Kung Fu Hustle
Update 793. Publish...And Be Cancelled. #BeMorePorcupine.
Due to my trip to Manchester for the excellent Stop The Trial demonstration and my subsequent report on that, I have fallen behind with the news and views backlog, so this is a two parter.
Prior to Update 800 (approaching fast!), please submit your favourite detective film (one choice each). The submissions will all go in a hat and then I will pick out one submission.The winner will get a free paid subscription or, if s/he is already a paid subscriber, they can nominate someone to get a free paid subscription. Get your thinking caps on!! Thanks to those who have already sent in their choice.
After our Christmas film series, we are back to 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:
Kung Fu Hustle is a 2004 martial arts film directed, produced and co-written by Stephen Chow, who also stars in the leading role. The story revolves around a murderous neighbourhood gang, a poor village with unlikely heroes and an aspiring gangster's fierce journey to find his true self.
Yuen Qiu is the Landlady.
Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
UK - The Victims of the Publishing Industry
Julia Williams aka Juliasbookchat on the Glinner Update looks at the reality of cancellation in the publishing industry and the fightback, concentrating on Kate Clanchy, Rachel Rooney and Gillian Philip.
We Know What You Did
The victims of the publishing industry’s cultural revolution are not going to go quietly
Jan 22, 2026
When the news that the BBC were planning a podcast on the cancellation of Kate Clanchy, it was interesting to hear some of the responses from people I know in publishing. Those of us who have been battling for free speech in our industry were all for it. Good, we thought, it’s time to hear her story. Those who think she has had too much airtime already were suitably appalled. However, I was intrigued by a third response, namely that of people who sounded vaguely surprised, and espoused that they’d forgotten that such a thing had happened and wondered why it was all being dragged up again now. With the tide turning on cancel culture, it seems there’s quite the appetite to brush all that past ‘unpleasantness’ under the carpet.
I mention this, because such an attitude seems to demonstrate confusion about something that is abundantly clear to me. For people who have loftily kept out of the culture wars of the last decade there seems to be a slight air of puzzlement that those who have been affected are still banging on about it. After all, isn’t that old news? Why can’t people just move on? I would suggest that they are failing to take into account the heavy price people have paid across the spectrum (this has not just happened in publishing but throughout the arts, in the NHS, education etc etc) for being cancelled. One common cry you often hear, is that x hasn’t been cancelled, they’re always on the news/in the papers, what are they complaining about? A view that spectacularly misunderstands that a soundbite on GB News and an interview with the Daily Telegraph doesn’t actually pay any bills once your detractors have ensured you’ve lost your livelihood.
My involvement in this fight started during lockdown, when I witnessed my friend Gillian Philip being cancelled in real time, for the crime of retweeting JK Rowling. I watched in horror as she was subjected first to an intensive pile-on and then a complete betrayal by both her publishers and agent. Within twenty-four hours her career in publishing was over. Even though both her publishers and agent knew that she had recently lost her husband and was the sole provider for her two children. The swiftness and brutality of if it was shocking (and I speak as one well versed in the harsh way publishing can turn on its own, having experienced it myself and seen it happen to others). It left me feeling incredibly scared to speak out in her support. At the time, I was working at Mills & Boon, which is owned by Harper Collins (who published Gillian’s books in America). It was lockdown, my husband was unable to work properly, and I was the major breadwinner. I couldn’t afford to bring the mob to my door and felt extremely shitty that I daredn’t support a friend publicly. This is something the people who think cancellation amounts to a simple online spat just don’t understand: the repercussions of seeing just one person losing their job has a chilling effect on those around them. No one wants to be next, so people remain silent, and that has been very bad for free speech generally, and publishing in particular. I’ve lost count of the number of friends I have in children’s publishing who told me they were afraid to speak up, or who have ended up leaving that part of the industry because it has become so toxic.
The full piece is here:
England - Miranda Newsom
We reported on the demonstration in Elephant & Castle, London in support of Miranda Newsom here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/the-king-of-comedy
Miranda has been banned from all of the London Borough of Southwark’s leisure centres for complaining about a man in the women’s changing room of one of them. Following the demo she was interviewed by Mr Menno. Given her excellent grasp of the issues, I take it she was already an experienced Terf by the time she received this ban ( this relates to my discussion in Part 2 of ‘newly peaked’ people).
England - Challenge to the Greens Woo!
If it was me I would have fled the Greens long ago but hats off to ex-member Emma Bateman who continues to battle with them.
Green Party in legal battle with ex-member suspended for mocking ‘fairy’ pronouns | GB News (25 January)
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 originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
The former co-chair of Green Party Women is now taking legal action against the party after she mocked “fairy” pronouns.
Emma Bateman, 58, is suing the Greens for discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 following her suspension over gender-critical views.
She is accused of mocking “fae/faer” pronouns – a type of neopronoun inspired by mythical beings that some people use instead of traditional he/him or she/her.
