Whoa, my first report tonight is a really major one but, first, our film clip. However, please take Commodus, in the clip, as WPATH and Maximus as Michael Shellenberger 😎
OK, we are back to the hero theme tonight - we rely on our own heroes a lot in our gender critical/women’s rights campaigning. I think there are actually two main heroes in Gladiator - not just Maximus but also Commodus’ sister, Lucilla.
Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius is betrayed when Commodus, the ambitious son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, murders his father, has Maximus’ wife and son murdered and seizes the throne. Reduced to slavery, Maximus becomes a gladiator and rises through the ranks of the arena to avenge the murders of his family and his emperor.
Spoiler alert! The scene below is the final battle.
Russell Crowe is Maximus, Joaquin Phoenix is Commodus and Connie Nielsen is Lucilla. Tomas Arana is Quintus, commander of the Praetorian Guard.
The End of WPATH?
WPATH is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. As an aside they always sounded to me like something someone had made up in their shed and then given a posh name to! And then certain people gave them loads of money! Anyway, Michael Shellenberger gave a speech at the Genspect Denver conference when he revealed that he and others working with him (especially Mia Ashton) have been doing a lot of digging into WPATH. They are going to release very soon the ‘WPATH files’ which Michael is convinced will show how this whole ‘gender affirming’ industry is built on sand ( as we always knew it was but perhaps here is the evidence we required) . This could be a crucial moment! Watch this space!
Gender Affirming Care
In light of the above piece, this report from the wonderful Feminist Legal Clinic is very apposite. Also very concerned to hear that the excellent Dr Spencer, who I have reported on before, is currently ‘stood down.’
Doctors call for trans care rethink ( 18 November)
The battle over gender affirmative medicine in Australia has intensified with a call to arms by two experienced psychiatrists for their fellow doctors to resist the pressure of activism driving treatment.
Monash Medical Centre child and adolescent psychiatrist George Halasz and Andrew Amos, an academic psychiatrist with a training role with Queensland’s health department, went as far as to remind doctors of their obligation to observe the Hippocratic oath in questioning the evidence base of affirmative medicine.
In an article in the journal Australasian Psychiatry, they urged doctors to examine the ethics of a model in which powerful hormone drugs are prescribed despite a lack of evidence that the affirmation of a child’s perceived gender identity and subsequent medical transition eases teenagers’ mental distress.
But even as the explosive article was published, paediatricians and their colleagues at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne – home of the nation’s leading experts in gender-affirmative medicine and the self-appointed setters of quasi-national guidelines adopted by most of the country’s children’s hospitals – quietly published an updated version of their standards of care that endorse a radical expansion of the affirmative model.
The new guidelines endorse the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones by general practitioners, outside a multidisciplinary model led by specialist children’s hospitals – the model explicitly endorsed as of utmost importance by the Cass Review in the UK.
Professor Halasz, who trained in the UK and was in close contact with doctors who watched the Tavistock scandal unfold, described the rise of gender-affirming medicine as taking place within a radical form of social activism. “It was a culture of intimidation, silence, and I think threat,” the professor said. “And I just thought ‘this is so outside of my understanding of what medicine is about’.”
Dr Spencer, a vocal critic of affirmative care, has been stood down from her role as a senior staff specialist at the hospital for months following a patient complaint – a fact that concerns Dr Amos.
He said it has been very difficult to get psychiatrists to make public statements about gender dysphoria even though the majority appeared to share a more moderate, exploratory approach. Doctors were afraid for their professional reputations.
Source: https://archive.li/2023.11.17-112722/https://www.theaustralian.com.au/science/doctors-step-up-gender-care-war/news-story/91428f6f88bfcef4833ec4c41c9097b6#selection-545.0-545.400
Callous Cruelty
Hopefully you have caught up with this, but, just in case, I thought EDI Jester’s piece taken from the European Conservative magazine and which emphasised the callous cruelty of the gender borg was excellent. This is albeit that it is slightly ironic that our own Conservative Government in the UK could have stopped the gender borg in its tracks but has singularly failed to do so!
