Gladiator - Sheath Your Swords!
Update 741. Down Under Special. #BeMorePorcupine.
Buckle up, dear readers, this is a long one!
Onwards with the Dusty, Nicola and Moodie Film Series. Please keep the suggestions for films coming in but please check the list first which I am updating as we go along. Please send suggestions in the comments here at this link:
Next up is Gladiator (2000).
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 fight. Commodus has already wounded Maximus prior to the fight.
Russell Crowe is Maximus, Joaquin Phoenix is Commodus and Connie Nielsen is Lucilla. Tomas Arana is Quintus, commander of the Praetorian Guard.
Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
UK - The Good Laugh Project
As we have recently reported GLP have taken the Equality and Human Rights Commission to court to challenge their interim guidance following the Supreme Court judgment in the For Women Scotland case. Maya Forstater reports from the Royal Courts of Justice on 14 November and she also provides a written report.
GLP’s chances? Think snowball in hell. What is most shocking is those who didn’t show up or who didn’t fully support the EHRC Guidance! See the report below.
Jolyon Maugham. A Fox.
This week I was in court with our legal team for the two-day hearing in the case of Good Law Project and others v Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Following the Supreme Court judgment in April, the EHRC issued an admirably clear interim update on single-sex facilities. It said that women’s toilets are for women, men’s toilets are for men, and anyone who doesn’t wish to use the correct toilet for their sex should use the unisex option. It reassured employers and service providers that if they offer all three options and have clear rules, they can be sure they are meeting everyone’s needs and not breaching the law.
This advice was challenged by the Good Law Project (GLP), which said it was “transphobic”, wrong in law and breached trans people’s human rights. Together with three anonymous individuals who say they felt upset when this policy was explained to them, GLP brought a claim for judicial review.
In court this week the Health and Safety Executive, which regulates workplace standards, was missing in action. The Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson MP, disappointingly declined to back the EHRC. Instead she entered a “neutral” plea on the question of whether the regulator’s advice was correct in law.
Legal submissions on behalf of the minister appeared to be a desperate search for a loophole that would allow service providers and employers to continue to authorise trans-identifying men to use women’s spaces. Counsel for the minister, Zoë Leventhal KC, put forward an argument that there could be a reading of the Equality Act where “you would be entitled to provide your trans-inclusive provision in the way that the claimants have suggested”. Depressingly, and in defiance of the Supreme Court ruling, the government seems to be trying to bring back the gender self-ID “case-by-case” approach, whereby service providers are expected to separately consider each individual request by a trans-identifying person to access provision for the opposite sex rather than simply say No to all such requests.[ Dusty - my emphasis!!!???].
GLP’s own arguments bounced around: perhaps toilets and other facilities should be organised based on gender-recognition certificates and birth certificates, or “acquired gender”, “lived gender”, surgery and hormones or “living as a woman”? The trans-identifying man among the three individual claimants said he was continuing to use women’s toilets.
We were in court to provide evidence and arguments about why toilets are spaces where sex matters (especially for women) and why access must be governed by clear, simple rules. My witness statement drew on evidence from many women who have told us why single-sex services matter to them. Elaine Miller’s provided lessons on the practicalities of female biology and Michelle Shipworth’s was a harrowing description of her experience of male violence in a women’s toilet.
Our legal arguments (from the excellent Rupert Paines of 11KBW) included tracing legal requirements concerning workplace toilets to 1938 and pointing out that employers and employees have responsibilities in relation to health, safety and welfare compliance. Under those responsibilities employers do not (indeed cannot) guarantee that no man ever enters women’s facilities (or that no woman ever enters men’s facilities), but may not authorise men to enter them, including men with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment (and vice versa for trans-identifying women and men’s facilities).
The judge, Mr Justice Swift, seemed to have a good grasp of the Supreme Court ruling and asked lots of sensible questions. Towards the end of the hearing he asked: “Under the workplace regulations, how do you provide separate rooms containing conveniences for men and women unless you say that one’s for the men; that one’s for the women?”
It was exhausting and dispiriting to see a government minister and her legal representatives, all paid from the public purse, adding layers of complication to this simple point, and continuing to treat facilities provided for women’s privacy, dignity and safety as an adventure safari for men and their gender identities.
Thank you for all your support for this important case and all our work. It really matters!
Dusty - for anyone who thinks this Government has changed its mind on this issue in the wake of the Supreme Curt judgment - see above!!! How far can you throw Never Here Keir? That’s how far you can trust them!
