Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chaya Kasif, PhD Candidate; Assyriologist, Macquarie University

Today, trans people face politicisation of their lives and vilification from politicians, media and parts of broader society.

But in some of history’s earliest civilisations, gender-diverse people were recognised and understood in a wholly different way.

As early as 4,500 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, for instance, gender-diverse people held important roles in society with professional titles. These included the cultic attendants of the major deity Ištar, called assinnu, and high-ranking royal courtiers called ša rēši.

What the ancient evidence tells us is that these people held positions of power because of their gender ambiguity, not despite it.

Where is Mesopotamia and who lived there?

Mesopotamia is a region primarily made up of modern Iraq, but also parts of Syria, Turkey and Iran. Part of the Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia is a Greek word which literally means “land between two rivers”, referring to the Euphrates and Tigris.

For thousands of years, several different major cultural groups lived there. Amongst these were the Sumerians, and the later Semitic groups called the Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians.

The Sumerians invented writing by creating wedges on clay tablets. The script, called cuneiform, was made to write the Sumerian language but would be used by the later civilisations to write their own dialects of Akkadian, the earliest Semitic language.

Who were the assinnu?

The assinnu were the religious servants of the major Mesopotamian goddess of love and war, Ištar.

The queen of heaven, Ištar was the precursor to Aphrodite and Venus.

Also known by the Sumerians as Inanna, she was a warrior god, and held the ultimate political power to legitimise kings.

She also oversaw love, sexuality and fertility. In the myth of her journey to the Netherworld, her death puts an end to all reproduction on Earth.
For the Mesopotamians, Ištar was one of the greatest deities in the pantheon. The maintenance of her official cult ensured the survival of humanity.

As her attendants, the assinnu were responsible for pleasing and tending to her through religious ritual and the upkeep of her temple.

The title assinnu is an Akkadian word related to terms that mean “woman-like” and “man-woman”, as well as “hero” and “priestess”.

Their gender fluidity was bestowed on them by Ištar herself. In a Sumerian hymn, the goddess is described as having the power to

turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man

to change one into the other

to dress women in clothes for men

to dress men in clothes for women

to put spindles into the hands of men

and to give weapons to women.

The assinnu were viewed by some early scholars as a type of religious sex worker. This, however, is based on early assumptions about gender-diverse groups, and is not well supported by evidence.

The title is also often translated as “eunuch”, though there is also no clear evidence they were castrated men. While the title is primarily masculine, there is evidence of female assinnu. In fact, various texts show they resisted the gender binary.

Their religious importance allowed them to possess magical and healing powers. An incantation states:

May your assinnu stand by and extract my illness. May he make the illness
which seized me go out the window.

And a Neo-Assyrian omen tells us that sexual relations with an assinnu could bring personal benefits:

If a man approaches an assinnu [for sex]: restrictions will be loosened for him.

As the devotees of Ištar, they also had powerful political influence. A Neo-Babylonian almanac states:

[the king] should touch the head of an assinnu, he shall defeat his enemy
his land will obey his command.

Having their gender transformed by Ištar herself, the assinnu could walk between the divine and the mortal as they maintained the wellbeing of both the gods and humanity.

Who were the ša rēši?

Usually described as eunuchs, the ša rēši were attendants to the king.

Court “eunuchs” have been recorded in many cultures throughout history. However, the term did not exist in Mesopotamia, and the ša rēši had their own distinct title.

The Akkadian term ša rēši literally means “one of the head”, and refers to the king’s closest courtiers. Their duties in the palace varied, and they could hold several high-ranking posts at the same time.

The evidence for their gender ambiguity is both textual and visual. There are various texts that describe them as infertile, such as an incantation which states:

Like a ša rēši who does not beget, may your semen dry up!

The ša rēši are always depicted beardless, and were contrasted with another type of courtier called ša ziqnī (“bearded one”), who had descendants. In Mesopotamian cultures, beards signified one’s manhood, and so a beardless man would go directly against the norm. Yet, reliefs show the ša rēši wore the same dress as other royal men, and so were able to display authority alongside other elite males.

One of their main functions was supervising the women’s quarters in the palace – a place of highly restricted access – where the only male permitted to enter was the king himself.