She also coined the phrase “cognitive cis-connance” – a play on cognitive dissonance – and mocked the idea “that every time someone says men are not women, a person with fairy pronouns literally dies.”
But her legal battles with the party stretch back years.
Ms Bateman says she was first placed on a “no-fault” suspension in 2021 after asking whether Kathryn Bristow, then co-chairman of Green Party Women, was biologically female.
The following year brought another suspension after she warned that “gender variant” people were being permitted to stand for the women’s committee and defended single-sex spaces.
Her final expulsion came in January 2023, triggered by a complaint from two senior party figures who accused her of “making trans people feel unwelcome.”
Ms Bateman argues the party’s stance on trans rights completely undermines its credibility on climate science.
Source: Green Party in legal battle with ex-member suspended for mocking ‘fairy’ pronouns
England - This Never Happens - Swindon Nurse
Another report via Feminist Legal Clinic:
Swindon nurse carried out unnecessary intimate exams on children | BBC (24 January)
Ashley Boyd carried out testicular examinations which were not within his job description, a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) fitness to practice panel heard this month.
Boyd was a chair of Swindon and Wiltshire Pride from September 2022 to March 2023.
Boyd was also chair of the trust’s LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) network in 2022.
He qualified as an adult nurse in July 2019 and worked as a band five adult nurse at the hospital.
He was not a qualified children’s nurse but requested to work in the paediatric area of the emergency department.
He was rostered on as a triage nurse in the paediatric assessment unit when the incidents happened.
His job was to gather basic medical information and observe things like heart rate and blood pressure, but the panel heard he carried out testicular examinations which were not part of his role.
Source: Swindon nurse carried out unnecessary intimate exams on children
https://feministlegal.org/swindon-nurse-carried-out-unnecessary-intimate-exams-on-children-bbc/
Scotland - Education
Excellent from Niall Fraser, a seasoned political activist 😂
Toying with the idea of doing a crowdfunder to pay for some billboards this election. To show your interest in such a venture simply repost.
https://x.com/NiallFraser8/status/2014646932254105799
Ireland - The Countess
Interesting interview by Stella O’Malley with Laoise de Brún, the CEO of the Countess discussing her peaking, her setting up of The Countess and campaigns carried out by The Countess. They are now moving on to look at illegal immigration in Ireland and its effect on women and girls. While I accept that this is an extremely pressing issue in Ireland (which has a very small population) I am somewhat concerned at one of the main Terfy organisations in Ireland diverting to additionally deal with this while the situation with the spread of ‘gender ideology’ remains very alarming. All thoughts gratefully received.
The Council of Europe
We reported on proposals from the Council of Europe ( which is separate from the European Union which the UK has, of course, left) with regard to so called conversion practices here: https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/kes?utm_source=publication-search Though any such resolution from the Council of Europe is only advisory and not compulsory, doubtless it will be very influential and I note that the Labour Party in the UK said in their Election Manifesto that they would introduce such a bill and continue to say that they will do so.
Thanks very much to a Terf reader for supplying me with the body of her e-mail to her MP. She is happy for people to use it. Her MP happens to be a member of the Parliamentary Assembly but, even if your MP is not on that Assembly, the link above ( as well as letting you know who is on the Assembly) provides different ways for you to object. The vote is on 29 January. Please write if you can.
I understand that you are a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe which will vote next week concerning introducing a ban on what is erroneously labelled ‘conversion therapy’ to include ‘transgender identity’. I believe this dangerous and misguided motion has been proposed by Kate Osborne MP.
The idea that such a ban is needed to protect people labouring under the belief that they have been ‘born in the wrong body’ presumes that such feelings are the result of an immutable characteristic of gender identity. There is no evidence whatsoever that this is the case. Rather, in relation to children and teens in particular, all the evidence points to such feelings being linked to autism, being gay and/or having suffered (often sexual) trauma. When such feelings are reinforced by ideologically captured educators, politicians, mainstream media broadcasters, internet influencers and nefarious groups brought into schools to push the ideology, this only reinforces these misguided beliefs,
The ban proposed would have the effect of making it impossible to counsel and assist children and young people, or indeed anyone suffering from this type of delusion. ‘Gender non-conformity’ i.e. not conforming to sex stereotypes, does not require that such people (of which I was one as a child) be medicalised, sterilised and mutilated. The Iranian regime (for now) funds such treatment for gay men, with the added incentive that they may well face the death penalty otherwise - the proposed ban will ultimately lead to more gay men and lesbians subjecting their bodies to these drastic irreversible measures, which also entail lifelong costs to the NHS. Please take a moment to ask yourself how strange it is that the people who would label themselves ‘progressive’ align so well with one of the most repressive regimes on earth.
I urge you to oppose this motion.
The States - Glenna Goldis
We have previously covered several pieces by Terf substacker and US lawyer, Glenna Goldis ( some under her original pseudonym of ‘Unyielding Bicyclist’), so I was shocked to read in the report below from Kara Dansky that Glenna has been sacked because of her Terfing by the New York Attorney General’s Office!
