Consider Yourself One Of The Family!
Update 475. Girls' Football Special. #BeMorePorcupine
This is another long one, dear readers!
In our British Heroes season we are sticking with the children’s theme. Oliver! is a 1968 British film based on Lionel Bart's 1960 stage musical, itself an adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1838 novel Oliver Twist. My favourite was always The Artful Dodger (Jack Wild). Mark Lester is Oliver.
Thanks as ever to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some pieces linked to below may be behind a paywall.
Free Speech
Following the Allison Pearson case and Maya Forstater being told she will not be prosecuted, we are continuing with the theme of free speech. Let’s have my favourite quote yet again:
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.'
Michael Dudley on the substack, Heterodoxy in the Stacks reports on the censorship of gender critical works in libraries.
Have Efforts to Suppress Gender-Critical Books and Speakers Done "Irreversible Damage" to Librarianship?
Why the release of four major reports on the negative impacts of gender identity ideology should compel a re-examination of our profession's seemingly selective commitment to intellectual freedom.
Oct 31, 2024
Introduction: Institutions Weigh in on the Gender Debate
In February 2023, the Canadian non-partisan MacDonald-Laurier Institute released a major report entitled, Rights and Wrongs: How Gender Self-identification Policy Places Women at Risk in Prison, detailing the “mounting number of specific instances where women have been directly harmed as a result of [gender self-ID] policies” that result in men being housed in women’s prisons. The report by UK-based criminology professor Jo Phoenix states, “[e]vidence is emerging that in Canada, the…policy change actively places women at risk, actively undermines their rights, and actively disadvantages minority women disproportionately” (p. 10).
A year later, on March 4th, 2024, the heterodox U.S.-based think tank Environmental Progress released the “WPATH Files”, a collection of documents and media files concerning the actions, rhetoric, and internal communications of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH). Written by Canadian researcher Mia Hughes, the report (subtitled, “Pseudoscientific Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children, Adolescents and Vulnerable Adults”) revealed the extent to which
‘the world-leading transgender healthcare group is neither scientific nor advocating for ethical medical care. These internal communications reveal that WPATH advocates for many arbitrary medical practices, including hormonal and surgical experimentation on minors and vulnerable adults. Its approach to medicine is consumer-driven and pseudoscientific, and its members appear to be engaged in political activism, not science…This report…show[s] that this is a violation of medical ethics and, as is revealed by its own internal communications, WPATH does not meet the standards of evidence-based medicine.’
Then in April, the UK saw the release of the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (otherwise known as “The Cass Review”) which had been commissioned in 2020 by England’s National Health Service and the non-governmental body NHS Improvement. The Review, based on 8 systematic reviews, concluded that
‘This is an area of remarkably weak evidence, and yet results of studies are exaggerated or misrepresented by people on all sides of the debate to support their viewpoint. The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress (p. 13, emphasis added).’
Troublingly, the author Dr. Hilary Cass, also noted that
‘from the start, the Review stepped into an arena where there were strong and widely divergent opinions unsupported by adequate evidence. The surrounding noise and increasingly toxic, ideological and polarised public debate has made the work of the Review significantly harder and does nothing to serve the children and young people who may already be subject to significant minority stress (20).’
Most recently, on August 27th, 2024, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, submitted to the U.N. General Assembly a report on violence against women and girls in sports. The Report begins with the assertion that “[w]omen and girls in sport face widespread, overlapping and grave forms and manifestations of violence at all levels,” noting on page 4 that
‘Female athletes are…more vulnerable to sustaining serious physical injuries when female-only sports spaces are opened to males, as documented in disciplines such as in volleyball, basketball and soccer. Instances have been reported where adult males have been included in teams of underage girls. Injuries have included knocked-out teeth, concussions resulting in neural impairment, broken legs and skull fractures.’