As they were so closely trusted by the king, they were not only able to hold martial roles as guards and charioteers, but also lead their own armies. After their victories, ša rēši were granted property and governorship over newly conquered territories, as evidenced by one such ša rēši who erected their own royal stone inscription.

Because of their gender fluidity, the ša rēši were able to transcend the boundaries of not just gendered space, but that between ruler and subject.

Gender ambiguity as a tool of power

While early historians understood these figures as “eunuchs” or “cultic sex workers”, the evidence shows it was because they lived unbound by the gender binary that these groups were able to hold powerful roles in Mesopotamian society.

As we recognise the importance of transgender and gender-diverse people in our communities today, we can see this as a continuity of respect given to these early figures.

Chaya Kasif does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Not just ‘eunuchs’ or sex workers: in ancient Mesopotamia, gender-diverse people held positions of power – https://theconversation.com/not-just-eunuchs-or-sex-workers-in-ancient-mesopotamia-gender-diverse-people-held-positions-of-power-270269

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rod McNaughton, Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

For decades, we have heard a familiar story about why New Zealand’s firms choose to stay small. Business owners prefer comfort, control and lifestyle over ambition, summed up in the old notion of the “bach, boat and BMW” being the height of aspiration.

The statistics show this pattern clearly. New Zealand’s productivity has lagged other advanced economies for years, with output per hour worked sitting below the OECD average.

This gap is often blamed on the fact that nearly 97% of local businesses employ fewer than 20 people and many stay small their entire life cycle. Yet a fast emerging global trend suggests smallness is no longer a drawback.

Across software, design, digital media and specialist manufacturing, a growing number of international firms are choosing to stay small. Their aim is not to avoid ambition, but to preserve quality, identity and resilience in a transformed economic environment.

This year, that shift may offer important lessons – and opportunities – for tackling New Zealand’s productivity challenge.

When scaling up stops being the default

After the global surge in venture capital in 2021, investment contracted sharply. Startup funding fell in both 2022 and 2023, with the latter being the weakest since 2018.

While signs suggest activity has stabilised at a lower level, capital is now far more selective, prompting questions about the sustainability of the traditional “growth-at-all-costs” model. Strategies that depend on continual boosts in external funding today face a more challenging environment.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also reshaping what small teams can achieve. AI systems can now automate or accelerate tasks across coding, design, analysis, writing and administration.

A small team equipped with advanced tools can generate output once associated with much larger organisations. This has expanded the viability of small, highly productive firms focused on specialised software, creative content or digital services.

These AI-enabled small firms can reach international markets with minimal headcount, often profitably. At the same time, climate disruptions and supply chain fragility have exposed the weaknesses of centralised, high-volume business models.

Events from the COVID pandemic to recent extreme weather have highlighted the risks of tightly optimised global logistics, while nimbler, modular operations with shorter supply chains can be more adaptable.

For these firms, staying small is proving a strategy for resilience in the face of environmental and geopolitical volatility.

Taken together, these trends point to an emerging form of entrepreneurship that diverges sharply from our traditional lifestyle-oriented businesses that serve a local market, employ a handful of staff and rarely invest in technology.

Instead of avoiding ambition, these new “anti-scale” entrepreneurs are redefining it, building firms that maximise productivity, specialisation and resilience rather than staff numbers.

Why strategic smallness suits NZ

Smallness can be a strategic choice that protects quality, speeds up innovation, reduces overheads and fosters closer relationships with customers. In digital markets especially, depth of expertise and precision often matter more than organisational size.

This matters for New Zealand because the country’s productivity problem does not stem from being small, but from being small without specialisation or technological leverage.

Many of its firms operate as generalist service providers in a thin domestic market, face limited incentives to innovate and remain focused on local clientele.

Productivity, however, is measured per worker, not per firm. A two-person, AI-enabled venture serving global customers can, in principle, generate far more value than a 20-person domestic service firm competing in a crowded local market.

International comparisons reinforce this point. Small but highly productive economies such as Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands thrive by specialising in what they do best, integrating into global value chains and developing capabilities that compete internationally.

This is an encouraging pattern for New Zealand, which faces similar structural constraints. Anti-scale entrepreneurship aligns far more closely with the success of these small economies than with Silicon Valley’s emphasis on rapid organisational expansion. It represents a form of ambition that suits small countries.