The British Boll***s Corporation
We have been reporting recently on the revelations about the systemic bias at the BBC. Writing in The Spectator (15 November) Rod Liddle provides a marvellous and entertaining analysis of the depth of the rot. I trust that Rod would excuse me for quoting the whole of this excellent piece.
How to fix the BBC
Assuming the BBC is still in existence by the time you read this, the scale of the task facing the next director-general would have been evident by listening to the output on Monday, the day after Tim Davie and Deborah Turness resigned. This was an organisation in utter denial. It began with Nick Robinson, puffed up with even more pompous self-regard than normal, treating Today listeners to a psychedelic monologue in which he disappeared down several capacious rabbit holes, jabbering about a sort of palace coup at the BBC, an assault by sinister right-wing forces.
In doing this, Nick handily confirmed the case for the prosecution – something he would have realised, had he stopped to think about the logical conclusion formed by anyone hearing his grandstanding: the BBC is a tad partisan. Only one morning newspaper had headlines about this supposed right-wing coup – and you can guess which one it was. Today, as ever, following the Guardian’s agenda. The problem with the sinister right-wing forces argument is that it wasn’t sinister right-wing forces which presented a dossier to the BBC board cataloguing serial bias over a number of key issues, but the BBC’s own editorial adviser at the time, Michael Prescott. But nope, the corporation remained in denial, as it has been following the publication of a host of previous reports into its institutional bias, not all of them conducted by senior members of the Tonton Macoute.
On Monday morning, the denial and bias continued until it became a kind of moronic fugue – with Today interviewing (why, Lord, why?) David Yelland and the former Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer. All admitted that mistakes had been made but there was no inherent bias in the corporation, heaven forfend. That glaring lack of awareness was present in the resignation letter of Turness, the disgraced head of news: not a soupçon of contrition nor an acknowledgement of how the BBC and its news coverage is viewed by an ever-growing tranche of people, not just people in black shirts with weedkiller stocked up in their basements.
And yet on social media, even members of the Facebook group BBC Alumni, usually the most stoic defenders of Auntie, were asking: when did the rot set in? How could it have fallen so low so quickly? A former exec texted my Times Radio show, aghast that anybody within the BBC could have defended that edit in the Panorama report of Donald Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021. ‘It is so basic,’ the exec observed. The former Newsnight stalwart Mark Urban weighed in with an acute analysis of how the authoritarian identitarian monkeys have swamped the production teams, objecting if it is ever suggested that someone with ‘problematic’ opinions might be invited on to a programme – such as J.K. Rowling, or me. And yet within the BBC there seemed to be a unanimity of denial – only once people have left could they smell the rotting fish. It rather reminded me of George Orwell’s paradox about the proles in Nineteen Eighty-Four – until they become conscious they cannot rebel; but until they rebel they cannot become conscious.
I listened to Damazer on Monday morning. He was beside himself with fury at what the bastards were doing to his beloved BBC. This is the chap who, aghast at the Brexit vote, wrote a long article for Prospect arguing that the Remainer side during the debate had not been given a fair crack of the whip because the BBC was so committed to giving equal prominence to both views that it had given ‘credence to nonsense’. I remember him from before then, too, when he was one of my many bosses when I was editor of Today. On one occasion in 2000 he summoned the programme editors together to deliver a gentle lecture on how the forthcoming US election must be reported fairly and impartially. He did so sitting at a desk in his office, in front of a wall plastered with posters from Democrat election campaigns, some of which he had worked on. So they understand bias as an abstract idea, but they do not understand that the bias is them.
The BBC was pro-liberal-left back when I worked for it, but not like it is today. Still, I remember times when my jaw dropped at the transparency of the bias. For example, a clever old cove called Lord Pearson of Rannoch did some statistics which proved that we gave much less airtime to anti-EU politicians than we did to those who were supporters of the institution. I mentioned these figures to a senior editorial executive, who shrugged and said: ‘What you have to understand, Rod, is that these people are mad.’ It shocked me then, but I’m not sure why. In an organisation where everyone thinks the same way, it is hardly a surprise that a dissenting view might be thought of as deranged. I do not know a single person who works, or worked, for the BBC who voted Leave. Not one. Doesn’t that in itself suggest there is a problem of recruitment? Shouldn’t the execs think it needs addressing? Nah.
