Life Is Beautiful

Update 525. Clinical Trials Special. #BeMorePorcupine.

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 ( another nomination from my wife - she’s on a roll!) is Life Is Beautiful (1997). If you’re feeling down, watch this!

Life Is Beautiful is a 1997 Italian film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, who co-wrote the film with Vincenzo Cerami. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian bookshop owner, who employs his imagination to shield his son, Giosue ( Giorgio Cantarini) from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp.

Nicoletta Braschi is Dora, Guido’s wife and Giosue’s mother.

Thanks to three wonderful readers for suggested pieces.

Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.

UK - Clinical Trials

I last reported on the proposed clinical trials regarding giving puberty blockers to children here:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/get-carter-part-2?utm_source=publication-search

I have been saying that a judicial review challenge is required so I was absolutely delighted to see this from James Esses:

Myself and the indefatigable Keira Bell (@KLBfax) have instructed a legal team to write to the Health Research Authority, warning them that, if the proposed trial goes ahead, we will bring a claim for judicial review. We made this decision because of our joint concerns for the safety of children and the fact that the proposed clinical trial would violate numerous ethical, regulatory and legislative requirements.

https://x.com/JamesEsses/status/1890171439732449703

Come on, Wes Streeting, back off now!

UK - The Sandie Peggie Case

See my update here for my latest report on this case:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/leaving-las-vegas-part-1

Andrew Doyle discusses the case on his substack.

Men do not belong in women’s changing rooms

The tribunal of Sandie Peggie has exposed the bullying and entitlement of the trans activist movement.

Feb 13, 2025

Trans-identified people are among the most powerful in society. They are endlessly celebrated by the media and celebrity classes. They are able to enforce speech codes against the will of the majority of the population in the knowledge that those in authority will support their demands. They are able to call on the police to harass those who dare to refuse to comply. Above all, they enjoy the status of victimhood in spite of being among the safest and least victimised of all demographics. Who knew that being oppressed was so appealing?

And, of course, they are able to demand the erosion of women’s spaces in the name of ‘progress’. An employment tribunal currently underway in Dundee may establish an important precedent when it comes to challenging this state of affairs. Sandie Peggie is a nurse at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy in Scotland, who was suspended for ‘harassment’ when she complained about the presence of a man, Dr Beth Upton (pictured above), in the female changing room. It should go without saying the nurses absolutely require changing facilities as part of the job. In this specific instance, Peggie had been menstruating and so asked Upton to leave, an action that was interpreted as ‘bullying’. Quite rightly, she has taken legal action against her employers.

The proceedings are being posted in real time by the Tribunal Tweets account on X, and the sense of entitlement from Upton has been fascinating. He repeatedly claims that he is simply seeking ‘respect’, as though inveigling himself into his female colleagues’ private spaces would be deserving of any courtesy. Not content with accusing Peggie of ‘harassment’, he has also claimed that he has been victimised by the judge and the entire tribunal proceedings. Upton asserted that he had ‘been treated horribly, this tribunal has been harassment. Not just for me but for all trans people in the country, just trying to be themselves’.

I would point out that not only is Dr Upton bullying and gaslighting his co-workers, he is also bullying and gaslighting the patients (and worse?). The Tribunal concluded today with evidence from NHS Fife.

The full piece is here;

https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/men-do-not-belong-in-womens-changing

UK - What Is Going On With The NHS?

In case you have missed it, EDI Jester is doing an excellent series on the influence of the ‘LGBTQIA+’ network within the National Health Service. Below is the first episode of that.

Football - Here Comes The Woo!!!

Who would have thought that a game with such working class roots would go off with the Gender Woo ( to say nothing of espousing Black Lives Matter)!! At a special session in Manchester, Toby Young of the Free Speech Union interviews Baroness Fox, Linzi Smith and Joey Barton.

US - The Democrats

A writer on the substack for Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans discusses what it might take for the Democrats to change their views on this issue. Best of luck with that effort but I wouldn’t hold my breath!! All views gratefully received.

“Got Balls?”

Feb 13, 2025

It has been a crazy couple of weeks.

Within hours of Trump taking office, he began signing a series of Executive Orders that directly confront the damaging ideologies and practices that have harmed my son and so many of his peers. At the federal level, our government now acknowledges these truths: Women are real and no one can change sex. Children should not be sterilized because they have uncomfortable feelings. Schools should not secretly transition children against their parents’ wishes.

Within my private RODG parent group, each Executive Order has been met with celebration, caution, and some bittersweet awareness. We wondered, would this really change things in our kid’s schools? What if our kid is at a woke private school? Are medical clinics going to just start lying and coding kids with fake diagnoses of “endocrine disorders?” Would any of this help our kids over age 18 who are already captured by trans ideology?

And fundamentally: would this turn our culture around?

Eight years ago, when Trump was first elected, I joined my fellow horrified Democrats and “pant suit nation” sisters at the Women’s March in St. Paul, Minnesota. We were a large and generally optimistic group of around 100,000. Pussy hats. The future is female! Nasty women! I’m with her! We were specifically unhappy with the sexism that Hillary Clinton faced and her defeat. We were generally concerned about the normalization of Trump’s boorish sexism. Some feared the threats to Roe v. Wade but I confess, I thought that paranoid. At the march I met a woman in her 70s who said she’d been attending these marches for years. “Same shit, different decade,” she laughed. Afterwards, I went home and posted photos of my family at the protest on Facebook. My feed filled up with similar photos from my friends. I must have known 50-70 people there.

Two weeks ago, a friend invited me to join her at the “People’s March”, a 2025 sequel to the 2017 Women’s March. I declined. Photos from the event show a much smaller group. I’d estimate 1,000 to 2,000. Only one friend posted a photo from the march on Facebook – though I don’t trust my feed anyway. What happened between 2017 and 2025? I suspect the decision to rebrand from “Women’s March” to “People’s March” deserves a good part of the blame. Unless we’ve been colonized by Martians, “people” is not a politically meaningful subcategory of people. Not a lot to get fired up about there.