Rethinking how we support ambitious small firms

Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems also suggests ventures perform best when their strategies match the realities of their environment. New Zealand’s conditions can favour small, highly productive firms that rely on expertise, identity and digital reach.

If these ventures adopt AI early, stay export oriented and build distinctive capabilities, they can compete internationally without becoming organisationally large.

To realise this potential, New Zealand’s institutions will need to adjust some long-standing assumptions. Policies that treat firm size as the primary marker of entrepreneurial success risk overlooking ventures that are small yet highly productive.

Export programmes, innovation grants and skills initiatives could be better aligned with small firms that specialise deeply and use technology to amplify their output. Education, likewise, could focus on helping entrepreneurs design firms for an optimal size.

Ultimately, New Zealand’s productivity challenge will not be solved by any single idea. But the rise of anti-scale entrepreneurship suggests ambition may take a different form from the one policymakers expect.

Some of the most innovative and resilient firms of 2026 may be those that remain deliberately small, use AI to expand their capabilities and build reputations in tightly defined global niches.

The question for New Zealand is not whether its firms can grow larger, but whether they can grow better.

Rod McNaughton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. NZ’s low productivity is often blamed on businesses staying small. That could be a strength in 2026 – https://theconversation.com/nzs-low-productivity-is-often-blamed-on-businesses-staying-small-that-could-be-a-strength-in-2026-271177

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Penny Bailey, Lecturer in Japanese Studies, The University of Queensland

On January 10 1926, Yanagi Sōetsu and the potters Hamada Shōji and Kawai Kanjirō sat talking excitedly late into the night at a temple on Mt Kōya, in Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture.

They were debating how best to honour the beauty of simple, everyday Japanese crafts. Out of that conversation came a new word, mingei, and a plan to found The Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo. Later, Yanagi would describe what emerged that night as “a new standard of beauty”.

A century on, Yanagi’s ideas feel strikingly relevant. His message was simple: beautiful things need not be rare or expensive – they can be well-designed objects that we use every day.

In an age of fast fashion, disposable products and growing concerns about waste, his approach offers an important reminder to think about the objects we choose to have around us.

How mingei was born

Yanagi (1889–1961) was an art critic and collector who believed beauty was not solely the preserve of famous artists or rare treasures. He and his friends were drawn, instead, to well-made and functional objects: bowls, baskets, fabrics and tools created for daily use, rather than to display.

To Yanagi, these simple things shaped the rhythm of daily life – yet had gone unnoticed in a world rushing toward modern mass production.

The attraction came from looking closely. Yanagi described it as “seeing with one’s own eyes before dissecting with the intellect”. He admired the work of anonymous craftspeople who repeated familiar forms, refining them through long periods of practice.

These makers did not seek fame; their goal was to create objects that balanced beauty and function so completely that they were inseparable.

Japan in the 1920s was changing fast. Mass-produced goods were replacing handmade ones, and many local craft traditions were in decline. Yanagi worried this shift would erase skills and weaken the bond between beauty and everyday life. Mingei aimed to bring this connection back into view.

Yanagi, Hamada and Kawai agreed they needed a new word for the kind of objects they wanted to celebrate. From minshuteki kōgei, meaning “craft of the people”, they coined the shorter term mingei. It describes objects made for use rather than prestige, and by hand rather than by machine. Yanagi believed these objects formed the true heart of Japanese craft.

A year after their Mount Kōya conversation, the group held their first folk craft exhibition in Ginza. None of the works carried signatures. The exhibition aimed to encourage a new way of looking at humble objects, suggesting that everyday things held artistic value when viewed with care.

How mingei shaped Japanese design

Yanagi’s ideas went on to shape Japanese craft and design throughout the 20th century, influencing not only craftspeople but also designers.

His son, Yanagi Sōri, adopted mingei principles in his famous 1954 Butterfly Stool, made from two curved pieces of plywood that meet like wings. Simple, balanced and light, the stool is now an icon of modern design, showing how mingei could take form in new materials and contexts.

The movement also shaped the work of Hamada and Kawai, and many other makers including Tomimoto Kenkichi, Serizawa Keisuke, Munakata Shikō and the Englishman Bernard Leach. They showed how traditional craft practised with care and humility could remain vital in a rapidly changing world.

