Bringing Up Baby
Update 507. Confused Child Special. #BeMorePorcupine.
This is a long one, dear readers! Now that I am retired and (obviously) without a salary any longer, it would greatly assist my hard work in putting together these updates if you could consider becoming a paid subscriber or else buy me a coffee. Thanks to my paid subscribers and to those who donate via buy me a coffee. Thanks to all subscribers for your support. There are always good discussions in the comments so please get involved in those.
As we move into 2025 I will be featuring, to start with, and in alphabetical order, those Readers’ Choices for best film ever that did not make the top seven ( see Update 500 for the top seven).
Next up is Bringing Up Baby (1938).
David Huxley ( Cary Grant) is a mild-mannered paleontologist. For the past four years, he has been assembling the skeleton of a Brontosaurus but is missing one bone: the "intercostal clavicle." Adding to his stress is his impending marriage to Alice Swallow and the need to impress Elizabeth Random, who is considering a million-dollar donation to his museum.
The day before his wedding, David meets Susan Vance ( Katharine Hepburn) by chance on a golf course. She plays his ball, but she is oblivious to the fact that she has made a mistake. Susan is a free-spirited, somewhat scatterbrained, young lady. Do you see where this is going?
There is also a tame leopard called Baby involved!
You want to see the leopard? Well, ok then.
Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
UK - Free Speech
Lord Justice Sedley in Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions [1999] EWHC Admin 733:
'Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having. What Speakers' Corner (where the law applies as fully as anywhere else) demonstrates is the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear.
From the condemnation of Socrates to the persecution of modern writers and journalists, our world has seen too many examples of state control of unofficial ideas.'
In a recent update we celebrated that the UK Government will now be continuing with the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act following a challenge by the Free Speech Union:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/the-kite-runner
However it seems that the Government intend to water down this piece of legislation as reported by Matt Goodwin on his substack. I would presume that the FSU challenge is not proceeding since that centred on the proposed withdrawal of the Act but I haven’t been able to get confirmation of that from the FSU.
Here is an extract from Matt Goodwin’s piece.
R.I.P. free speech on campus
Labour's dumping the most important part of our university free speech law
Jan 17, 2025
It was only when the Free Speech Union started to take legal action and hundreds of academics, including me, revolted against Labour’s authoritarian turn that Phillipson and Labour started to backtrack from their naked authoritarianism.
But while Labour is now publicly claiming that it is bringing the law back, this isn’t entirely true. What Labour is doing, more accurately, is watering it down.
As sources told newspapers this week, while Labour look set to keep part of the law it is going to remove the crucial part that would allow academics to seek damages from their university if they have their free speech and academic freedom undermined.
Here’s what The Times says:
“The original free speech act would have introduced a “statutory tort”, allowing civil claims for damages against universities or student unions, leaving institutions liable to being sued by aggrieved parties who claimed their free speech had been blocked, and also facing vexatious complaints … The government has also ditched part of the act that would have encompassed student unions … In other words, they are making the free speech law toothless.”
If universities and their rapidly growing army of authoritarian bureaucrats —almost all of whom are committed to the highly political ‘Diversity, Equality and Inclusion’ agenda [ Dusty - I think that should be ‘Equity’ actually] — no longer have to fear the consequences of what might happen if they erode free speech and academic freedom then they will simply carry on with their woke agenda, regardless, while our students will not be exposed to the kind of free speech and rigorous debate that is essential to developing well-rounded, critical minds.
The full piece is here:
In a speech to the Battle of Ideas Festival last October, Andrew Doyle, effectively, called for the so called Brandenburg test to be applied in the UK with regard to incitement to violence.
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), is a decision of the US Supreme Court interpreting the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action".
Andrew points out that most or perhaps all of those people sent to prison for offensive tweets following the Southport riots would not have been convicted using this test.
The Grooming Gangs Scandal
Today’s first recommendation from me is this very interesting interview by Winston Marshall with Maajid Nawaz. All thoughts gratefully received.
The second recommendation: it is, of course, very important to listen to the survivors and here is Samantha Smith, now a journalist, interviewed by Jordan Peterson’s daughter, Mikhaila.
Glinner on Spiked
Excellent interview with Graham Linehan on Spiked ranging across a number of matters.
Sex Matters
Two pieces from the latest Sex Matters newsletter (17 January).