Accordingly, included among its recommendations is the direction that sporting authorities should “[e]nsure that female categories in organized sport are exclusively accessible to persons whose biological sex is female.” An additional justification for preserving the female category is the maintenance of female-only spaces, noting that:
‘[r]emoving single-sex spaces in sports may also increase the risk of sexual harassment, assault, voyeurism and physical and sexual attacks in unisex locker rooms and toilets. The insistence on maintaining female-only spaces, along with safeguarding and risk management protocols, arises from empirical evidence demonstrating that sex offenders tend to be male and that persistent sex offenders go to great lengths to gain access to those they wish to abuse.’
If the arguments in these four major reports from the U.K. the U.S., Canada, and the U.N. sound at all familiar, that’s because you have probably sought out the work of gender-critical/sex realist feminists from around the world who have, for years now, been arguing that harm is being done to the rights, safety, privacy and dignity of women and girls as a result of gender identity ideology, including the loss of female-only spaces and the intrusion of males into women’s competitive sports and prisons, as well as the incautious pursuit of medical interventions for patients too young to provide informed consent. If, however, this perspective is new to you, then don’t blame yourself: the debate is rarely reported in a balanced fashion by major news media, and often misrepresented by progressive governments.
You also likely haven’t found any gender-critical books in your local library, because librarians have, by and large, refused to purchase them in the name of “social justice” and “preventing harm”, through what is known in the professional literature as the practice of pre-censorship or shadow-banning materials to which the librarian may hold personal objections. For example, I live and work in Winnipeg, Manitoba—by Canadian standards a major metropolitan area—where it is simply impossible to borrow a copy of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing our Daughters—Abigail Shrier’s 2020 investigation into the massive increase in young girls seeking gender transition—unless you care to drive more than 40 kilometers to the town of Otterburne to visit the library at the faith-based Providence University College. According to the WorldCat catalog, only 561 libraries in the world hold a copy of Shrier’s book, which The Economist hailed as one of its “Books of the Year” for 2020—by conventional standards sufficient warrant to have librarians consider it an essential purchase for adult collections. The same pattern may be seen in the anemic holdings of other such well-known titles:
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality (2021) by Helen Joyce (365 libraries)
Material Girls : Why Reality Matters for Feminism (2022) by Kathleen Stock (282 libraries)
Gender-critical Feminism (2022) by Holly Lawford-Smith (113 libraries)
Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation (2021) by Julie Bindel (73 libraries)
Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist's Guide Out of the Madness (2023) by Miriam Grossman (202 libraries).
(By way of comparison, Maia Kobabe’s frequently-challenged [but among librarians fiercely championed] 2020 memoir Gender Queer is held in 1,819 libraries worldwide).
It should be noted that collection decisions where ebooks are concerned may be consortial in nature, so attributing “shadow-banning” practices to any particular library isn’t my intention. Still, it is not too much to say that, broadly speaking, gender-critical/sex realist perspectives have basically been suppressed in publicly-funded libraries; indeed, they could fairly be described in Foucauldian terms as comprising a form of “subjugated knowledge”, that has been (in the words of conflict studies scholar Richard Jackson) “dismissed from the field as unscientific, nonconceptual, naïve, inferior and below the required level of erudition” (167).
Why should that be? While a full discussion of the heated discourse in support of and opposing gender-critical feminism/sex realism is beyond the scope of this essay, we should at least familiarize ourselves with the basics of this perspective according to those who espouse it.
The full piece is here:
https://hxlibraries.substack.com/p/out-from-the-shadows-has-the-suppression
Sam Lister in The Daily Express ( Policing is broken in Britain - and Yvette Cooper has hinted she could make it worse 17 November) reports:
Yvette Cooper ( Dusty - aka Mrs Balls)© PA
When children are being visited by the police for calling each other names in the playground, something has gone fundamentally wrong with the system. Officers are now turning up on the doorsteps of journalists for writing the "wrong thing".
Private citizens are visited at home after posting comments on social media that some people do not like. Women are forcibly removed from venues because their presence offends transgender activists. Thousands of adults and children are now being investigated for so-called non-crime hate incidents. How did it come to this?
The answer, as is often the case, is both very simple and incredibly complicated. First, the easy part. A decade ago the College of Policing drew up guidance that introduced the concept of a non-crime hate incident.
It sets out how police should collect information on "hate incidents" that are not criminal offences but could escalate into more serious issues.