Kara also refers to Jennifer Melle.
Women’s Sport - CAIS
Women’s Sports Policy in the US looks at the unusual Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD) known as Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS):
Who Counts as a Female Athlete?
Our Answer Might Surprise You
Jan 21, 2026
……………………………
People with CAIS appear female at birth, with a clitoris, labia, and a short, “blind ending” vagina. They lack internal female reproductive organs. That’s why some leading sports organizations, such as World Athletics, include males with CAIS in their female eligibility policies as one exception (or one of two, with puberty-blocked boys) to female-only. Lacking access to their own testosterone, they do lack male levels of strength.
However, as with other males, the female reproductive cycle (ovulation; mood and energy fluctuations; cramps; breast tenderness; joint pain; back pain; weight gain; headaches; appetite changes, etc.) never affects CAIS males’ sports performance.
Should this type of male count as female?
The WSP Working Group conclude:
The DSD Gaslight
In the modern debate over women’s sports, trans activists point toward DSDs as if to prove there are more than two sexes, or that sex is a spectrum, or that sex is so nebulous that any boy who “feels female” should be allowed to play women’s sports.
This is gaslighting. All humans fall into one of two categories: female or male. Any anomalies are just that: anomalies. They don’t disprove biological facts any more than the occasional person born with eleven fingers disproves the fact that humans are a ten-fingered species.
Should CAIS Boys Compete “as Girls”?
Now let’s consider CAIS. Here are our responses to CAIS males in the female category:
“But athletes with CAIS look like girls.”
Female sport is not for males with female-appearing genitals. Nor for boys who have thin bodies, small frames, gynecomastia, or micro-penises. The single criterion for female eligibility should not be female appearance, femininity, hormone levels, or access to the androgen produced by testes, but femaleness.
“But athletes with CAIS grow up identifying as girls.”3
In places without access to prenatal screening, people with CAIS are likely to consider themselves to be female until the facts become evident, usually at puberty, when no menstruation happens. We sympathize with the shock of that revelation, and the disruption to one’s sense of self.
But some boys who call themselves trans grow up identifying as girls, too. Considering oneself to be female can’t be a reason to allow boys access to girls’ sports. Otherwise, any male who “identifies as a female” could stride onto women’s playing fields. We already know how that experiment is panning out.
“But athletes with CAIS have no performance advantages.”
Without an ability to use their own testosterone, these boys and men are in effect physically disabled compared to other males.
But female sport is not for weakened males. Otherwise, all men who are genetically weak, disabled, short, slow, or unable to throw a ball very far would be eligible to play women’s sports. Accidents, illnesses, mutations, and simple human variation naturally result in some males being less athletic than others. The female category cannot become the catch-all for males who can’t compete well against other males.
Besides, like all males, CAIS males have one huge athletic advantage: They never menstruate, gestate, give birth, or nurse. They never experience any of the symptoms and conditions that accompany having a body designed to produce eggs, all of which affect performance, as Mariah Burton Nelson describes in “Also, Women Menstruate.”
The female reproductive cycle itself is not a disability — it’s a strength. But it distinguishes female from male athletes in ways that matter in sports.
Our Decision
That’s why, in our updated model policy, we recommend excluding all males (XY) from the female sports competition category. The female category is for females.
The full piece is here:
https://womenssportspolicy.substack.com/p/who-counts-as-a-female-athlete
Trans Lies
Karen Davis on her substack, You’re Kidding, Right? examines the propensity of larping men to lie:
Terf Island Discs
Thanks to all readers ( and me 😀) who have made suggestions and we still have lots of songs to go that will take us well into 2026. It’s been great (I think anyway 😊).
We will then be reverting to Endpieces.
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 be continuing for the moment as explained above 😊
Onwards with Terf Island Discs.
Next up!
Chosen by: Radical Cartoons
‘African Children’ by Aswad
#BeMorePorcupine
#KeepTerfing
#StandWithJenniferMelle
#PubertyIsAHumanRight
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#LGB✂️TQ
#KeepBoppingTerfs
#HoldTheLine
#NoBlockersTrial
#NeverSurrender
#NeverForget
#TruthWillTriumph
#WeWillWin
Thanks for the re-post and shout-out, Dusty. And yes, it's shocking but true that attorney Glenna Goldis was just fired for saying that sex is real.
There's a lot of good stuff in there, Dusty. The article by Julia Williams on Glinner's substack is great (and I've just had a notification that she has followed me back!)
I wonder how long it's going to be before Ashley Boyd decides he's "really" trans ... that Get Out of Jail Free card is just too tempting.
I like Niall Fraser's idea - I hope he goes ahead with it!!
At the risk of sounding like I'm plugging my Substack, I covered CAIS in my inaugural post (X and Y and SRY). Needless to say, I agree with Women's Sports Policy - the presence or absence of a Y-chromosome is the only relevant indicator of sex. Malfunctioning genes do not make men into women.