Leaving Las Vegas Part 1
Update 523. Higgs and Peggie Special. #BeMorePorcupine
Once again, there is so much going on, dear readers, that I am splitting this into two parts. The first part looks at the UK and especially a wonderful Tribunal judgment just out today and the ongoing case of Sandie Peggie.
As we move into 2025 I will be featuring, to start with, and in alphabetical order, those Readers’ Choices for best film ever that did not make the top seven ( see Update 500 for the top seven).
Next up ( a nomination from my wife) is Leaving Las Vegas (1995). On this substack we love heroes….and anti-heroes 😆
Leaving Las Vegas was written and directed by Mike Figgis and based on the 1990 semi-autobiographical novel by John O’Brien. Nicolas Cage stars as a suicidal alcoholic in Los Angeles who, having lost his family and been recently fired, has decided to move to Las Vegas and drink himself to death. He loads a supply of liquor and beer into his BMW and gets drunk as he drives from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Once there, he develops a romantic relationship with a prostitute played by Elisabeth Shue.
Thanks to four wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
UK - Kristie Higgs v Farmor’s School
Great result here from the Court of Appeal for Kristie Higgs.
This case has been rolling for a long time! Here is my previous report:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/free-speech?utm_source=publication-search
Christian Concern writes:
1. VICTORY FOR FREEDOM
KRISTIE HIGGS WINS AS COURT OF APPEAL RULES DISMISSAL FOR FREE SPEECH IS ILLEGAL
In a seminal judgment for Christian freedom and free speech, the Court of Appeal has reversed a ruling which defended the dismissal of Kristie Higgs from Farmor’s School in Gloucestershire for raising concern on Facebook about extreme sex education and transgender ideology being taught in her son's Church of England primary school. The groundbreaking decision, handed down this morning by Lord Justice Underhill, Lord Justice Bean and Lady Justice Falk, re-examines and re-shapes England’s law on religious discrimination. … The dramatic six-year legal battle has been supported by the Christian Legal Centre from the beginning. Mrs Higgs, 48, was represented in court by barrister, Mr Richard O'Dair. The ruling confirms that the Equality Act protects traditional Christian beliefs on social issues, such as opposition to the ideas of transgenderism and ‘gender-fluidity’ and opposition to same-sex marriage. The authoritative judgment re-shapes the law on freedom of religion in the workplace. For the first time in employment law, the judgment has effectively established a legal presumption that any dismissal for an expression or manifestation of Christian faith is illegal. It explained that the burden is on the employer to prove in the Employment Tribunal that any such dismissal can be objectively justified (not just that they believed it was justified) and was prescribed by law, proportionate and otherwise necessary in a democratic society to address a pressing social need.
The Court of Appeal has also ruled that such a dismissal would only be lawful if it was objectively justified as prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society. Mrs Higgs' employer had argued during the case that its justification for sacking Mrs Higgs was not to do with her Christian beliefs but because of the language she used in the posts. This argument, however, was rejected by the judges, who said in their ruling that Kristie's "dismissal was unquestionably a disproportionate response", and that "even if the language of the re-posts passes the threshold of objectionability, it is not grossly offensive." They added that: "There was no evidence that the reputation of the School had thus far been damaged: its concern was about potential damage in the future…. As it also accepted, there was no possibility that, even if readers of the posts associated the Claimant with the School, they would believe that they represented its own views. "Any reputational damage would only take the form of the fear expressed by the complainant, namely that the Claimant might express at work the homophobic and transphobic attitudes arguably implicit in the language used. I accept that if that belief became widespread it could harm the School’s reputation in the community, as the panel clearly thought. But the risk of widespread circulation was speculative at best. The posts were made on her personal Facebook account, in her maiden name and with no reference to the School. By the time of the hearing, several weeks after the posts were made, only one person was known to have recognised who she was.”
Furthermore they have ruled that: "Even if readers of the posts might fear that the Claimant would let her views influence her work, neither the panel nor the ET believed that she would do so. There was no reason to doubt her assertion that her concern was specifically about the content of sex education in primary schools; that she “wouldn’t bring this into school”; and that she would never treat gay or trans pupils differently …. There had indeed been no complaints about any aspect of her work for over six years.” "Taking those reasons together,", the judges said, "I do not believe that dismissal was even arguably a proportionate sanction for the Claimant’s conduct. It was no doubt unwise of her to re-post material expressed in (to use the ET’s words) florid and provocative language with which she did not agree, and in circumstances where people were liable to realise her connection with the School. But I cannot accept that that can justify her dismissal, and still less so where she was a long-serving employee against whose actual work there was no complaint of any kind.” The Court therefore overruled the earlier decision of Employment Appeal Tribunal to remit the case for a re-trial, and concluded: “we should ourselves hold that the Claimant’s dismissal constituted unlawful discrimination on the ground of religion and belief”.
https://x.com/CConcern/status/1889628288655466784
The full Judgment is here. I have not yet read the Judgment myself and will report back further once I have done so.
https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/higgs-v-farmors-school/
UK - Sandie Peggie v Beth Upton
Well done to the work experience student who wrote this update for Gript News.