Another executive editor suggested to me, in 1998, that we ought to lay off criticising the government because they’d just been elected and people were ‘very happy’ with them. And there was a courageous reporter of Asian heritage, Barnie Choudhury, who delivered a report which said that there were ‘no-go areas’ for white folk in Oldham. A brilliant piece of reporting, but Barnie got dog’s abuse from his own colleagues.
Since then, it has got much worse. It has been captured by the identitarian left and on every issue in the culture wars is firmly in that camp. One of the issues raised in Prescott’s dossier was the censoriousness of the BBC’s LGBTQ desk – how it kept stories that were critical of the transgender lobby’s demands off the airwaves. I don’t doubt for a moment that’s true – but the real question is, why does the BBC have a LGBTQ desk? Nobody else does, not even the Guardian.
The BBC has two main problems. First, it has a workforce which is almost monocultural, incapable of seeing that their worldview is political. They see it instead as an expression of civility and decency and those who disagree with them as beyond the pale. The second problem is more important and was the reason Prescott leaked his lengthy memo: the BBC execs have become immune to all criticism and simply ignore it. They hunker down and continue doing exactly the same thing, dismissing all objection as mischief-making and repeating the mantra: we are not biased.
They have had a lot of practice in this. Countless reports have been published which suggest that, au contraire, the BBC is indeed biased (even if it doesn’t always mean to be) and present the evidence. Never mind that Lord Pearson of Rannoch – that was done at the instigation of the Referendum party and Tory Eurosceptics. Let’s go back to 2007 and the Tait report. Headed by Richard Tait, a BBC trustee and former boss of ITN, this report concluded that the BBC was prone to institutional bias, particularly on ‘single-issue’ topics, attributing this to a prevailing ‘liberal consensus’ within the organisation. One of the points made was that those working for the corporation should be conscious of their own political opinions, that no one approaches a story entirely neutrally. Has this lesson been absorbed, do you think?
Before that there was the Wilson report (2005) into the BBC’s coverage of the European Union, which concluded that ‘although the BBC wishes to be impartial in its news coverage of the EU, it is not succeeding’. Then in 2018 the Institute for Economic Affairs examined a perceived lack of balance regarding Brexit on the BBC’s Question Time and Any Questions? and concluded: ‘The imbalance on the two programmes is substantial, consistent and at odds with public opinion.’ Have you noticed, following that report, a sea change in the way the Beeb goes about reporting the ramifications of Brexit?
Time and again the corporation executives have been told about the egregious bias within the BBC, as reflected on air. And at every single juncture they have shrugged their shoulders and done nothing, just as they are doing now – even as Trump’s lawyers are busy drawing up that $1 billion writ. Still in denial, they slouch onwards towards extinction, convinced of their own rectitude, still certain that everything they are doing is fine and that everybody else is wrong.
Meanwhile EDI Jester enjoys President Trump threatening to sue the BBC for $5bn!!
Radio Telefis Éireann- Her Sperm!
RTE follows in the footsteps of the BBC!!!
Niamh Uí Bhriain in Gript News ( RTÉ’s reporting mirrors confusion of gender ideology 14 November) reports.
Yesterday RTÉ reported on a story which highlighted the confusion at the heart of gender ideology – and illustrated just how nonsensical, and devoid of reality, reporting can become when said ideology is adhered to.
This is not about a lack of sympathy for people who experience genuine gender dysphoria – which is rare, but absolutely exists and must be a hugely distressing experience. [ Dusty - I would say that ‘gender dysphoria’ is a symptom and not a condition in itself] What is sometimes called the social contagion effect, or the sudden explosion in the number of adolescents presenting as trans or non-binary, must have contributed to the long waiting lists for professional supports required in genuine cases. But it has also led to the sheer madness of national media platforms describing a homicidal man as “she”, and male rapists as “women”.
At the heart of gender ideology is the desire to tear up what its exponents consider “social constructs”, such as the biological fact that we are male and female. The disruption this intentionally causes leads to a deliberate denial of reality – as seen in said court reporting from RTÉ News yesterday.
‘A UK trans woman, who used her frozen sperm to have a baby with her wife, has been granted permission to bring a High Court challenge against a refusal by the State to grant Irish citizenship to the child on the basis that she is not the biological mother.’
The Four Courts, Dublin
Her frozen sperm? The ridiculousness, the absurdity, the sheer ludicrousness just jumps out at you. There was more of the gobbledy-gook in the full report, but it should be pointed out that the RTÉ reporting is actually just reflecting the madness in the law.