Civil service to revise trans policy
Civil servants will no longer risk being labelled “transphobic” for expressing gender-critical beliefs, top civil servants promise following the settlement of a case.
Eleanor Frances, a former civil servant, settled her employment-tribunal case against the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), receiving £116,749.
Frances resigned citing a “politicised climate of fear” in Whitehall. She challenged a “Gender Identity and Intersex” policy that she says was adopted without proper consultation following a workplace assessment by Stonewall.
Ms Frances said: “While I am disappointed that it took legal action to achieve this result, I am extremely happy with the outcome.
“Whilst investigations into my concerns were ongoing, I was stripped of my team and responsibilities by individuals who are named in my complaint. I was given unsubstantiated and derogatory feedback including in relation to my approach to EDI [Equity, Diversity and Inclusion].”
Permanent secretaries Susannah Storey and Sarah Munby pledged to revise their departments’ gender-reassignment policies by the year’s end, ensuring alignment with the Equality Act 2010.
Sex Matters’ CEO Maya Forstater said: “It is encouraging that DCMS and DSIT have settled with Eleanor rather than fighting her case. But if the Civil Service is to avoid wasting more public money on six-figure payouts, it needs to stop taking direction from extreme trans activist organisations.
“It’s way past time for the Cabinet Office and permanent secretaries to find their courage and tear up policies that require adherence to gender ideology.”
Dusty - I have re-written the Civil Service gender identity policy:
"There is no such thing as gender identity. Now get on with your work."
That'll be a fiver please😄
Government stands by Cass Review
The government has stood by the Cass Review, and rejected a petition calling for an “independent evaluation” of its approach.
A robust response from the Department of Health and Social Care stated: “The government is clear that healthcare provision for children and young people experiencing gender dysphoria and incongruence must be safe, evidence-based and clinically appropriate. Implementing the Cass Review ensures that this will happen. The government does not, therefore, believe an independent evaluation of the Cass Review would be beneficial and there are no plans for an independent evaluation.”
The statement concluded with a promise to “build bridges with the LGBT+ community and stakeholders by hosting constructive, open and honest roundtable discussions”.
The petition gained 11,723 signatures.
However we now await to hear whether the Government intends to proceed with clinical trials for puberty blockers. Might need to get your armour on again, Terven!
Gript News
What would we do for Terf News from Ireland without Gript!!??
Two pieces from them concerning the situation in Irish schools especially with regard to teaching about so called ‘gender identity.’
I previously covered the recent scandal in Irish schools, for example here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/mad-max?utm_source=publication-search
The sinister shift underway in the Government’s approach to anti-bullying
Jason Osborne
Not long after writing about the ridiculous ‘Stand Up Awareness Week’ that sees schools across Ireland draped in the pride flag in the name of the anti-bullying effort, the Department of Education’s ‘action plans on bullying’ were brought to my attention as potentially having opened the door to such things as Stand Up week in the nation’s schools.
The latest action plan is powerfully-titled Cineáltas (‘Kindness’) and launched in December 2022. After having a look through it, it’s become clear that modern Ireland’s anti-bullying efforts have evaded the scrutiny they should have received, and that that’s been the case for some time now.
Cineáltas is the successor to the 2013 anti-bullying efforts which similarly produced an Action Plan on Bullying and related procedures for dealing with it in schools. Those documents, too, contain suspect suggestions for dealing with what bullying goes on in Irish schools, and it’s clear that Cineáltas took inspiration from these and ran with it.
To cut to the heart of what is, in my opinion, the most troubling development: The 2013 document, Anti-Bullying Procedures for Primary and Post-Primary Schools, roughly defines bullying as “unwanted negative behaviour, verbal, psychological or physical conducted by an individual or group against another person (or persons) and which is repeated over time”.
Straightforward and non-controversial.
Skip to 2024 and the Bí Cineálta (‘Be Kind’) document (the equivalent to the just-quoted 2013 one) defines bullying as: “… targeted behaviour, online or offline that causes harm. The harm caused can be physical, social and/or emotional in nature. Bullying behaviour is repeated over time and involves an imbalance of power in relationships between two people or groups of people in society.”
“Bullying behaviour…involves an imbalance of power in relationships between two people or groups of people in society,” it says. A definition like that, it seems to this writer anyway, would require much wider-reaching corrective efforts than those necessary to simply stamp out regular, old interpersonal bullying in the nation’s schools. If you’re also inclined to think so, you’d be right.