An incident is classed as one motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a protected characteristic such as race, religion, disability, sexuality or gender identity [ Dusty - to be precise that is ‘gender reassignment’].
It means the police are being dragged into dealing with spats rather than crimes and in practice the accuser is assumed to be a victim. A quick visit to the worst parts of social media will soon lead to examples of people threatening to call the police because someone has posted an apparently offensive comment.
Wildly-successful author JK Rowling has become a target for such complaints over her refusal to bow down to trans-activists. But standing up for women's rights should never become an issue to trouble the police.
It's not the fault of the bobby on the beat being sent out to deal with such complaints. Officers have a tough enough job already, constantly having to deal with the darkest corners of society, witnessing gruesome sights that they can never unsee.
Most are baffled when they are dispatched to knock on the door of someone because of something they posted on X, formerly Twitter.
The article continues:
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has suggested she might loosen the system so even more incidents can be recorded following tensions on the back of the war in Gaza. Meanwhile, the prosecution rate across the board for actual crimes is woeful.
The full article is here:
Despite the above, the kickback from the Allison Pearson case may be having some effect:
Nick Gutteridge and Charles Hymas in The Telegraph ( Police should focus on violent crime and burglaries, not social media, says Starmer 17 November) report:
MATTHEW HORWOOD/GETTY
Police should focus on tackling violent crime and burglaries instead of questioning people over their social media posts, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
The Prime Minister urged forces to “concentrate on what matters most to their communities” amid the deepening row over a police investigation into Telegraph writer Allison Pearson’s post on X a year ago.
He said chief constables who prioritised looking into complaints about allegedly offensive tweets would be “held to account for those decisions”.
Sir Keir intervened after politicians, campaigners, and a former MI6 chief warned that hate crime laws are being exploited to stifle free speech.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said that police were using hate crime laws wrongly 90 per cent of the time, while former Met commissioner Lord Stevens called for forces to focus on tackling violent crime rather than policing people’s opinions online. Former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove suggested the investigation into Pearson was a waste of resources.
Dusty - so why don’t you get rid of non-crime hate incidents, Mr Starmer? And you are the person, when you were Director of Public Prosecutions, who changed the wording to talk about ‘the victim’ as opposed to ‘the accuser’. All thoughts gratefully received.
The full article is here:
Obviously it is very important that we consider the other side of the argument.
Here is Titania McGrath:
In Defence of Non-Crime Hate Incidents
A guest post by Titania McGrath.
Nov 18, 2024
Free-speech extremists are up in arms about the police recording “non-crime hate incidents”. According to recent reports, over thirteen thousand NCHIs have been recorded in the last year and a half. It is genuinely shocking to hear that so many citizens in the UK have been not breaking the law and getting away with it.
The Times has revealed that even school pupils have received NCHIs. In two particularly chilling cases, a pair of secondary school girls said that a peer smelt “like fish” and a nine-year-old child referred to a classmate as a “retard”. I find this deeply offensive. As a committed intersectional social justice activist, it is inevitable that many of my closest friends are retarded.
It is disturbing that such children are free to roam the country, when they should clearly be confined in state-funded oubliettes, perhaps somewhere remote and inaccessible like the Shetland Islands or Wales. Those who know their history understand that children eventually turn into adults. One day a child is calling someone a retard, the next day he’s invading Poland. It’s a slippery slope.
The sheer extent of non-crime hate incidents proves what I have always suspected: that the UK is the most hate-filled and racist country in the world. Something must be done urgently to curb the intolerance and bigotry that is spreading like herpes in our society.
Some reactionaries on the right claim that recording “non-crime” is “like something out of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four”. If they took the time to actually read the book, they would realise that it’s full of great ideas.
As the government’s website points out, the recording of non-crime hate incidents is essential to prevent them “escalating into hate crimes”. Indeed, studies have shown that all hate crimes are preceded by moments of non-crime. For instance, before the Hatton Garden Gang stole £14 million worth of jewellery in their famous heist of 2015, there were periods of time when they were not stealing jewellery.