‘A UK trans woman, who used her frozen sperm to have a baby with her wife, has been granted permission to bring a High Court challenge against a refusal by the State to grant Irish citizenship to the child on the basis that she is not the biological mother.
‘The woman – who has Irish citizenship while her wife does not – submits that if she has to claim to be the “father” of the child as part of the application, it would be an “offensive, discriminatory and unjust attack” on her person, gender identity and legal status.
‘She was granted leave at the High Court to challenge a refusal by the State, which does not recognise her as the birth mother, to enter the child on the Foreign Births Register.’
If your head is swimming, you are not alone. RTE actually turned off comments on the post, which had a million views on X alone, probably because so many responses were directed at the nonsense in the summation.
In short, the case concerns a man who was resident in the UK but has Irish citizenship through lineage. He changed gender under UK law – which allows a person to legally change sex by applying to a panel – and then legally married a woman. They used his sperm, presumably through IVF in a UK clinic, to have a baby.
This isn’t the case of a woman who mysteriously produced sperm.
Women can’t produce sperm, or freeze it, or use it to have babies, just as they don’t have penises – and just as men can’t get pregnant and aren’t mothers. It seems entirely bonkers that we are still having these kinds of conversations, but we are, and much as some commentators would like to believe the fog of insanity has lifted, woke is absolutely not dead, and the law in this country still facilitates gender affirmation and a ridiculously easy path to claiming your sex is changed.
It’s worth repeating again just how easy it is in Ireland to legally change sex, because I don’t actually think most people are aware that a change this fundamental is so easily obtained. The Gender Recognition Act – supported by all the political parties at the time in the Dáil at the height (a sustained height) of hysteria around the issue – requires nothing more than to “self-declare your own identity”. It’s just a matter of swearing a statement to become a woman if you are a man. No need for therapy or operations or any of that bother. Everyone was too terrified of the insane cancel culture at the time to say anything: at one point a Sinn Fein spokesman even said they supported allowing children under the age of 16 to take their parents to court in order to change their legal gender without the parents consent, while Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty said there were “at least” 9 genders.
Other countries are slowing coming to the realisation that this might have been a calamitous mistake, but not Ireland, and not, incidentally, the EU who are fully committed to gender affirmation and the wilder shores of gender ideology. It’s still in your kids’ schoolbooks too – check out SPHE workbooks, and even booklets for primary schools.
In the case before the court yesterday – which is being taken on behalf of the child through the man-who-is now-legally-a-woman against the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General and Ireland – the central complaint is that the Irish state is denying the child Irish citizenship because it does not recognise the applicant as “the biological mother of the child”.
That’s because facts are hard things. A man can legally change his gender and wish away inconvenient facts, but a person using frozen sperm to conceive a child is not the biological mother of that child.
From RTÉ: The woman further submits that she could have claimed to be the “father” of the child and “could have possibly obtained citizenship by descent that way”.
“I feel it would invalidate me as a trans woman, invalidate my legal status as a woman and invalidate my same-sex marriage,” she said.
The woman submits that if she had to claim to be the “father” of the child, it would be an “offensive, discriminatory and unjust attack” on her person, gender identity, legal status and on same-sex marriage.
The woman also submits this would also be an unjust attack “on the State’s obligation to protect the family as the natural and fundamental unit group of society”.
But the applicant can’t have it both ways, and that’s the problem with gender ideology: it eventually relies on a circular argument to respond to fundamental questions such as “What Is A Woman?”.
A biological mother does not produce sperm. One can’t claim to be a mother just because your feelings will be hurt if that is denied to you. But the issue here isn’t with RTÉ: their reporting merely mirrors the nonsense and the inherent contradictions in gender ideology. For the confusion and upending of reality to stop, the law must change.[ Dusty - I respectfully disagree, the problem is with the law but also with RTE who should be impartially reporting on the truth and not gaslighting the public].
The Australian Boll***s Corporation
The situation with the BBC and RTE is, unfortunately, replicated across the rest of the Anglosphere with state broadcasters. Here is Feminist Legal Clinic via The Financial Review on the ABC:
ACON: Activist group influences ABC and other public institutions | Financial Review (14 November).
All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
Across the world, publicly funded media institutions are being forced to confront whether advocacy, even under the banner of inclusion or justice, has blurred the line between reporting and activism.
Those concerns extend to questions of independence that should be asked about Australia’s publicly funded national broadcaster, the ABC.