Another branch of Yanagi’s legacy emerged with the rise of seikatsu kōgei, or “lifestyle crafts”, in the 1990s. These makers turned to simple, functional objects to reconsider how we live. After Japan’s economic bubble burst in the 1980s, many began to question the habit of buying and discarding.

Why Yanagi’s ideas matter today

The influence of mingei continues in contemporary design. Fukasawa Naoto – one of Japan’s most influential designers and the current director of The Japan Folk Crafts Museum – aims to create objects which work so naturally that they seem to disappear into daily life.

He describes this as “without thought” design: things that feel right in the hand, fit their purpose and do not demand attention. His long collaboration with MUJI, known for its pared-back products, shows how closely his work follows the mingei spirit.

This way of thinking sits in sharp contrast to how many goods are made today. A culture of fast buying and quick disposal has left people feeling disconnected from the act of making, from materials and from the things they own.

Mingei offers an alternative way of thinking. It invites us to look closely at the objects we use each day – to notice their shape, feel and purpose. It suggests beauty should be part of everyday life, not an escape from it.

Yanagi believed if we change how we see and choose ordinary things, we might also change how we live. A century later, his call to value simple and well-made objects offers a steady guide through our profit-driven, disposable world.

Penny Bailey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Beauty in ordinary things: why this Japanese folk craft movement still matters 100 years on – https://theconversation.com/beauty-in-ordinary-things-why-this-japanese-folk-craft-movement-still-matters-100-years-on-269802

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Laurikainen Gaete, PhD Candidate, Wollongong Isotope Geochronology Laboratory, University of Wollongong

Today, rock wallabies are seen as secretive cliff-dwellers that rarely stray far from the safety of their rocky shelters. But the fossil record tells a very different story.

New research suggests rock wallabies were once travellers, moving across country in search of new habitat. These wandering wallabies, including one that travelled over 60 kilometres, were far more mobile than other kangaroos at the time, even their giant extinct cousin Protemnodon.

These findings reshape our understanding of how rock wallabies interact with their environment and how they may respond to the increasingly fragmented landscapes of modern Australia.

Homebodies by nature?

Modern rock wallabies spend their days sheltering in rocky caves, crevices, and boulder piles, emerging at dusk to feed. They have tiny home ranges, often less than 0.2 square kilometres.

Rock wallabies aren’t fussy eaters, eating leaves and shoots from grasses or shrubs that grow near their rocky refuges. This has led to the assumption that they don’t travel far, sticking together in small groups on isolated habitats. Why travel far when everything you need is right outside your shelter?

We saw the same pattern in their distant cousin, the giant forest wallaby, Protemnodon, which had small ranges despite their much larger bodies.

Male rock wallabies have been observed occasionally dispersing up to 8km between colonies. While such movements are rare, they may play a crucial role in maintaining gene flow between populations.

Rock wallabies occur in isolated regions across much of mainland Australia, from the Cape York rock wallaby at the northern tip of Australia, to the yellow-footed rock wallaby of the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, and west to the Rothschild’s rock wallaby in the Pilbara, Western Australia.

This broad distribution raises intriguing questions. Were rock wallabies once more mobile than they seem today? And if so, can we see evidence of that movement in the fossil record?

Mount Etna caves

North of Rockhampton, Mount Etna Caves National Park sits right in the heart of rock wallaby country. Rich fossil deposits provide a window into the past 500,000 years, revealing how kangaroos once lived.

From these deposits, we examined fossils from kangaroos of all sizes, ranging from tiny pademelons (Thylogale), through to the megafauna forest wallaby (Protemnodon), as large as an adult human. This let us compare how far different-sized kangaroos travelled. Did small species stay closest to home while the largest roamed?

How fossil teeth reveal childhood location

To answer these questions, we turned to clues hidden in teeth. When kangaroos eat, unique chemical signatures (strontium isotopes) become locked in their enamel.

Because enamel forms early in life and doesn’t change, the strontium preserved in an animal’s teeth can tell us where it grew up. At Mount Etna Caves, there is no evidence kangaroo remains were brought there by predators to eat. So, we can be confident the patterns we see in their teeth reflect real movements during the animal’s lifetime.

Our results showed that regardless of size, most kangaroos were locals. Rock wallabies showed strong site fidelity, foraging less than 1km from the caves where their fossilised remains were found.