Woman’s Hour
I reported here on the recent interview on Woman’s Hour with the new trans identifying man (TIM) appointed as CEO of an endometriosis charity and the chair of that charity:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-orleans
Dan Sales in Mail Online (BBC defends 'fair and robust' Woman's Hour interview after host Emma Barnett faced pile-on from trans activists for challenging transgender CEO of endometriosis charity about not using the word 'woman' 16 November) reports:
The BBC this afternoon hit back after an endometriosis charity's trans CEO complained about being pressed on using the word 'woman' to describe sufferers of the female-only disease.
Steph Richards, 71, who sparked controversy this week being appointed to the top job at Endometriosis South Coast, fuelled a pile-on of Woman's Hour host Emma Barnett after appearing on the show.
During the interview Ms Barnett, who is one of 1.5million UK sufferers of the disease, questioned Richards on her suitability for the role and any problems with her being in the position.
And in an exchange listeners praised as 'defending biological reality' Ms Barnett pushed on why the CEO had not used the word 'woman' in her charity statement.
The interview prompted Richards to later post on X, formerly Twitter: 'Did Emma Bartlett (sic) want to talk about #endo or the word "woman"?
'A missed chance I suspect, to raise awareness of this truly awful disease.'
Trans activists then piled onto the presenter online, claiming the interview was bullying and transphobic.
But in a statement from the BBC to MailOnline this afternoon, it hit back at Richards and said the CEO knew exactly what the chat would centre on and said it frequently discussed issues like endometriosis.
The channel said: 'Woman’s Hour regularly covers all aspects of women’s health, including endometriosis.
'Both contributors understood that the focus of this interview was the widespread criticism of the appointment of Steph Richards, a trans woman, as CEO for a women’s health charity.
'This was a fair and robust interview and both Steph and the charity’s chair, Jodie Hughes, were given the opportunity to address this criticism in full. Such discussions elicit strong reactions from all sides on social media.’
Ms Barnett was lauded by prominent feminists including Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock for robustly questioning charity boss Steph Richards after her appointment as CEO of Endometriosis South Coast.
This is very swings and roundabouts. Woman’s Hour fails to showcase our great gender critical/ women’s rights heroes and then showcases a TIM appointed to head up a women’s charity. This gave Mr Richards the oxygen of publicity. On the other hand he and Ms Hughes made complete fools of themselves. Thoughts?
This is a very detailed and long article and I recommend you read it all:
Sex Matters
Shout out as ever to wonderful Sex Matters whose latest Memo newsletter is just out. Just one piece from that about their single sex guidance.
Guidance for single-sex services (17 November)
The recent ruling by the Court of Session in Scotland over the definition of the protected characteristic “sex” in the Equality Act has left many people confused and uncertain.
The court agreed with the judgement from last December that the Gender Recognition Act changes a person’s sex for the purpose of the Equality Act. For Women Scotland may still appeal the judgment, but in the meantime service providers, associations, charities and others covered by the act have to live with it.
This week Sex Matters published guidance for those who use and run single-sex services, associations and charities. In brief, single-sex and separate-sex services are still lawful if they are a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Service providers can meet a claim of either sex discrimination or gender-reassignment discrimination with a statutory exception if they face a legal challenge, but in practice they should operate with a clear everyday policy that users and staff can understand.
Providing a service which you say is single-sex but where in practice women are forced to share unexpectedly with men, could be sex discrimination (and also potential harassment).
But single-sex associations, charities, schools and colleges, and programmes based on positive action, are operating using a different part of the Equality Act and could face legal challenge if they do not include people who have acquired their sex via a gender-recognition certificate.