Changes to the curriculum and the recommended inclusion of particular materials and topics for ideological ends abound, all in the name of cutting out bullying we’re to understand. It’s important to note, though, and as hinted at above, that this trend hasn’t come out of nowhere, and has in fact been in play for some time now – fully evident in the 2013 documents as it is, despite their more sensible definition of bullying.
The full article is here:
The Primary Curriculum and gender: NCCA “misinformation” claim seems bogus
January 16, 2025
Niamh Uí Bhriain
There appeared to be some good news this month for those who seek a sane and normal world for kids: the new draft Irish primary school curriculum appeared to have avoided – in the high-level specification at least – a whole-hearted embrace of the sort of unscientific, potentially harmful, transgender ideology that is now so pervasive in secondary school textbooks.
However, parents continue to express concern that some of the resources highlighted by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) for use in the classroom expressly support gender identity theory – and tell primary school children that they can be boy or girl, neither or both.
Given the row over what was to be included in the curricula for the Junior and Senior cycles, moves to introduce major changes to what is being taught in primary schools was being watched by parents and teachers who may now find themselves a little surprised to be accused of “misinformation” by the NCCA.
In fact, the responses to NCCA consultation with teachers and parents on the changes to the primary school curriculum make for very interesting reading in relation to a whole host of issues, not least that the draft was vague and that teachers are expected to do too much with too little. On the thorny issue of gender identity, the NCCA seemed tetchy that it had been raised by parents.
“A draft curriculum for primary schools does not include any references to gender identity despite extensive “misinformation” to the contrary, according to the State body responsible for developing the new syllabus,” the Irish Times reported.
The wellbeing section of the draft curriculum – which aims to provide children with a “balanced, inclusive, age- and developmentally-appropriate understanding of human development and sexuality” – was the subject of a large volume of commentary during a recent public consultation.
Many submissions and comments focused on the inclusion of tuition around gender identity and LGBT terms and whether these topics were appropriate for primary schoolchildren.”
But those of us with even short-to-medium term memories will remember that in 2023, as the primary curriculum review was underway, Minister Roderic O’Gorman said that ‘primary school children should be educated about what it means to be transgender’.
Hot on his heels came then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who ‘backed primary school students being offered education about what it means to be transgender’.
Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman has already signalled he believes transgender education should be part of the primary cycle to promote a greater understanding of the diversity in modern Irish society. The Taoiseach said he also favours such education being offered at primary level, the Independent reported.
“I am [in favour of the measure],” Mr Varadkar said. “I think the purpose of the education system is to prepare children for life and to teach them about the world.”
He was responding to the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association who, naturally, had been widely excoriated for making the entirely sensible point that ‘there is a lack of scientific consensus on the issue [of transgenderism], that it would create division in schools, and that it might add to “a growing psychological contagion” among children’.
His Coalition partner, the Tánaiste Micheál Martin, also criticised the Catholic schools body (this was before the Cass report, and Fianna Fáil are never slow off the mark to jump on what they think is a trend) – and the President, Michael D. Higgins, also stuck his oar into the debate, as is his wont, in further blatant breach of the role of his office.
Schools should provide “basic information regarding sexuality in the fullest sense”, President Michael D Higgins has said in a statement that comes amid debate surrounding the contents of a new school curriculum, Pat Leahy of the Irish Times observed, adding that “By convention, the President does usually not comment on matters of Government policy. However, in his statement he made pointed remarks about sex education and related issues.”
“Higgins’s comments come in wake of debate regarding transgender education in schools,” the Irish Times noted.
Not so much “misinformation” then, as simply listening to the news, that likely drove some of the parental concern about what was going to be part of the new curriculum. It is very likely that parents who took the time to respond to the NCCA consultation were also aware of the pretty outrageous animated video on ‘facilitating a social transition’ that had been produced by the Irish National Teachers Organisation:
In light of all the above, the NCCA’s comment in its report on the consultation: that some submissions were “less respectful of the work completed to date and the curriculum development processes through which this was undertaken” and were based on “misinformation and / or disinformation and were often confrontational in tone”, seems not just (frankly) whiny, but more than a little disingenuous.