The ABC, for instance, is proudly listed as a “platinum-level employer partner” in AIDS Council of NSW’s (ACON) commercial program the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI), which sells “inclusion benchmarking” to corporations and agencies who want to prove their LGBTQ+ credentials.
That means the national broadcaster, charged under law with remaining independent and impartial, is simultaneously being ranked, trained and publicly rewarded by an activist organisation that promotes a very specific ideology about gender and sexuality.
It’s an astonishing conflict of interest.
ACON’s annual reports state that the major source of its funding is a grant from the NSW Ministry of Health, and commentary suggests that a large majority of its $28 million dollar annual income comes from government sources (that is you the taxpayer).
Gone are the days when ACON’s mission was simply to reduce HIV transmission or support men living with AIDS. Today, its website brims with “gender-affirming” resources for schools, health services and workplaces. Its training materials promote contested ideas about sex and identity as settled fact, and its Pride in Diversity arm rewards institutions that adopt them.
This is not a neutral health initiative. It is social engineering, delivered through bureaucratic pathways, well-intentioned HR departments and compliant public agencies.
The ABC insists that its partnership with ACON’s inclusion programs doesn’t affect editorial coverage. Yet perception matters. When the broadcaster routinely avoids or sanitises debate on issues such as the safety of puberty blockers, the Cass Review in the UK, or the rights of women in sport, it’s hard not to wonder whether internal culture and external affiliations play a part.
A 2024 open letter signed by feminist and gay-rights groups called on ABC Chair Kim Williams to review the ACON relationship, arguing that it compromised public trust. The corporation’s response was to downplay the issue. But this is not a minor administrative matter – it goes to the very core of what an independent media organisation is meant to uphold.
Imagine if the ABC paid a conservative religious organisation to assess its “family values” inclusion score. The outrage would be immediate. Yet when the ideological direction runs the other way, silence prevails.
ACON’s reach extends far beyond the ABC. Its programs operate within the Department of Education and other government agencies, police forces and major corporations. To achieve “gold” or “platinum” status, organisations pay annual fees (about $12,000 for principal partners) and adopt recommended policies and training modules – effectively outsourcing internal culture to a political lobby group.
The ABC was built to serve the Australian people, not a political cause. It’s time for the national broadcaster, and every government-funded body under ACON’s umbrella, to remember that distinction.
Source: ACON: Activist group influences ABC and other public institutions
ABC Needs To Learn Lessons From BBC
Feminist Legal Clinic brings us Julie Bindel writing in The Australian:
Aunty must heed warnings from the BBC’s blatant bias | The Australian | Julie Bindel (15 November).
Last week, BBC director-general Tim Davie and news chief executive Deborah Turness announced their resignations in the wake of an impartiality scandal. Michael Prescott, a former journalist, had compiled a dossier highlighting serious breaches of neutrality. These included edits to the speech of US President Donald Trump for an episode of the flagship program Panorama that warped the meaning of his words. Other examples used referred to coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict and the issue of gender ideology.
Roxy Tickle. Sall Grover.
The ABC is widely considered to be Australia’s equivalent of the BBC, and was originally modelled on it. Therefore, what is happening at the BBC should be considered a stark warning to the ABC.
The Prescott dossier outlines a broader failure in terms of impartiality, but what’s absolutely irrefutable is that the most consistent and long-term problem with bias at the BBC is on sex and gender. Many male journalists, for whom the issue is not one of importance, have ignored transgender ideology as the dossier’s key issue, focusing on Trump above all else. Those of us who have been appalled at the BBC’s lack of coverage on the dangers of gender ideology couldn’t even think of suing the BBC for $US1bn (as Trump is now threatening to do). Nevertheless, the chickens are coming home to roost – as they inevitably will for the ABC, unless it wakes up and treats this as a massive warning sign.
Take the ABC coverage of the Tickle v Giggle case, which had, says Sall Grover, “a very obvious positive side to Tickle … they covered the decision when it was in his favour. They didn’t so much as mention the appeal. There are no articles about Giggle v Tickle”.
There is also the South Australian case of “Katie” – a young female inmate who was sexually assaulted in her cell by a biological male prisoner identifying as a woman, who had a history of violent offending. This case clearly highlighted the dangers of placing males in female facilities, but the ABC did not report on it – though both this newspaper and Sky News did. The ABC claimed the cases were covered elsewhere, which is irrelevant. Yet they continued with their monolithical reporting from the “queer” perspective, arguing these cases of women being assaulted in female facilities were “not essential” to the story. Clearly this is inaccurate and biased.