The full piece is here:
Meanwhile, back to reality in Australia ( and thanks to Feminist Legal Clinic):
Victoria anti-vilification laws: Allan government faces showdown with faith groups | The Age (18 November)
A proposed overhaul of Victoria’s hate laws has provoked a backlash from church leaders and faith-based groups who fear the reforms will erode protections for religious freedom and invite discrimination against people expressing orthodox beliefs.
The Allan government is also facing opposition from women’s rights groups concerned that the proposed new laws – in which existing protections for racial and religious vilification are expanded to cover a broad range of personal attributes, including gender identity – will be weaponised by activists.
Bronwyn Winter, a spokeswoman for Australian Feminists for Women’s Rights, which campaigns for the sex-based rights of women, welcomed the inclusion of sex as a protected attribute to give women and girls legal recourse against sexualised vilification. But she said women could themselves be at risk of being criminalised if they defended sex-based rights at the expense of trans rights.
Women’s Rights Network Australia, which also campaigns for women’s sex-based rights, was more blunt in its submission to the government about the law changes: “We believe that if this Bill passes, it will be weaponised by trans activists against women.”
Source: Victoria anti-vilification laws: Allan government faces showdown with faith groups
For Women Scotland
Academic lawyer Michael Foran has been doing a series of articles about the upcoming Supreme Court case which is to be heard on 26 & 27 November. I have reported on the case here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/this-is-ripley-signing-off
I am pleased to say that Michael predicts that FWS will win. Here’s hoping!! The full piece is here:
The Queering Of Society
James Esses has placed a transcript of his excellent speech at the Battle of Ideas Festival on Matt Goodwin’s substack:
Our societies must not be ‘queered’: What I told the Battle of Ideas
Nov 18, 2024
Recently, I returned to one of my favourite events of the year - the Battle of Ideas.
Organised by the Academy of Ideas, it’s a weekend full of exciting debates on the most topical issues of the day.
The slogans of the Battle are ‘Free Speech Allowed’ and ‘Conversations for the public, with the public, in public’, which resonate given the current trend towards cancel culture, online echo chambers, and trying to silence those who challenge groupthink.
I was there to speak on a panel titled ‘The Queering of Society’, chaired by the indefatigable Baroness (Claire) Fox and alongside Professor Frank Furedi, co-founder of LGB Alliance Kate Harris, and comedian Graham Linehan.
I started proceedings with my opening speech, in which I argued that, if we allow the United Kingdom, like other Western societies, to be ‘queered’, then the country we all love will be ruined forever.
A strong statement, which produced strong reactions. I’ve reproduced my speech for you to read below. As always, let us know your thoughts and reflections in the comments. We read them all, thanks, James.
I’ve been speaking on these panels for a few years now. And usually, I have to spend time crafting striking arguments to persuade you, the audience, to come round to my point of view. Well, not this year. You’re in luck. Because for this topic, I can simply let the facts speak for themselves.
The term ‘queer’ has multiple meanings and has gone through various revisions over the years. Well, one lesser-known definition of the term ‘queering’ is to “ruin or spoil something”. And this is precisely what will happen to Britain and indeed all Western societies if we allow them to be ‘queered’ – they’ll be ruined and spoiled.
Some of what I will now reveal is crude, even shocking. But I think it’s important you hear it —that you know what is really going on in our country.
The full piece is here:
Wembley Protest
Ben Chapman in GB News ( ‘Why hasn’t he spoken out?’ Gary Lineker blasted as ‘coward’ amid Wembley protests over football trans row 17 November) reports:
Gary Lineker has been urged to speak out about a protest which took place at Wembley Stadium against the banning of a teenage footballer who asked a transgender opponent: “Are you a man?”
The protest was organised by the Twelve O Five group and took place before England play Ireland.
The group is seeking to change the policy allowing those born male to play in women’s football.
Speaking on GB News, activist Jean Hatchet lashed out at figures in the game for not using their platforms to address the issue, with particular regard to Match of the Day host Gary Lineker.
Gary Lineker and Jean Hatchet© GB News
“Gary Lineker - I will call him a coward right here and right now”, she said.