“Of note is that some individual submissions objected to the inclusion of SPHE Learning Outcomes regrading [sic] more sensitive topics such as ‘gender identity’ and ‘sexual identity’ which were not in fact present in the draft Wellbeing specification,” the NCCA said, accusing the submissions of “mis- and/or disinformation”.
A letter from Sarah Holmes of Genspect in the Irish Times took issue with the NCCA’s claims, and pointed out that “as always, the devil is in the details, or in this case, the supplementary materials”.
“Take the Busy Bodies Guide, promoted in the NCCA’s toolkit for Social, Personal, and Health Education (SPHE) for children as young as eight. This guide confidently informs children, “As well as a biological sex, we all have a gender identity. This is how we think of ourselves as a boy, a girl, neither or both.” Perhaps the NCCA believes that by outsourcing such messages to supplementary resources, the concepts magically vanish from the curriculum itself?” she wrote.
Furthermore, the NCCA’s partnerships with organisations like the Transgender Equality Network Ireland are hardly a secret. These collaborations seem more aligned with promoting specific ideologies than fostering balanced discussions. One wonders if the NCCA has considered the findings of the Cass Review in the UK, which highlighted the dangers of rushing children into gender identity frameworks without robust evidence or caution.
While the draft curriculum may avoid explicitly mentioning gender identity, the endorsed resources speak volumes. Parents have every right to ask why such complex and contested ideas are being introduced to primary-aged children, especially without transparent consultation.
The Busy Bodies guide, which is a very widely used resource, has indeed been updated to include precisely what Ms Holmes described. I doubt that most parents want their children to be taught the unscientific and confusing lesson that they can have no gender or more than one.
In fact, polling shows that a majority of parents disagreed with Roderic O’Gorman’s assertion that transgenderism should be taught in primary schools – and the climate has changed considerably in relation to these issues since 2023, as shown by the landslide NO in the March 2024 referendum and the issuing of the Cass report.
The NCCA’s Technical Report on the primary curriculum consultation makes for interesting reading in that it gives responses from teachers verbatim on the Wellbeing section which includes SPHE. Amongst those responses from teachers were:
“This subject seems to take away the parents role of being primary educators, especially on these sensitive topics. I also think some of the topics discussed is too early for many students and is inappropriate and confusing.”
“I would like more information as to specifically what is required to be taught regarding sexuality, pronouns, family structures, RSE etc.. I have real concerns that teachers will be forced to promote and teach material with which they are not personally comfortable,” was another.
“Let children be children and stop enforcing inappropriate views on them,” wrote another teacher.
The full article is here:
New Zealand - Review and Looking Forward
Interviewed by Simon Anderson on the Polity World podcast, Katrina Biggs, one of our favourite substackers, and Jill Ovens of the New Zealand Women’s Rights Party look back at 2024 and forward to 2025 in New Zealand. Well done to both of them for all their hard work.
Confused Children
How should you respond to a child who says he or she is confused about their sex? Sandra Pertot deals with this on the substack, Gender Clinic News.
Who am I?
Exploration, not affirmation, is the correct response to a child who believes they are the opposite sex
Jan 18, 2025
Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash
Her conclusion is:
Gender ideologues are correct when they say gender is a cultural concept, but wrong when they make bizarre claims that sex is also a social construct, that a person can change sex, and there are more than two sexes.
Despite the prevalence of gender clinicians who like to gloss over the biological reality that sex relates to the reproductive strategy of humans, there is no society which does not depend on the existence of fertile women and men to maintain or increase their population. Every person on the planet exists because an egg from a female was fertilised by sperm from a male.
Until there is a case of a sperm-producing man who undergoes transformation to become an egg-producing woman, I remain unmoved by the belief that it is possible to change sex.
If health professionals who work with gender-questioning children hold such beliefs, what hope do their patients have for receiving safe, appropriate, evidenced-based care?
The full piece is here:
Born In The Wrong Disabled Body!!
This is a really shocking piece from Kat Highsmith on her substack.
"Trans" Lies: Born in the Wrong Body with Cerebral Palsy
If a Male Can Be Born in a Female Body, Why Can't That Body Be in a Wheelchair?
Jan 17, 2025
A clip of a young woman in a wheelchair has gone viral on X/Twitter, horrifying many due to its nature. It features her shirtless, with multicolored hair, and displaying new scars from a mastectomy—the kind that leaves no nipples.