This strong attachment to rocky shelter mirrors modern species observations. Even as the environment changed over hundreds of thousands of years, most rock wallabies maintained small home ranges.

The travellers

While most rock wallabies kept close to the caves, a few individuals found at Mount Etna Caves were born elsewhere. Some originated 8km north near Mount Yaamba, and others around 15km south near Mount Archer.

But our most surprising case was a very adventurous individual that travelled at least 65km, crossing mountains, floodplains, and even the Fitzroy River, which would have been prime crocodile country. This is the first direct evidence of long-range travel in an individual rock wallaby.

While movements over these kinds of distances haven’t been observed in rock wallabies today, genetic evidence from short-eared rock wallabies does show some connection between colonies separated by 67km.

This suggests that, although most rock wallabies stay local, a small number of travellers will leave their birthplace in search of new habitat. These rare long-distance dispersers would play an important role in keeping populations connected across the landscape. Because this kind of dispersal happens beyond the timeframes of human observation, without the fossil record we wouldn’t know this crucial part of rock wallaby natural history.

Modern implications

Importantly, our results also show fossil wallabies were dispersing from areas that are still home to rock wallabies today.

Unadorned rock wallabies still live around Mount Etna and Capricorn Caves, with another colony in the Mount Archer National Park. To the west of the Fitzroy River, Herbert’s rock wallaby occupies rocky outcrops, just outside the town of Westwood.

Isotopic evidence tells us that, in the past, these three groups were not isolated pockets but part of larger interconnected populations.

We don’t know whether rock wallabies are still trying to make these journeys. But with major roads and development now dividing the landscape, humans might inadvertently be creating barriers for these rare but crucial dispersal events.

Fossil and genetic evidence shows rock wallaby populations should not be viewed as isolated colonies, but as parts of a wider network that relies on long-distance dispersal to stay healthy. Recognising this is vital if we want these rock-loving, wandering wallabies to keep thriving in an increasingly urbanised environment.

Anthony Dosseto receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Scott Hocknull has previously received funding from Australian Research Council and formerly Project DIG (a BHP-Queensland Museum partnership). He is an advisor to the Capricorn Caves Geonature Conservation Foundation.

Christopher Laurikainen Gaete does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Modern rock wallabies seem to survive by sticking together in small areas. Fossils show they need to travel – https://theconversation.com/modern-rock-wallabies-seem-to-survive-by-sticking-together-in-small-areas-fossils-show-they-need-to-travel-272344

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matteo Vergani, Associate Professor and Director of the Tackling Hate Lab, Deakin University

What we currently know about antisemitism in Australia is pieced together from a fragmented body of information produced by community organisations, researchers and law enforcement. And it is largely interpreted and translated to the public through news reporting.

Through this reporting, Australians have learned that organised criminal groups were involved in targeting Jewish communities and foreign actors also played a role.

At the same time, some data on antisemitic incidents released by security agencies has been incorrect. Other statistics produced by community organisations has been publicly challenged.

Researchers like myself have also produced data on antisemitic incidents, but this is limited in many ways.

In a nutshell, the picture of what constitutes antisemitism and how and why it has spiked in recent years is far from being clear.

This lack of clarity matters. Without a reliable understanding of what happened in the lead-up to the Bondi terror attack, which data can be trusted, and how different forms of antisemitism intersect, Australia cannot fully grasp how it reached a point where Jewish Australians were murdered at a public religious gathering.

Shedding light on this problem will be difficult, but it is essential to understand both the scale of the problem and how to respond.

Potential for more divisiveness

The royal commission established by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is designed to address many of these unresolved issues.

As set out in its terms of reference, it will examine the nature and prevalence of antisemitism in Australia and assess how it can be more effectively addressed. It will also:

• review the responses of security and law enforcement agencies

• investigate what happened before, during and after the Bondi attack

• develop recommendations aimed at strengthening social cohesion.

Social cohesion and national consensus are the stated end goals of the entire exercise. Yet, the context in which the commission is operating is highly volatile. There is a real risk that rather than repairing social cohesion, the process itself could damage it.

This risk comes from the heavy political pressure now attached to the royal commission and from the way some political actors are using it as a weapon in broader political battles, including attacks on the government.

The antisemitism debate is already a political minefield. And the commission has entered that terrain from its first day.