But the deeper reason is this: a good number of women er“people” have realized that the Democrats have betrayed women.

The full piece is here:

https://www.pittparents.com/p/got-balls?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true

US - Breast Binding and Genital Tucking

Excellent piece on her substack by Maia Poet explaining that, despite Trump’s Executive Orders, the very real dangers arising from breast binding and genital tucking will continue and also need addressing. With regard to breast binding she speaks from painful experience!

Breast Binding, Genital Tucking, & the Lie of ‘Safe Gender Affirmation’.

Invisible Scars, Lifelong Pain. No Needles, No Surgery—But Still Permanently Damaged by My Gender Transition.

Feb 12, 2025

Following Trump’s Executive Order suspending the use of federal funding for “Gender Affirming Care” for young people under the age of 19, interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and transgender surgeries will become less easily accessible to young people. While this Executive Order has the immense potential to spare many youngsters from the harms of the medical interventions outlined in the legislation, our fight to end gender ideology is nowhere near over.

With medical interventions out of reach for many indoctrinated in gender ideology youths, interventions like breast binding and male genital tucking will be the only ones available to sex distressed children and teenagers. Without even a single visit to a gender clinic, tens of thousands of kids who use binders and tucking devices will continue to permanently damage their developing bodies, while sustaining mental health harms that may last a lifetime.

The harms of social transition, of breast binding and of genital tucking still remain largely unaddressed. These harms receive virtually no media coverage in the culture war because the scars they etch into the minds and bodies of young people aren’t visible to the naked eye. Yet, these are the harms which afflict every single young transitioner, whether they are of the minority who proceed with medical transition, or whether they are of the majority who do not.

How do I know? In short, because I lived this reality for half of my life. From the ages of 12-24, I identified as transgender after having been exposed to the concept online. My parents had the sense to not affirm the transgender identity I had declared as a 12 year old. Knowing that my brain was not fully developed, my parents put obstacles in my way to decrease the chance I would medicalize before age 25. However this did not stop me from using a binder to flatten my breasts, which enabled me to continue to play cross-sex ‘make believe’ into my 20’s.

Breast binding made me feel like I was breathing through a straw. Without realizing it, I had changed the way I moved, breathed, stood, walked, and slept in order to accommodate the ‘cage’ my upper body had grown into over the course of a decade.

The full piece is here:

https://maiapoet.substack.com/p/breast-binding-genital-tucking-and?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true

Ute Heggen

Excellent interview by Kelly Dougall on her podcast with Ute Heggen. Ute takes us through the 20 questions she asks trans widows in the comprehensive survey she is doing. So far she has interviewed some 66 trans widows!

What Exactly Does Gender Dysphoria Mean?

On her substack, A B’Old Woman Katrina Biggs discusses this fundamental question.

“Gender dysphoria” could be a psychological disability – NZ Crown Law opinion.

A frequently glossed-over part of the continuously cited 2006 Crown Law opinion.

Feb 13, 2025

It’s there in black and white. The 2006 NZ Crown Law opinion says on the first page, to summarise, that “gender dysphoria” could be considered a “psychological disability”.

Funnily enough, no ‘transpeople’ or transactivists in any walk of life ever mention that bit. Heaven forfend! The only bit they cite is a cherry-picked part in the conclusion of the Crown Law opinion, which opines “There is currently no reason to suppose that "sex discrimination" would be construed narrowly to deprive transgender people of protection under the HRA [Human Rights Act]”.

I wrote in the Comments:

Some like Kat Highsmith and EDI Jester argue that gender dysphoria doesn't exist at all.

Since there are some people who claim to be unhappy in their own bodies, I prefer the Dr Miriam Grossman explanation ( see her book 'Lost in Trans Nation') that it is a symptom of something else and you don't treat a symptom but find the root cause. This may end up in the same place because the obvious root cause is probably....a psychological disability. What else could it be? It is hardly a symptom of a broken leg or a bad case of flu!

…Your piece helped me resolve an argument in my addled brain between the position that GD does not exist and it is a symptom. And the resolution is that it probably doesn't matter what position you take on that.

For example, it is very common for paranoid schizophrenics to believe that they are someone else. Jesus Christ, for example. You could, I suppose, call this Jesus Christ Dysphoria or you could say it just doesn't exist but, at the end of the day the problem is that the person is schizophrenic and that's what you have to deal with - not start dealing with them as if they really are Jesus Christ.

All thoughts gratefully received.

The full piece is here:

https://aboldwoman.substack.com/p/gender-dysphoria-could-be-a-psychological

What Exactly Does Q+Mean?

Now that Andrew Doyle has moved to work with Glinner in the States, Josh Howie has taken over Free Speech Nation on GB News and during a recent edition made a joke that you can listen to here:

https://x.com/joshxhowie/status/1888724534108344462

This led to lots of (ridiculous in my opinion) complaints that he was saying that LGB people are paedophiles. Josh makes his position clear here:

I think Josh’s comment highlights an excellent question. What exactly does that ‘Q+’ mean!? What is it letting in, as it were, by the back door?

Separate LGB from all the rest whatever the rest means!!!!!!!

All thoughts gratefully received.

Endpieces

From Liz

From Tenaciously

#BeMorePorcupine

#EndGenderAffirmingCare

#AdultHumanFemale

#LetWomenSpeak

#GrassrootsArmy

#FightForFreeSpeech

#ByeByeStonewall

#GenderEnders

#NeverSurrender

The next update will probably be on either Sunday or Monday, Terven.

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.