“It’s a ludicrous situation. If people are too cowardly to call men, men, women aren’t and women will.”
Discussing the protests, she said: “We’ve had some great support. Most people are absolutely in agreement.
“Some aren’t quite understanding but when we explain, people are absolutely appalled by how the FA has treated her.
“We have to get noisy and do something because the FA aren’t doing anything. For saying things that are true, she’s been punished.
“What kind of state have we got to in this country where the truth is punished but lies are rewarded?”
The protest has gained support from former tennis star Martina Navratilova.
The mother of the girl in question welcomed the protest, telling the Telegraph the whole family were “thankful and grateful” for the support.
She added: “Everyone has helped her to know that she did the right thing. This action and support today means a lot to her and to other women and girls who are currently being forced to accept men in their sports and spaces.
“Thank you all so much, the fight goes on.”
The full piece is here:
Swimming for Women
Women’s Rights Network in their latest newsletter (16 November) report:
Swimming for “Women”
The majority of the UK’s public swimming pools claim to have women’s swimming sessions. WRN’s latest report shows that in reality, the majority are actually mixed-sex. 108 local authorities advertise women’s swimming while claiming some men qualify as women. In Northern Ireland there are ZERO women-only sessions available in public swimming pools.
Women-only sessions, excluding all men, are important for a number of reasons. In addition to removing women’s swimming sessions, many leisure centres and swimming pools have NO single-sex changing areas.
Our investigation revealed that mixed-sex changing villages in council-run facilities put women and children at risk of sexual assault and voyeurism.
Recent high profile court cases have revealed how easy it is for predatory men to observe and film women and children in a state of undress in mixed changing rooms. In 2018 a newspaper investigation revealed that 90% of changing room sex attacks in council sports centres or swimming pools were in unisex changing rooms.
Despite the evidence that women and children are not safe in mixed facilities, Sport England guidelines promote village-style mixed changing as the preferred option for councils planning new swimming pools or waterparks.
As a result of the information discovered, Women’s Rights Network demands Local authorities:
Clarify their position to avoid advertising women-only sessions which are in fact mixed sex
Prioritise safeguarding when planning new or upgraded facilities
Provide adequate risk assessments and public consultation for village-style changing rooms
Ensure staff receive training in the Equality Act 2010 so they understand women and girls have a legal right to single-sex services including changing rooms, showers and toilets
Protect the safety, dignity and privacy for women and girls
To find out if your local authority cares about women and girls’ access to single sex swimming read the full report. If you have an experience of mixed-sex swimming sessions to share with us please email: sports@womensrights.network
The States - Girls’ Athletics
Megyn Kelly celebrates a great court victory for some brave girl runners in Connecticut
Endpieces by Dusty and Liz
When I was at the demonstration outside the German Embassy in London I was talking to a lovely lady about her sign in German which was an adaptation of a German cabaret song - see here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/chitty-chitty-bang-bang
Here is the translation of the chorus of the original song:
CHORUS: Chuck all the men out of the Reichstag
and chuck all the men out of the courthouse
Men are the problem with humanity
they're blinded by their vanity
Women have passively embraced them
when we could have easily outpaced them
Yes we should have long ago replaced them
or better yet erased them
If we haven't made our feelings clear
we women have had it up to here
And here is the song sung by Ute Lemper:
Liz relies on The Devil again!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ME4erm_WN9c
#BeMorePorcupine
#LetWomenSpeak
#Grassroots Army
#GenderIdeologyIsEvil
Dear readers
Just a heads up that Mr Menno has a premiere tonight at 21.00 GMT called Caitlyn Jenner and The Reboot of Trans Activism and I would guess this is on a theme that has been exercising Kellie-Jay and EDI Jester recently. See some of you there.
Hopefully my next update will be tonight. I'm pleased to say that the last few updates have received very good viewing figures 😀
Dusty
Great news about the ruling for Connecticut. Besides this ruling, I have a lot of faith that Trump's administration will give people a feeling of being able to speak about, and wind back, 'trans' incursions as a whole. And that will seep out into the rest of the world, just like the 'trans' thing did from the USA.