The decision to acknowledge the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in the terms of reference is likely to be used by some to delegitimise the commission altogether. Critics argue the definition can be used to silence legitimate criticism of Israel, while supporters say it draws a necessary line between political critique and antisemitic tropes.

At the same time, some politicians have questioned the appointment of Former High Court justice Virginia Bell to head the commission, which could also undermine the credibility of the inquiry.

As a result, the commission is already inflaming existing political tensions. This is deeply unfortunate because it makes the task harder for those who are genuinely focused on understanding antisemitism, responding to it effectively, and improving the safety and wellbeing of Jewish Australians.

Why the Christchurch royal commission was successful

Royal commissions carry strong symbolic weight. They are often implemented when something has gone badly wrong and the social fabric feels strained. The aim is to restore trust and provide a clear public account of what happened and why.

A useful point of comparison is the royal commission that followed the Christchurch terrorist attack in New Zealand. The inquiry led to wide-ranging reforms, including changes to firearms laws, counter-terrorism frameworks, approaches to social cohesion and inclusion, hate crime and hate speech legislation, and improved support for victims and witnesses.

It also contributed to the creation of the Christchurch Call to eliminate terrorist and violent extremism content online. This global initiative involving governments and technology companies has been successful in limiting the spread of terrorist and violent extremist material.

However, the political and social climate in New Zealand at the time was very different. There was a stronger sense of national unity and far less public contestation about what constituted hate. The attack was also not entangled with an ongoing and deeply polarising international conflict.

In Australia, the context is far more charged. The war in Gaza continues to divide public debate, regularly spilling into domestic politics.

It’s worth noting antisemitic attacks have not stopped after Bondi. There was a firebombing less than two weeks later. This makes the task of using a royal commission to calm tensions and rebuild trust significantly harder.

Many pieces to the puzzle

Despite these difficulties, the commission matters now more than ever. Jewish Australians need answers, and the broader public deserves to understand what actually happened.

At present, the picture over what has caused rising antisemitism and the Bondi attack is confused. Public sentiment on the war, organised crime, foreign actors and terrorist ideology all appear to intersect, but how they connect remains unclear.

Different security agencies, researchers and community organisations hold different pieces of evidence. Without bringing these strands together, Australians cannot fully understand the problem, let alone work out how to prevent it from happening again.

The path ahead will be difficult and exposed to disruption. One obvious challenge is the risk of further attacks while the inquiry is underway. Any new incident would complicate the process.

If, for example, an attack occurred that was shown to involve formal training or links to a terrorist organisation, serious questions would arise about whether the commission’s terms of reference remain adequate, or whether additional investigative processes would be required.

The most important test will come at the end. The commission’s recommendations must be acted on, regardless of which party is in government. That follow-through is what determines whether a royal commission produces real change or becomes just a symbolic exercise.

Meeting this test will require political restraint and maturity. It will mean resisting the temptation to turn the commission into a tool for partisan conflict, and instead treating it as a shared national effort to protect communities and restore trust.

Matteo Vergani receives funding from the Australian government (Australian Research Council, Department of Home Affairs) and the Canadian government (Public Safety Canada).

– ref. The antisemitism debate is already a political minefield. The royal commission must rise above it – https://theconversation.com/the-antisemitism-debate-is-already-a-political-minefield-the-royal-commission-must-rise-above-it-273018

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kai Schweizer, PhD Candidate in Youth Mental Health, The University of Western Australia; The Kids Research Institute

When people picture someone with an eating disorder, many think of a thin, teenage girl with anorexia nervosa. This stereotype is so pervasive it can feel like a fact.

The reality is that eating disorders affect people of all ages, body sizes, cultures, races, sexes, genders and sexualities. In 2023, around 1.1 million Australians (around 4.5% of the population) were living with an eating disorder.

A growing body of evidence suggests LGBTQIA+ people are particularly vulnerable to developing eating disorders. But we still need more research to understand how and why they affect this group more.

Here’s what we know so far about LGBTQIA+ people’s higher risk – and what treatment actually works for them.

What is an eating disorder?

Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions that affect a person’s eating behaviours. They can harm both physical and mental health.

Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are the most well-known eating disorders, but the most common are actually binge eating disorder (eating a lot in a short amount of time and feeling out of control) and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (restricting eating because of sensory sensitivity, lack of appetite, or fear of illness or choking).

Eating disorders can cause damage to a person’s organs, bones, fertility and brain function. People with an eating disorder are up to five times more likely to die early than those without one.

Read more:
What’s the difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating?

How much higher is the risk for LGBTQIA+ people?

Research shows that LGBTQIA+ people have much higher rates of eating disorders than non-LGBTQIA+ people.

For example, in the United States an estimated 9% of the population will experience an eating disorder in their lifetime. But a 2018 survey of LGBTQ young people in the US found rates were significantly higher:

• 54% reported an eating disorder diagnosis
• another 21% thought they had an eating disorder, but hadn’t been diagnosed.

Within the LGBTQIA+ community, the risk also varies across different groups:

• lesbian, gay and bisexual people: more than twice as likely to have an eating disorder as heterosexual people
• intersex people: nearly four times as likely as endosex (non-intersex) people
• trans people: nearly 11 times more likely than cisgender people.

We don’t have data for asexual people, but we do know that asexual people have poorer body image than their non-asexual peers. So it is likely they also experience higher rates of eating disorders.

Why LGBTQIA+ people face higher risk

Being an LGBTQIA+ person is not a mental illness. There is no evidence of a biological reason why LGBTQIA+ people experience higher rates of eating disorders.

While many factors contribute, two of the most studied risk factors are minority stress and gender dysphoria.

1. Minority stress

Minority stress refers to how discrimination and stigma negatively impact the health of LGBTQIA+ people. This means it is not who they are, but how LGBTQIA+ people are treated that drives their higher risk.

Discrimination can lead LGBTQIA+ people to feel shame about their identities and bodies. Some people try to cope through disordered eating behaviours, which can develop into an eating disorder.

For intersex people, medically unnecessary surgeries in childhood to “normalise” their bodies can cause trauma and shame that can also increase eating disorder risk.

2. Gender dysphoria

Many trans people experience something called gender dysphoria. This is the distress, discomfort or disconnect that can happen when a person’s gender identity doesn’t match their physical body or how others see them. For many trans people, eating disorders can be an attempt to reduce gender dysphoria.

In trans teens, eating disorders often develop as a way to stop puberty when they can’t access puberty blocking medications. For example, restricting food may be a way to try to reduce the appearance of breast tissue or to stop having periods.

What kind of treatment would work?

After a diagnosis, typical eating disorder treatment involves a multidisciplinary team including a doctor, mental health professional and dietitian. Treatment can be provided in the community or in a hospital if someone’s physical health needs close monitoring.

But eating disorder treatment was not designed with LGBTQIA+ people in mind and can sometimes cause harm. LGBTQIA+ people report more negative experiences of treatment compared to the general population.

For example, mirror exposure exercises are a common therapy, where someone with an eating disorder is asked to look in a mirror for prolonged periods to lessen their body image distress. But for some trans people this can worsen their gender dysphoria.

This doesn’t mean treatment can’t help LGBTQIA+ people. It means treatment has to be adapted to ensure it meets their needs.

In practice, this might look like:

• consistently using the right name and pronouns
• using inclusive language and gender options on documents
• displaying explicit statements that LGBTQIA+ people are welcome in the service
• incorporating gender-affirming medical care into eating disorder treatment
• addressing minority stress in a trauma-informed way. This means validating how someone might experience, responding to discrimination and stigma, and working with them to build healthier coping strategies and stronger support systems.

If this article raised any concerns for you or someone you know, contact the Butterfly Foundation on 1800 33 4673. You can also contact QLife at 1800 184 527.

Kai Schweizer receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program and the Australian Eating Disorder Research and Translation Centre SEED Grants Scheme.

– ref. Why eating disorders are more common among LGBTQIA+ people and what can help – https://theconversation.com/why-eating-disorders-are-more-common-among-lgbtqia-people-and-what-can-help-270268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Sachinthanee Dissanayake, PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong

Have you ever felt delighted (perhaps secretly) when something went wrong for someone else? We may not openly admit it, but many of us have probably felt this way – sometimes intentionally, sometimes unconsciously.

This feeling has a name, borrowed into English from German: “schadenfreude”. And workplaces or other business settings – with all their pressures, rivalries and office politics – can create the ideal conditions for it to arise.