“I’m biologically female” claims biologically male Dr. at UK tribunal
10 February
The employment tribunal, Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton, which began in Scotland on 3 February last, continued today.
This morning, the tribunal saw Naomi Cunningham of Outer Temple Chambers, Ms Peggie’s barrister, begin cross-examination of Dr Upton. Dr Upton is a male who identifies as a woman.
Throughout today’s proceedings, Dr Upton maintained that he had every right to use the women’s changing rooms regardless of anyone’s “biased, misinformed, unpleasant, bigoted or transphobic views”.
When responding to Ms Cunningham’s assertion that he does not have a female body, Dr Upton said, “I’m not a robot so I am biological, and my identity is female… so I’m biologically female”.
During the tribunal Dr Upton, a practicing medical doctor, also stated that “there is no agreed definition of biological sex. It’s a nebulous dog whistle”.
Ms Peggie, an NHS Fife nurse for over 30 years, was suspended from Victoria Hospital in January 2024. This was due to allegations of “bullying” as a result of Ms Peggie objecting to the presence of Dr Beth Upton in the female staff changing room on 24 December 2023.
The tribunal continues tomorrow.
Editor: This story was contributed by Gript Media’s work experience student, who has come to us on placement this week from a Dublin-based school.
EDI Jester picks up on this case and begins to look wider at the influence of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity within the National Health Service.
Cath Leng reports on the Glinner Update on the biased reporting of much of the mainstream media.
It's a man, man!
With rare exceptions. the UK's media establishment is too compromised to fulfil its duty of truthful reporting
Feb 12, 2025
We’re now into the second week of the Sandie Peggie tribunal and it’s turning out to be a game-changing case. But the struggle over media coverage started before the hearing began last Monday.
An attempt by NHS Fife to hold it in private was defeated. An appeal for Peggie and her lawyers to be allowed - allowed! - to use accurate-sex pronouns was granted. Crucially, the citizen journalism service Tribunal Tweets was allowed to live post proceedings.
Without these decisions, public access to an accurate account of the dispute between Sandie Peggie and the respondents, NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton, a trans-identified man, would have been practically nil.
We know this because even with public access, and accurate pronoun use permitted, coverage has still veered from misleading to potentially defamatory of Peggie, a nurse of 30 years standing.
Two outlets only, STV and the Scottish Daily Express, used accurate pronouns. The BBC plainly sent staff-wide guidance that neither ‘he’ nor ‘she’ was to be used for Dr Upton: only Doctor Upton, the respondent, or the doctor (it still described him as a woman - a trans woman, but a woman). Their journalists stuck to this guidance resolutely.
Other outlets, led by Sky and the Press Association, decided that Dr Upton is female, and used ‘she’.
Of course, regulatory reprimands for the ‘bias’ of using male pronouns is impossible without similar reprimands for the bias of using female pronouns. IPSO is unpredictable and captured, but if it can’t see the logic of this, it is lost. At least male pronouns have the defence of accuracy. The fact is, outlets were able to choose, and for the most part they chose untruth.
The most egregious error was the refusal by most outlets, except The Times and the Telegraph, to explain that Upton is a man. He was universally described as a ‘trans doctor’. If there is one single fact that’s central to this case, it’s that Upton is a man—it is grossly irresponsible, verging on deliberately misleading, to leave it out.
Readers and viewers are expected to second-guess his sex. Most don’t read down from the headline, and when they do, most only read the top four paragraphs. The result is a misleading narrative that frames Sandie Peggie as transphobic instead of someone objecting to a man in a woman’s space.
The media mentality that brings ‘she’ to the desk for a man applies the same bias to all reporting on cases like this. From the moment you make that choice, it colours your coverage, what you see and hear, what you take away and what you then serve up to your consumers.
Cath Leng concludes:
This ends with a paean to Tribunal Tweets. No journalist worked as hard or produced the quality of material they did. Any sensible journalist would have checked their copy against their incredible stenography.
