How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb. Part 1
Update 665. Being Offensive Special. #BeMorePorcupine.
The news and views continue to pour into Dusty Towers ( in fact, I am swamped!!), so this is another two parter, dear readers.
Now we are back with Dusty’s film series and the latest version of the list is here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/empire-of-light-dustys-film-series
Please let us have your suggestions for films but please check the list first to see if it is there already. I am updating the list as we go along. We are going through them alphabetically and had got to G but two suggestions have come in for films earlier in the alphabetical list so here is the first one.
Dr Strangelove (1964) is a Cold War comedy featuring certain crazed characters ( albeit in a comedy context) who are driven solely by ideology and without any reference to the facts ( where have we seen this before!!??), such as General Ripper ( played by Sterling Hayden) who sends the nuclear planes to Russia without any order from the Pentagon and Dr Strangelove ( one of the three characters played by the amazing Peter Sellers), former Nazi and scientific adviser to the President.
Thanks to three wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
Australia - Sall Grover
We have been regularly reporting on Sall’s appeal.
The appeal concluded last week and the judgment is now awaited. Sall is interviewed here by Leah Panapa on New Zealand’s The Platform and Sall sounds very upbeat! Fingers crossed!!
UK - Online Safety Act
We have been featuring this Act and its terrifying effect on free speech a lot recently and EDI Jester looks at it yet again.
England - The National Health Service
Despite the For Women Scotland judgment and the ongoing Sandie Peggie case in Scotland, NHS England have said they cannot produce new guidance until the autumn!!?? Maybe they are still trying to work out what a woman is? EDI Jester addresses this.
Uk - Free Speech
Of recent times, as a Terf campaigner, I often have to reach for the Lord Justice Sedley quote. In Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions [1999] EWHC Admin 733 he stated:
'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.'
A Muslim teacher has sued for discrimination because a colleague mentioned obtaining a copy of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses. She lost her claim though I find it amazing that this got anywhere near a Tribunal!!!???
Andrew Doyle on his substack reports on the matter:
So what if you’re offended?
A teacher has sued for discrimination because a colleague mentioned a “blasphemous” novel. This is where we are now.
Aug 08, 2025
Is discussing literature a form of harassment? That appears to be the view of Rabia Ihsan, a biology teacher who has just lost her tribunal in Glasgow after claiming that she was harassed at work by a colleague mentioning Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses. Apparently, one of her fellow teachers had said that she downloaded the novel after the author was almost murdered by a fanatic in August 2022. Ihsan took it personally and sued for discrimination.
That a novel of this calibre was being discussed in a staff room at all is rather reassuring. During my years as a teacher, I seem to recall that most of the break-time conversations revolved around why certain pupils were so irredeemably evil. I would much rather have exchanged reflections on The Satanic Verses and how it imaginatively reinterprets the foundational myths of Islam. That, after all, was the reason why its author had been issued with a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran.
Even those who have not read Rushdie’s novel will be aware of the furore. It is still a source of national shame that so many UK commentators at the time were endlessly debating whether Rushdie had ‘brought it on himself’ rather than outright condemning a foreign power that had threatened the life of a British citizen. It would have helped if more senior politicians had reminded everyone that novelists are free to write whatever they want, and death threats are not a legitimate form of literary criticism.
In other words, there are times when we simply need to be blunt, and this is particularly the case when it comes to the non-negotiable values of a liberal democracy. We failed the test in the late eighties at the time of the Rushdie affair, and we have been paying the price ever since. It’s the reason why Ihsan now feels emboldened to claim that she has been ‘harassed’ by the mere mention of a novel that she almost certainly has not read.
The full piece is here:
https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/so-what-if-youre-offended
UK - Freedom in the Arts
The Arts in the UK, as we often report, are in the thrall of the Gender Woo!! The excellent organisation, Freedom in the Arts are threatening legal action against Leicester University:
Freedom in the Arts Threatens Legal Action Against University of Leicester
Documents and Statements
This page contains key documents for public reference and transparency. Here you will find:
Press Release – Our official statement outlining the context and purpose of our current actions.
Legal Letter – A formal communication setting out the legal position and associated concerns.
Leicester Trans Inclusive Guidance Paper – A copy of the guidance document at the centre of recent discussion and review.
Afraid to Speak Freely - published May 6th 2025, this report provides the wider context on the work of Freedom in the Arts and the culture of fear in the arts sector.
These materials are provided in full to support open dialogue, accountability, and informed understanding.
Best of luck to Rosie Kay and the gang!
https://www.freedominthearts.com/fita-legal
UK - Melanie Newman
Just one piece from the latest Sex Matters newsletter (08 August). We reported on Melanie losing her tribunal case against the Metropolitan Police here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/beautiful-thing-sweet-dreams?utm_source=publication-search
Gender-critical legal case to appeal
Melanie Newman, who lost her claims of direct discrimination and harassment against the Metropolitan Police at the Employment Tribunal, is planning to appeal. Read our updated case briefing, which links to the tribunal’s judgment.
Italy - Some Good News
Bernard Lane on his substack, Gender Clinic News brings us some good news from Italy albeit they are not, unfortunately, going as far as completely banning the prescription of puberty blockers for children.
Tighten up
Italy's ministers endorse a plan for strict regulation of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones
Aug 08, 2025
Exiting the dead end of affirmation
Italy’s cabinet has approved a draft law for strict control over the hormonal treatment of gender-distressed minors, with the intent to rein in the excesses of the “affirmative” model and align the country with the North European shift to caution.