The law here is a mess. And we think the needless complication should be tackled urgently by a clarifying amendment that makes clear that “sex” in the Equality Act is not modified by a GRC. Sex (sometimes termed biological sex, actual sex, the sex you were born, sex observed at birth) means what it meant in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, and the protected characteristic of “gender reassignment” applies to transgender people in the same way whether they have a GRC or not.
You can find the full guidance here:
Law Suits
Unfortunately there are some law suits headed, so to speak, in the opposite direction. We need to keep an eye on these!
Heather Hollingsworth in The Independent ( 2 transgender boys sue after University of Missouri halts gender-affirming care to minors 17 November) reports:
Two transgender boys are suing the University of Missouri over its decision to stop providing gender-affirming care to minors over concerns that a new state law could create legal issues for its doctors.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court, alleges that the university is discriminating against the teens based on their diagnoses of gender dysphoria.
The new Missouri law, which took effect Aug. 28, outlawed puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgery for minors. But there are exceptions for youth who were already taking those medications before the law kicked in, allowing them to continue receiving that health care.
The suit said that the teens, who are identified only by their initials, should be covered under that “grandfather clause” and allowed to continue receiving treatment.
The Lesbian Project
Talking of Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel, they have released their second podcast which starts off with a novel called Cass and the Stone Butch and Sugar Mummies. If you don’t know what Stone Butches or Sugar Mummies are you will just have to watch it (though you may have a better chance of guessing what the latter term means!). They then move on to a Netflix documentary called Escaping Twin Flames about a bonkers cult and finally move on to the now infamous endometriosis charity ( see above!). Recommended.
A Message from Whistle
As regular readers know, I have previously featured Whistle several times. To give just one example:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/shes-a-boy
Here is a message from them 😎
Dear Subscriber,
As I look back at this summer's record release, and think about how many people seem genuinely touched by our songs and videos, I feel grateful for everyone's support and kind words. It wasn't easy making a gender-critical record -- finding the right studio and players took a while -- and we had no idea what kind of reception we'd get. As it turned out, blow-back has been minimal, and the positive reviews have been overwhelming.
Our audio streams number in the tens of thousands, while our music videos have been seen by nearly a quarter-million folks. Martina Navratilova re-tweeted "Being a Woman" and called it "terrific." Spanish feminists have subtitled "Being a Woman," and German women are playing our songs at their "Let Women Speak" rallies. The Whistle EP can be streamed on Spotify, and is available for download at many online platforms.
We've mailed our CDs to 110 community radio stations around the U.S. This was a long shot, since most community stations are captured by woke ideology. But maybe some rogue music director will put their job on the line and play our record. And yes, that means we have CDs available (though I find most folks don't have the gear to play them anymore). If you must have a CD, please write me and we can arrange it.
We are available for live shows. Perhaps a gig in London with Mr. Menno, Aja the Empress and Francis Aaron? More realistically, a house concert or small club in the western U.S. We can also play at your conference! If you can gather twenty people for a show, we'll find a way to get there. ("We" actually means me, Whistle, a man with a guitar and some songs.) Let me know if you'd like to collaborate on such an event.
Best wishes to each of you, and thank you for interest and support these last six months. Hopefully we'll have a new record in the new year. Till then,
WHISTLE (the band/the man)
audio tracks: whistle.bandzoogle.com
music videos: YouTube@WhistletheBand-ne9ri
e-mail: twamtwam@proton.me
Endpiece
I can’t quite work out why but today’s reports have brought to my mind Monty Python’s Hungarian phrase book 😎
My hovercraft is full of eels
Whistle, Menno, Aja and Francis on one bill! I might put my Londonphobia to one side for that one!
Some things to be positive about, thanks Dusty.
The end of WPATH 🤞well done Michael Shellenberger and friends.
I’m not ready to forgive the BBC. One tiny moment of sanity in all these years of ignoring the issue is just not good enough. They’ve been as bad as the Tories with their lack of schools advice.
What a powerful piece read by the Jester.
Monty Python 😆