They have to be accurate, they have to be impartial (or they get kicked out), they have to type at the speed of light and they have to understand the court process and background. If news outlets would link to their threads at the bottom of every report, then the bias would be visible to all, not just those of us attuned to it.
The full piece is here:
https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/its-a-man-man
Author Milli Hill writes on her substack, The Mule:
Dr Beth Upton: entitled male? Yes. Victim of a cult? Also yes.
A doctor talking utter nonsense about biology might seem funny, but in fact, it's a deadly serious sign of a much wider problem.
Feb 11, 2025
Many of us watch the tribunal of Sandie Peggie unfold in awe: in awe of the bravery of the woman at the centre of it all, Sandy Peggie; and at the same time in awe of the sheer lunacy of the situation we find ourselves in. Never could we have conceived of such a push back against women’s rights than this new topsy turvy version of reality, in which a woman can object to the presence of a man in her changing room and not only find herself disciplined by her employer for doing so, but also portrayed as bigoted and unkind during the subsequent tribunal. The aggressor - a male invading a female space - becomes the victim, and the victim - the woman objecting to the presence of that male - becomes the aggressor.
This classic example of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is well captured by this cartoonist (link to twitter, shared with permission)
As well as this full scale display of male entitlement, there is also a jaw dropping amount of denial of biological reality on show in the tribunal, made more incredible by the fact it’s coming from an NHS doctor, who surely should know their cervix from their prostate.
Milli Hill goes on to argue that Dr Upton is a victim of the ‘trans cult’ but it seems to me he, standing there in the witness box spouting fantasy, is a full scale proponent of the cult.
The full piece is here:
https://millihill.substack.com/p/dr-beth-upton-entitled-male-yes-victim
All thoughts gratefully received.
UK - Heroic Women
Hopefully most if not all of you will have seen my report about last Saturday’s Let Women Speak rally in Nottingham and the actions of the ‘trans rights activists’.
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/heroic-women-the-return-to-nottingham
One of the main methods of the TRAs is to use excessive noise to drown out the women speakers. Just to let readers know, under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 there are two new situations where the police can put conditions on a protest march if it’s too noisy:
if they think the noise generated by protesters may result in “serious disruption” to the activities of an organisation in the area, or
if they think the noise generated by protesters may have a significant impact by causing harassment, intimidation, alarm or distress to people in the area.
I would say that both those situations were in place on Saturday but, as usual, no action was taken by the police.
UK - Foreign Aid
Many of us may envisage foreign aid as providing assistance to poor, impoverished people in third world countries. Matt Goodwin on his substack looks more closely at some of the examples of aid being provided by the UK Government and I will pick out just one that relates particularly to the subject matter of this substack:
4. LGBT+ Rights around the world
Another generously funded programme will, I quote, ‘transform the lives of millions of LGBT+ people around the world by reducing violence and discrimination against the LGBT+ community and by improving access to services and legislative reform’. I have no idea what any of that means but it’s clear this involves transferring money from British taxpayers to ‘grassroots LGBT+ organisations’. This is very clearly yet another Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) initiative with no stated goal or expected outcome beyond the very vague ‘inclusion and diversity’. How about we suspend this programme for a while and use the enormous budget to instead pay for 113,000 winter fuel payments for British pensioners —just a thought?
Total Budget: £34,000,000
The full piece is here:
UK - Repeal the Gender Recognition Act
I always say that, as soon as the word ‘gender’ is put into legislation, us Terfs are in trouble!!
Please sign this petition.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/705403
England - Swimming
Women’s Rights Network reports:
EXCLUSIVE! Women's Rights Network has learnt of a shocking increase in mobile phone use to capture indecent images of girls using mixed-sex changing rooms at Swim England competitions. A report from Swim England on safeguarding failures in swimming pools involving the capture of photos or videos on mobile phones from under or over a cubicle partition has been leaked to WRN
https://x.com/WomensRightsNet/status/1889417859740344817
I am splitting Tenaciously and Liz’s endpieces between the two parts.
Endpiece by Tenaciously
#BeMorePorcupine
#EndGenderAffirmingCare
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#GrassrootsArmy
#FightForFreeSpeech
#ByeByeStonewall
#GenderEnders
#NeverSurrender
Dr Upton is clearly a solipsist; he’s living inside his own head.
According to Upton “I am not a robot, I am biological, I identify as a llama, therefore I am a biological llama.” He’d fit in very well in the Labour Party. Katrina’s latest is about dysphoria being a mental illness. It seems Upton is proving the point in spades.
Petition signed. Will share.
Thanks Dusty, really pleased about Kristie Higgs but not surprised at the use of phones in changing rooms. Who’d have thought it?