Australia - Plot Against Reem Alsalem
Staying in Australia with organisations captured by the Gender Woo, FLC reports via The Australian:
Labor in secret bid to oppose UN expert | The Australian (14 November)
The Albanese government secretly intervened in international forums against the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, over her support for women’s sex-based rights, newly released documents suggest.
Obtained under freedom of information laws, the documents reveal the government’s handpicked ambassador for gender equality, Stephanie Copus Campbell, told an audience of public servants in September last year that Ms Alsalem had “taken a fairly difficult position on transgender rights in a way that doesn’t conform with our views”.
Ms Copus Campbell – whose term as ambassador ended in August, but was then a senior envoy in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – told the group “we are directly engaging through various different mechanisms” to deal with the concerns about Ms Alsalem.
The next part of the ambassador’s “fireside chat” was redacted from the transcript at the request of DFAT on the grounds that “its disclosure would, or could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to the international relations of the commonwealth”.
Ms Alsalem has requested an urgent meeting with Australia’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva, saying that while governments are entitled to disagree with special rapporteurs “they must always respect our independence and not seek to undermine our work and our ability to speak our mind”.
Ms Alsalem said the moves “shed light on the broader context in which also the Sex Discrimination Commissioner acted”, after The Australian revealed this week that Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody queried whether Ms Alsalem’s reappointment as UN special rapporteur could be blocked.
Ms Alsalem had challenged Ms Cody’s submission to the Federal Court in the Tickle v Giggle discrimination case that transgender women are women and that the prohibition against gender identity discrimination was consistent with the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Anthony Albanese has continuously tried to avoid talking about transgender issues, saying in 2022 and 2023 that he defined a woman as “a human female” and that was “not a hard question to answer”.
After Scott Morrison tried to make the issue of trans women in female sports a political issue in 2022, his successor Peter Dutton also avoided talking about it publicly despite concerns from his party MPs about the growing encroachment on women’s rights.
After the last election, Health Minister Mark Butler launched a review into best practices for gender-distressed children due for mid-2026. But only this week, Mr Butler claimed puberty blockers were a state matter despite his own review.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong declined to answer specific questions from The Australian about whether it was appropriate for the Australian government to be intervening against Ms Alsalem, or how the government’s position on transgender rights differed from that of Ms Alsalem.
Source: Labor in secret bid to oppose UN expert
https://feministlegal.org/labor-in-secret-bid-to-oppose-un-expert-the-australian/
Australia - Breastfeeding
More madness from Australia care of FLC via The Australian:
New breastfeeding war transcends beliefs | The Australian (15 November)
All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
After Adrian became Jennifer and booked in for sex reassignment surgery, she(sic) did what came naturally to a mum and breastfed her(sic) newborn son.
A vilification complaint levelled by Jennifer Adrian Buckley against former Australian Breastfeeding Association counsellor Jasmine Sussex has taken on a life of its own, morphing into a test of both the science and freedom of speech in the ideological minefield of gender transition.
Ms Sussex has sought to turn the tables on Ms Buckley, 44, by demanding she(sic) prove that the substance she(sic) expressed was breast milk, consistent with what a mother would produce and nutritious for the infant, now aged 6.
She won’t be cowed by Ms(sic) Buckley’s charge that she breached anti-discrimination law, setting in motion five years of lawyers’ letters, abortive conciliation and mediation talks and angst, with the cacophony of clashing claims to be tested in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal [ QCAT] next year
Her lawyer, John Steenhof of the Christian-aligned Human Rights Law Alliance, told The Australian: “It’s not going to be a case that’s going to come to a definitive position on what is right and wrong in those particular issues, but whether we’re allowed to speak about them.”
Ms Sussex, 50, of Melbourne, stood her ground as a succession of complaints initiated by Ms(sic) Buckley wound through the ABA’s processes, the office of the eSafety Commissioner and the Queensland Human Rights Commission, before the vilification case was set down for hearing in QCAT.
Along the way, she was expelled by the breastfeeding association and thrown off social media.
“I don’t have a choice in this,” she said. “You know, mothers and babies are too important to be sacrificed to the selfish, performative, futile effort for a man to be a mother. It’s offensive to women. It’s wrong psychologically, biologically, medically and it’s also unethical in my view. I won’t pretend that it’s OK.”