The bill—presented earlier this week by Health Minister Orazio Schillaci and Minister for Family, Birth and Equal Opportunities Eugenia Maria Roccella—would establish the first national registry to monitor and track the prescribing of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children, as well as any mental health problems or other co-morbidities.
“In Italy, to date, no official data has ever been published on the use of [the puberty blocker] triptorelin in minors with gender dysphoria, despite the fact that the drug has been used in this area since 2019,” said the Italian parents’ group GenerAzioneD, which welcomed the bill as “a solid regulatory framework”.
“This [bill] outlines a model that protects minors with appropriate clinical tools, gradual choices and a focus on the psychological dimension, in line with what has already been initiated by the most advanced and thoughtful countries in [Northern Europe] terms of bioethics and healthcare,” GenerAzioneD said.
“This is a real rethinking of the ‘affirmative-only’ model, which in the past had led to excessive medicalisation and is now being replaced by a more cautious approach based on up-to-date scientific data and the precautionary principle.”
Pending new clinical guidelines from Italy’s Ministry of Health, the bill stipulates that hormonal treatment of gender-distressed minors will require approval from a national paediatric ethics committee.
The full piece is here:
https://www.genderclinicnews.com/p/tighten-up-f9e?publication_id=627677&r=1v403b
Australia - The Green Party
I am in two minds about whether it is worthwhile for Terfs to keep fighting on within such a Gender Woo captured party as The Greens. All thoughts gratefully received.
Feminist Legal Clinic reports:
Greens Party civil war erupts as founder Drew Hutton expelled | Independent Australia (08 August)
ON 20 JULY, the founder of both the Queensland Greens and the Australian Greens, Drew Hutton, had his prediction come true. His appeal against his expulsion from the party he founded for questioning gender theory was rejected by a State Council meeting with a vote of 75 to 23.
Drew Hutton is highly intelligent and well-respected. What he is alleging about the Greens is extraordinary: that around Australia, trans-zealots have taken over the key committees in the Greens, including, most importantly, the disciplinary committees and weaponised them so that anybody who says something they disagree with, a complaint goes in immediately.
The complaint committees are controlled by trans-activists, as in his case; Hutton alleges that the members of the committee that expelled him were transactivists, part of a Facebook site, which was called Turf TERFs from the Greens. (TERF stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist; they are critics of gender ideology.) Dusty - I think it means Tired of Explaining Reality to Fools 😂
The ramifications of expelling a former leader and founder were, not surprisingly, an enormous public relations disaster.
While Greens Leader Larissa Waters declared the Greens was a safe party for trans people, the counter-fact gleefully highlighted by the Murdoch media was that the Greens was not a safe party for feminists. They ran a series of articles on the expulsion of prominent feminists from the party, proving Hutton’s claim that it was women who were feminists who had been targeted for expulsion in the Greens.
Anna Kerr, a human rights lawyer who was the principal solicitor of Sydney’s Feminist Legal Clinic, was one feminist accused of transphobia and expelled. Among her “crimes” was to criticise Greens MP Abigail Boyd, who wanted to replace the word “woman” with “pregnant person”, in legislation before the NSW Parliament.
Said Kerr:
“It was an intimidating environment, the pushback was nothing short of bullying.”
Such was the opinion of a human rights lawyer on how badly the NSW Greens mishandled the gender debate.
The interview with Larissa Waters about Hutton’s expulsion on ABC’s 7:30 was a train wreck. For several minutes, host Sarah Ferguson tried unsuccessfully to get an answer for why Drew Hutton was expelled from the Greens as Waters dodged and ducked.
Since Hutton’s alleged crime was not taking down a few Facebook posts, his expulsion as a life member and founder seemed excessively punitive, but Senator Waters argued that Hutton was expelled according to the party’s rules and procedures. This was Greens democracy working.
In an editorial, The Sydney Morning Herald described Senator Waters’ performance in this interview as ludicrous.
Drew Hutton says he did ring Senator Waters’ office to ask her to intervene in his expulsion process, but she never responded to his calls. The Senator’s comment declining to ring Hutton seems to reinforce his claim that she is deliberately avoiding speaking to him.
Senator Waters, you are the leader of the Australian Greens. Why are you refusing to speak to Drew Hutton?
Source: Greens Party civil war erupts as founder Drew Hutton expelled
Australia - Desexing Society
Thanks to Ute Heggen for featuring an excellent podcast from Stassja Frei about two ‘trans widows’:
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.
Several readers have chosen up to 4 songs or pieces of music each and we are going through those one at a time in each update. This is going so well that I am going to continue it a bit further and you can now choose up to 6 songs or pieces of music each. They need to be reasonably short. We can’t expect to have readers listening to the whole of Tchaikovsky's piano concerto in B flat minor, albeit it is magnificent.
They don’t have to be from Terf Island BTW - anywhere in the world 😊
Please send links as well if you can.
So for those who have already chosen 4, please choose 2 more and, if you have not yet taken part, please choose 6!! 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 me know your choices in the comments at this link:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/beware-of-the-flowers-terf-island
Next up!
Chosen by: Patricia Baker-Cassidy
‘Don’t Treat Me Like A Child’ by Helen Shapiro
#BeMorePorcupine
#MakeOrwellFictionAgain
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#LGB✂️TQ
#SaveFreeSpeech
#LeaveKidsAlone
#StandWithSandiePeggie
#NeverSurrender
#NeverForget
#TruthWillTriumph
#WeWillWin