Here’s why we sometimes feel happy at others’ failures, why this emotion can have double-edged consequences, and how it can be reframed to promote learning and personal growth.

What is schadenfreude?

Schadenfreude is a compound word formed from two German nouns: “schaden”, meaning harm, and “freude”, meaning joy.

Importantly, here, we’re talking about something distinct from bullying, or actively causing another person pain.

Research has shown schadenfreude is relatively common in the workplace. It can be found among employees at all hierarchical levels, from lower-level staff to senior management.

For an employee, it might occur when seeing a rival or envied coworker being mistreated by a supervisor.

Similarly, top managers might feel schadenfreude when rivals fail. Our previous research indicates strategic leaders, including chief executives and other strategic level decision-makers, are prone to this emotion.

To investigate this further, our current research is exploring how Australian chief executives respond to competitors’ failure, with a particular focus on how they perceive and experience schadenfreude.

Our preliminary findings, which are yet to be peer-reviewed, suggest leaders recognise schadenfreude as a feeling that arises when a rival organisation encounters misfortune, especially in a competitive industry.

This was evident in their reflections on the PwC tax scandal and the 2022 Optus data breach, when they viewed these organisations as rivals. For instance, one participant explained:

Well, I think human nature again would dictate that you would be going, oh, the competitor, you haven’t done very well […] You can’t help but kind of rub your hands together and say, well, we’re going to get some customers out of this.

On face value, schadenfreude might seem emotionally counterintuitive. Ethically, one might expect that witnessing someone else in distress would elicit a response of empathy or compassion.

So, why is the observer experiencing pleasure or delight instead? Is it a brief lapse in empathy and moral judgement, or is something else going on?

Easing our insecurities

Feelings of schadenfreude can have many drivers. One of the foremost relates to insecurity.

Observing someone performing worse than yourself might make you feel better about your own abilities. This process is known as downward social comparison. In this way, for some people, schadenfreude can serve to enhance self-esteem.

High achievers’ failures are particularly noticeable because they are perceived as being at the top of their field.

Schadenfreude may be reflected in the cultural phenomenon of “tall poppy syndrome”, a tendency to “cut down” those who stand out.

Perceptions of deservingness can also drive this emotion. When someone acts unethically or appears undeserving of success and then faces failure, observers often feel they “got what they deserved”.

Identification with a particular organisation can also drive schadenfreude. If employees feel a strong connection to their organisation, they may view rivals as “out-groups”, making competitors’ misfortunes feel like wins that enhance their organisational pride.

Schadenfreude’s perils

There are a range of hazards to watch out for when navigating this emotion.

First, feeling schadenfreude may lead to overconfidence at work. When employees or managers perceive their success as relative to others’ failure, they might become complacent, overlook changes and develop blind spots.

Second, schadenfreude can spread through gossip and harm workplace relationships.

If colleagues sense that you take pleasure in their difficulties, they may feel unsafe sharing failures or challenges. This can undermine openness and mutual support, damaging trust and relationships within the organisation.

And third, it can undermine workplace empathy. Employees or managers who take pleasure in others’ misfortune often fail to recognise the challenges their colleagues face.

By prioritising personal satisfaction or winning an advantage over showing compassion, they neglect to put themselves in others’ shoes, which can undermine the organisation’s supportive and overall ethical climate.

A double-edged sword

It may feel like a complex, dark emotion. But by recognising its drivers and meeting it with mindfulness, schadenfreude can be channelled into a positive opportunity for learning and growth.

When you recognise what you’re feeling is schadenfreude, you can pause and think: “Is this really how I want to respond?”, or “Is this really me?”

You might ask yourself reflective questions, such as:

• Could something like this happen to me, too?
• What went wrong for them, and what can I learn from it?
• How can I use this situation to improve myself or my decisions?

Being aware of and mindful about this emotion can give you the chance to shift from simply enjoying others’ failures to learning from them, improve yourself, address your own weaknesses, and prepare for future challenges without losing your moral values.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Is it okay to feel ‘schadenfreude’ at work? Here’s how to navigate this complex emotion – https://theconversation.com/is-it-okay-to-feel-schadenfreude-at-work-heres-how-to-navigate-this-complex-emotion-269181