Watch this space, because the QCAT proceedings promise to be epic. Ms Sussex will be represented by high profile freedom of speech advocate, Tony Morris KC. It certainly helps that the Human Rights Law Alliance is picking up the tab.
Norton Rose Fullbright Australia is also believed to be acting pro-bono for Ms Buckley, represented by prominent Melbourne silk Kathleen Foley SC.
Source: New breastfeeding war transcends beliefs
https://feministlegal.org/new-breastfeeding-war-transcends-beliefs-the-australian/
New Zealand - The LAVA Case
We have been following the LAVA case throughout and the case has now concluded. Judgment is awaited. Here is the latest from LAVA. Helen Joyce ( see further below) on her tour of New Zealand described this case as NZ’s Maya Forstater moment.
LAVA Update 13th November 2025
Dear friends, family, and all our supporters
The Tribunal Case has finished. Closing statements were heard on Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5 November.
We told you in our last Update (sent 3 November) how our costs had surged, but we were subject to a prohibition order at that time and so could not explain why, nor could we give you any information about what was being said in court about LAVA – and by extension about people like you who hold similar beliefs – nor could we tell you about the ways in which we believe we have been disadvantaged in this Hearing.
Thanks to your extraordinary generosity, we have now raised $113,574 and are within reach of covering our legal costs. Once again we are asking you to please donate what you can so we can pay our wonderful lawyer and just as importantly please share this email with any friends, family or colleagues who might be sympathetic.
Our lawyer has been remarkable, supporting us by charging only half her usual rate. She has worked tirelessly on our behalf and has supported LAVA to stay the distance. Unlike Wellington Pride, an organisation that already receives public and institutional funding and were provided with pro-bono support, LAVA has had to raise all the funds to cover our legal costs.
We need to raise the final $45,000 to clear our legal costs
Pride’s pro-bono support funded a team of six or seven (not necessarily full time) lawyers. On most days in Court, they had a KC and two lawyers assisting her who were looking up information, passing her notes, and finding specific things in the evidence for her reference. Our lawyer had no legal support and only the two LAVA plaintiffs could take notes.
We were unable to pay a team – or even one other lawyer – to assist Nicolette.
The impacts of this cannot be understated.
Unfortunately fighting for justice is costly
Why have our costs surged?
The large number of Wellington Pride witnesses: This increased not only the time we had to spend in Court but also the time for preparation. [ Dusty - I understand that Pride called 19 witnesses!!!???]
Scope of Evidence: The decision of the Tribunal to accept evidence about LAVA’s views and actions from after the actual event as allowable and potentially relevant, increased the time needed to respond.
The suppression order imposed by the Tribunal: Significant work was involved in fighting this order.
Preparation of LAVA closing submission: this too is linked to the number of Pride witnesses as all their varying arguments had to be addressed.
Wellington Pride closing submission: Wellington Pride’s closing submission was close to 200 pages in length. In comparison LAVAs was 54 pages. It had to be read carefully, including numerous references, and a formal response prepared.
We believe LAVA has been disadvantaged in this case.
· We were denied financial support by the Office of Human Rights Proceedings (HRP) who finance people and groups who want to take cases to the HRRT (they didn’t think we had a case that would clarify points of law and neither did they think our case would affect more than a small group of people).
· We were constantly limited (by the Tribunal in response to objections by Wellington Pride’s lawyer) in both the questions our lawyer could put to witnesses and what our witnesses could say. Much more latitude was given to Wellington Pride.
· LAVA’s witnesses could not reasonably have been expected to prepare to answer questions for material that should have been out of scope and were thus disadvantaged by this ruling made on day one of the Hearing.
· The tribunal issued a strict embargo on the ability to report on the case citing bullying and hatred. This is not in line with open justice and compares badly to the situation in Australia and the UK where open justice means live streaming and coverage by Tribunal Tweets not suppression of all information.
· The Kaupapa of the Tribunal is that wrong sex pronouns will be used for anyone who wishes. This Kaupapa was antithetical to LAVA’s views.
· Wellington Pride receiving pro bono legal services meant they paid no regard to the length and breadth of their defence.
This is why we need your support
And finally for a bit of light relief, here are just a few of the things Wellington Pride’s lawyer said about us (and by extension about you!).
· LAVA’s beliefs are based on disinformation.
· We live in an echo chamber (in relation to the research we believe and the experts we listen to)
· We want to exclude people who identify as trans from public life.
· We want to exclude people who identify as trans from sport.
· We are deliberately offensive and insulting toward people who identify as trans.