She is unable to express herself verbally since she can only make unintelligible noises, and her limbs move in uncontrolled motions due to the cerebral palsy she lives with.
This is a 19-year-old female from Minnesota named Mara Jean LeRoy, or “Micah” LeRoy because she claims to be male, specifically a “trans” boy. She calls herself “disabled_trans_boy” on Instagram, and she apparently attends the University of Minnesota.
Minnesota is a “trans refuge” state, meaning mutilative surgeries and hormones for children euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care” are protected by law, confirmed by Governor Tim Walz’s executive order in 2023.
On April 19, 2024, it was posted on her Instagram that she was “almost a year on T,” which means she began taking the hormone in high school when she was a minor. Her parents or her carers (she has about a dozen) give her the testosterone and write the posts because she cannot accomplish these tasks on her own.
Her mother and father are Katherine Jean LeRoy and Paul Andrew LeRoy, seemingly her paid full-time caregiver. Both appear to be very left-wing and into diversity, equity, and inclusion activism.
Mara also has a YouTube channel where she utilizes a narrator to read out statements that are purportedly written by her.
She also uses a text-to-speech device to communicate, and her mother Katherine speaks or “translates” for her in interviews. What proportion of her words are actually her mother’s views? How can anyone know?
In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, Katherine “translated” for her daughter and claimed that Mara always knew “something was up” with her “gender identity” since she was a child, and she also came out as “trans” when she was 14.
Kat Highsmith concludes:
There is no test for “true trans” because it does not exist, and no one will ever be able to think of a valid way to establish it.
That means anyone who says they are “trans” must be and then will demand and be given hormones, surgeries, birth certificate/passport/drivers license changes, access to prisons and sports, lawsuits to enforce all this, and the list goes on.
There is simply no way to stop it, and that applies to both children and adults.
If “gender dysphoria” is valid, how on earth can that be restricted to only those who are over 18 if it is possible to be born in the wrong body? What other diagnosis is something only adults can legally have? Only perversions and fetishes are something restricted for adults, not real diagnoses.
The main goals of the movement are the normalization of pedophilia and long-term corporate profits, and that has been the case since Magnus Hirschfeld and John Money previously to the Pritzkers and Martin Rothblatt today.
Does anybody honestly think the medical industry is going to walk away from a billion-dollar market of minor children who want non-stop hormones and surgeries?
So, when a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy like Mara claims that she was actually meant to be male, there is no way to deny her treatment if any of this is valid.
Here is the only real response—none of “trans” is valid.
It is not valid for children, children with disabilities, adults, or adults with disabilities.
Only the total rejection of this fraud will work. Otherwise, cases like Mara’s are inevitable, and that is why we see this today.
Nobody can do whatever she wants to her body, and that includes lobotomies, unlimited opioid use, or voluntary amputations.
That is the cold, hard truth. It’s time to tell it.
Hear, hear. The full piece is here:
Endpiece by Liz
Dusty - Thanks, Liz, we need this. OK, get dancing, Terven. I approve of all the hats 😃
#BeMorePorcupine
#LetWomenSpeak
#GrassrootsArmy
#FightForFreeSpeech
#KeepOnTerfing
#GenderEnders
#NeverSurrender
Thanks Dusty. I really don’t understand how so many supposedly sane adults have been captured to the point that even the Catholic Church can say ‘ there’s a lack of scientific consensus for transgenderism’ 😳 ffs, there’s no evidence for any of it. As for Ireland! I come from a family where there were lots of feisty, politically motivated aunts and uncles, sadly mostly gone. None of them would have stood for what’s happening. I think people need to wake up and use your definition for the Civil Service, “ there’s no such thing as gender ideology. Now get on with your work”. That would solve so many problems. In fact, Dusty for PM.
Surely there’s enough evidence of corruption in the grooming gang scandal to completely destroy Starmer and Labour. Unfortunately, I can already see this issue slipping away into the long grass again. Politicians and the MSM have so much to answer for.
Cheers Dusty and Liz
In FOI requests the WRN have been informed that almost 170 sexual assaults have been committed in scottishland hospitals ( that’s the number scotgov have admitted to anyway ) in the last 5 years ( forgot to add that bit)
But let’s keep with the mantra that the tra Fannie’s pose no threat eh !