I'm Dreaming...

Update 495. Christmas Special. #BeMorePorcupine

Well, I’m dreaming of…

1. NO biological men or boys in women’s or girl’s single sex spaces

2. NO biological men or boys in women’s or girl’s sport

3. NO (so called) ‘gender affirming care’ for children with gender dysphoria

4. NO sexualised books or teaching of gender identity in school

5. NO social transitioning in school

6. NO erasure of sex based language such as ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘girl’, ‘boy’, ‘mother’, ‘father’ and so on.

That is actually a list I made in Update 292 on 19 December 2023.

How on earth did I leave out the abolition of not just non-crime hate incidents but all hate crimes!?

I think I would now expand 1 and 2 to say it should be an offence for biological males to enter women’s single sex spaces.

I am also inclined to expand 3 to say that there should be no ‘gender affirming care’ including surgery at all but certainly there should be none on the National Health Service.

I would expand 6 to say that the media should be given guidance to use accurate pronouns and accurate wording when reporting on larping men ( or larping women though this is - surprise, surprise - not usually a problem). There should be no compulsory insistence on pronouns in e-mail signatures.

All thoughts gratefully received.

Anyway that is not what Bing Crosby and his mates were dreaming of…None of this would even have occurred to them!!…

Bing Crosby as Bob Wallace, Danny Kaye as Phil Davis, Rosemary Clooney as Betty Haynes and Vera-Ellen as Judy Haynes.

A reminder that we are not that far short of Update 500 !!! 🥳🎉🎈

So please get me your three favourite films of all time and Update 500 will just involve film clips from the top 5 films according to your votes. Please rank them 1,2 and 3. Plus endpieces from Liz and me ( get thinking, Liz!!). And absolutely no gender madness - just for this update - you can briefly imagine that it was all a terrible dream!! 😎 Thanks to those who have already voted.

😍HAPPY AND TERFY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY READERS.

Thanks as ever to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.

Some of the linked pieces below maybe behind a paywall.

Free Speech

Lord Justice Sedley in Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions [1999] EWHC Admin 733:

'Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having. What Speakers' Corner (where the law applies as fully as anywhere else) demonstrates is the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear.

From the condemnation of Socrates to the persecution of modern writers and journalists, our world has seen too many examples of state control of unofficial ideas.'

Andrew Doyle’s final interview on Free Speech nation was with barrister, Sarah Phillimore and it centred on free speech and non-crime hate incidents. A lot of this discussion will be well known to many readers but I think it is always useful to be reminded of it.

https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/the-state-of-free-speech-in-the-uk-fa4?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#media-ac6ab112-07e1-4c61-8945-07d93655f9f0

New Zealand - A Christmas Present

Thanks to Katrina Biggs on her substack A B’Old Woman bringing us Terfy news from New Zealand over the year. Here is the latest one.

A Christmas present from the courthouse for NZ ‘progressives’.

Will 'progressives' learn that the belief they occupy the moral high ground doesn't give them immunity to refer to people with any pejoratives they like?

Dec 21, 2024

Helen Houghton, leader of the New Conservative political party filed defamation action against the below three entities on 20th Dec 2024 -

• Byron C Clark, author of the book titled ‘Fear’, about (supposed) far-right and alt-right extremism in NZ, in which he names Helen Houghton.

• HarperCollins, Byron Clark’s book publisher

• The Spinoff news, where Byron Clark has been a regular guest writer.

Helen is not allowed to discuss details of the lawsuit, of course, but here’s what I know from conversations with her prior to the filing of the defamation action, and my own internet-digging.

In February 2023, HarperCollins published Byron Clark’s book ‘Fear’, described as “The must-read gripping new book about New Zealand's hostile underworld of extremists.” Amongst others, he names Helen Houghton in it.

Although I haven’t read the book myself, it did get a lot of attention from all the usual ‘right side of history progressives’ – the inverted commas bit said with tongue firmly in cheek. This attention included an article in The Spinoff, written by Clark, titled ‘Women and the alt-right in New Zealand’, with the subtitle: “An abridged excerpt from Byron C Clark’s new book Fear: New Zealand’s hostile underworld of extremists.” In this abridged excerpt, it appears he names Helen Houghton in association with the words ‘alt-right’ and ‘far-right’.

The full piece is here:

https://aboldwoman.substack.com/p/a-christmas-present-from-the-courthouse?publication_id=1177996&post_id=153438623&isFreemail=true&r=20xc5g&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Moira Deeming - The Latest

My latest piece on Moira Deeming’s judgment was in my last update.

ABC ( Victorian Liberal MPs vote to keep Moira Deeming out of parliamentary party in split-decision vote 19 December) reports:

In short:

Moira Deeming will not be readmitted into the parliamentary wing of the Victorian Liberal Party, following a vote on Friday.