· When we refuse to recognise people who identify as trans as the sex they wish to be, we are denying their existence.
And here are some of the things Wellington Pride’s witnesses said – and I have no doubt they believe them.
All words are paraphrased from answers to cross examination questions. Although I have access only to my memory, I have no doubt the message conveyed here is that intended by the witness.
You cannot tell a baby’s sex at birth because what you see might be misleading and you might find out later that you were wrong.
Dr Edward Hyde, obstetrician and gynaecologist, Hutt Hospital.
I do not think we necessarily need a word for the class of people of the female sex. That is the people who can usually get pregnant, experience menopause etc.
Suzanne Manning, President, National Council of Women
Children, including pre-school children should be affirmed as the opposite sex if they say that is what they say they are, because they know who they are.
Dr Alexandra Gunn, Professor University of Otago specialising in early childhood education.
The worst anti-trans action I have seen is cutting out the trans triangle from a rainbow flag and standing on the flag
Stephen Whittle, British legal professional and researcher. Trans identified woman.
Yes, I think that over time people can change sex.
Jennifer Shields, Healthcare Lead at Qtopia. Trans identified man.
You may have noticed that finally we have made the news. Overall, we are pretty happy with the coverage. Here are a few links you could look at:
Ø The Curious Case of Pride vs the Lesbians: Part 8
Ø Law News
Please donate if you can
Read more about our case and donate here:
https://www.lava.nz/our-case
Or donate directly into our bank account LAVA 06-0730-0417676-50
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT
Down Under - Helen Joyce On Tour
Helen Joyce provides an introductory piece about her tour which contains links to several interviews she gave in both Australia and New Zealand.
Therapy and Gender Ideology
Interesting interview by Stella O’Malley of Genspect with members of Thoughtful Therapists, Terry Patterson and Lucy Beney.
Are Larping Men Creepy?
As a man, I am not too happy about seeing men cross dressing in public because I am aware that they are playing out their fetish. I should imagine that many if not most women would find them creepy? On that subject, over to Karen Davis who looks at a particularly egregious example. All thoughts gratefully received.
Terf Island Discs
Thanks to an excellent suggestion from Tenaciously Terfin, we have paused Endpieces for the time being and we are giving Tenaciously and Liz a well earned rest from their hard work. So, since 07 July, we have been running Terf Island Discs.
We have decided to extend that one last time and then return to Endpieces.
Before we detail the extension, Endpieces, as regular readers will know, consisted of comic pieces, animal videos, songs etc to provide a bit of relief after some of the horror stories we detail on this substack. Endpieces was run by Tenaciously Terfin, Liz Parker and myself and we are delighted to now have been joined by Becca Shambles, Petal and Jeremy Wickins. Please let us know if you want to join the Endpieces Club 😊
I have an Endpieces folder so Endpieces suggestions can be sent to me at any time from now even though Terf Island Discs will definitely be going into the new year 😊
Back to Terf Island Discs. Several readers have chosen up to 8 songs or pieces of music each and we are going through those one at a time in each update. We are going to continue it one further time before returning to Endpieces and you can now choose up to 10 songs or pieces of music each. They need to be reasonably short. We can’t expect to have readers listening to the whole of Holst’s The Planets, albeit it is magnificent.
They don’t have to be from Terf Island BTW - anywhere in the world 😊
So for those who have already chosen 8, please choose 2 more and, if you have not yet taken part, please choose 10!! And if you have chosen from 1 to 7 so far, please top that up to 10. If you repeat a song or piece of music that has already been chosen, I’ll let you know and you can choose another one.
Please let us have a link if you can.
Please send your choices to the comments section here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/money-terf-island-discs
Next up!
Chosen by: Becca Shambles
‘First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ by Roberta Flack
#BeMorePorcupine
#WordsMatter
#DefundTheBBC
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#LGB✂️TQ
#KeepFighting
#HoldTheLine
#BeMoreDissident
#NeverSurrender
#NeverForget
#TruthWillTriumph
#WeWillWin
Thanks Dusty, although I’m not sure I should be thanking you for this round up of insanity.
‘Her sperm’ ffs! All I can say is ‘that poor child’. And in answer to your question, yes, larping men are extremely creepy even when they’re not in any way threatening. Thank goodness for the light relief of the Rod Liddle piece, especially after having to look at the mug of the fox killer. Repulsive man. As for the BBC, it’s time for it to be put out of its misery.
#MenCantBeWomen ……get over it.