

The strike will also hit international mail and parcel deliveries from Canada Post and other major shipping companies, and disrupt the collection of duties and taxes on goods entering Canada.

Chris Aylward, the national president of PSAC, told reporters Tuesday, “We’ve been in negotiations for over three years, but the employer has flat out refused to address critical workplace issues impacting our members,” Aylward said.


Between the PSAC and CIU, the grievances range from employees often being under threat of “heavy-handed discipline and abuse” by those in managerial positions, to issues involving protections against excessive discipline and harassment, whistle-blowing protections, and remote work provisions.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it has been a tough year for border guards – having fewer crossings to process while being tasked with carrying out more stringent checks on travelers.

“We will be working very closely with the CBSA union to make sure that we are negotiating, getting to the bargaining table, trying to figure out a path forward,” Trudeau said.