The vote on a motion calling for Ms Deeming to be reinstated was deadlocked at 14-14, which leader John Pesutto said fell short of the 16 votes required.

The vote came after Ms Deeming won a defamation case against Mr Pesutto last Friday.

A rift in the Victorian Liberals has been laid bare after a tense meeting at Parliament House, in which MPs narrowly voted against readmitting ousted MP Moira Deeming to their parliamentary ranks.

The mood in the party room was described as "sombre" by some, with few MPs willing to speak before voting.

At the centre of Friday's meeting was leader John Pesutto, fresh off a defeat in a defamation case in the Federal Court. It was Mr Pesutto who cast a final vote to break a 14-14 deadlock.

Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto said party rules had required an absolute majority — 16 votes — for the motion to be successful and Ms Deeming to be returned to the party room.

"I had proposed and did use that casting vote [as leader] to vote the motion down," he said.

“But as it turned out the constitutional requirement applies in any event that an absolute majority of 16 is required … it overrides everything else."

The full piece is here:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-20/moira-deeming-liberal-party-vote-outcome/104749566

I am not sure how deep the hole was that Mr Pesutto was standing in when he spoke.

RESIGN PESUTTO!!

Italy - Puberty Blockers

Bernard Lane on his substack, Gender Clinic News reports on important developments in Italy ( albeit, as in the UK, a disappointing reference to clinical trials). Great reporting this year by Bernard.

Not ethical

Puberty blockers have lost the support of Italy's official advisers on bioethics

Dec 20, 2024

The National Bioethics Committee of Italy has recommended that puberty blockers be restricted to independent clinical trials, expressing doubt about the capacity of minors to give informed consent and stressing the role of psychological methods as first-line treatment.

“In view of the uncertainty about the risk/benefit ratio of blocking puberty with [the drug] triptorelin, the [committee] hopes that prescriptions will only be made within the framework of trials promoted by the Ministry of Health,” said the committee, an advisory body known by its Italian acronym CNB.

On Monday, the CNB issued a 20-page report in response to a December 2023 request from the ministry for an ethical opinion on the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria. The ministry’s written request noted the shift to caution in Nordic countries, and the interim findings of England’s Cass review.

The opinion of the CNB, endorsed by a “large majority” of the expert members, cited “insufficient” scientific data on the use of puberty blockers with gender-distressed minors and said it was up to the ministry to fund independent studies of higher quality.

The CNB also found that data on puberty blocker use provided by Italy’s regions was “very poor and fragmentary.” It said all clinical decision-making should be “thoroughly documented” and a national registry should be set up to track treatment.

“If the data contained in the English Cass review caused a stir due to the sensational increase in the number of admissions to the gender dysphoria treatment centre at the Tavistock clinic, which had risen from 208 cases in 2011 to over 5,000 in 2021, the Italian context is even more surprising due to the absolute lack of data,” the Italian parents’ group GenerAzioneD said in a commentary on the CNB opinion.

The full piece is here:

https://www.genderclinicnews.com/p/not-ethical?publication_id=627677&r=1v403b

The Olympics

One piece from Sex Matters’ last newsletter of the year (20 December):

Female category on the Olympic agenda

The scandal at the Olympics

The seven candidates for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have published their manifestos and will present their programmes to the full IOC membership in Lausanne, Switzerland in January.

After the scandalous Paris Olympics, which saw eight female boxers forced to fight males, the question of how to protect the female category is on the agenda.

Our friends at the Women’s Rights Network have read the candidates’ manifestos and provided a summary of who is taking the issue seriously, and who is brushing it off.

Lord Coe, currently President of World Athletics, says: “I will advocate for clear, science-based policies that safeguard the female category. We will work closely with world-leading medical and educational institutions to increase research into female health, performance and exercise physiology. Women’s sport is at a critical juncture. We must navigate this with sensitivity and resolve to ensure current and future generations of women choose sport.”

Johan Eliasch, currently President of the International Ski Federation, says: “Women’s sports must be ring-fenced: no ifs, no buts. There can be no grey areas. The integrity of women’s sport must be protected whatever the cultural pressures. In the face of these pressures, fairness and clarity can be achieved if we come back to biological facts.”

Endpiece by Liz

In many ways, on this substack, we could call this The Year of the Porcupine…but don’t try and nick his sweet corn!!

#BeMorePorcupine

#LetWomenSpeak

#Grassroots Army

#GenderIdeologyIsEvil

#ResignPesutto

#KeepOnTerfing

I hope that I can defer the next update until next weekend, Terven…but we’ll see!!

If you like this update, please send to a friend. Until next time, Terven. This isn’t over yet! Please subscribe for free or paid or buy me a coffee, like and comment.