We are flooded with news and views at Dusty Towers so there will probably be another general update tomorrow night as well in order to keep the length of this one down a bit!!
Welcome to new paid subscribers. Thanks as ever to my paid subscribers and to those who buy me a coffee. These updates do take up an enormous amount of work, so please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Onwards with the Dusty,Nicola, Moodie and Rex 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:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/empire-of-light-dustys-film-series
A Minecraft Movie is a 2025 film based on the 2011 video game Minecraft.
Struggling doorknob salesman Steve goes to work in a mine to fulfill a childhood dream, where he discovers the Orb of Dominance and the Earth Crystal. When combined, they create a portal that transports him to the Overworld, a world where the terrain is made of easily manipulated cubes. He builds his own city and later stumbles across a portal to a hellish world called the Nether. He is imprisoned by Malgosha, the gold-obsessed piglin ruler of the Nether who gravely discourages creativity and steals Steve's dog Dennis. Because the Orb would allow her to control the Overworld, Steve has his dog Dennis escape with the Orb and Crystal and hide them under his bed in the real world.
Sometime later, 1980s video game champion Garrett "The Garbage Man" Garrison owns a failing video game store in Chuglass, Idaho. He heads to a storage auction to acquire items to sell for cash, ultimately winning the contents of Steve's old house. While searching through the items, particularly hoping to find an Atari Cosmos, he instead finds the empty case and Steve's old belongings. While searching throughout the house he finds the Orb and Crystal, to his anger and confusion.
Are you confused? I know I am! Oh well, we need some light relief after the clinical trial decision ( and see further below about strip searches).
In the clip:
Jack Black is Steve
Jason Momoa is Garrett
Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
UK - The Police and Strip Searching
More bad news from the High Court, Sex Matters have lost their challenge to the Police about strip searches.
Helen, Maya and Fiona outside the High Court on 16th June before
the hearing
31 July 2026
The High Court has ruled against Sex Matters in our case against the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and British Transport Police (BTP) over their “consensual” searching policies.
It isn’t over yet.
We think that the judgment is wrong in law and we are applying for permission to appeal.
It’s been a long road to get here and we aren’t giving up.
The answer to whether male officers should be allowed to strip-search women, or female officers asked to strip-search male detainees, should be clear, simple and obvious. Whatever their pronouns, whatever they like to wear, whatever hormones or cosmetic surgery they may have had, it should be No.
Women have rights. But those in charge have again and again put trans-identifying men’s feelings and desires above the safety, dignity and autonomy of women.
In 2004 the House of Lords (which was then the Supreme Court) ruled in the case of A v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police that a man who “has done everything that she possibly could do to align her physical identity with her psychological identity” should be allowed to forcibly strip-search women. Lady Hale said that it would not be “rational” for women to object.
In 2012 the LGBTQ+ lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers wrote to all chief constables sharing advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission which drew on that case and said that what mattered for lawful searching was a person’s “legal gender”. In 2019 the next LGBTQ+ lead wrote to all chief constables encouraging them to permit officers to search detainees “without proof of their legal sex status”.
In July 2021 Standing for Women produced the first report challenging this practice. The NPCC doubled down. It got “independent legal advice” and issued guidance that trans officers be permitted to strip-search and even intimately search suspects of the opposite sex. The policy was adopted and implemented by the majority of police forces across the country.
By January 2024 the tide of public opinion had turned, so that when Women’s Rights Network (WRN) produced a report in January 2024 calling this “state sanctioned sexual assault” the government and police chiefs paid attention. The policy was withdrawn. But the policing minister said that gender-recognition certificates should allow cross-sex searching. Together with WRN and Fair Play For Women, we wrote to him and explained that this is not the law, and it is not fair or safe for women.
The NPCC doubled down again. In April 2024 it told us it was going to be consulting on new searching guidance and that it had an independent barrister advising on the law. This turned out to be trans-identifying male barrister Robin Moira White, who had advised on the policy the NPCC had just had to withdraw. I wrote to Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, pointing out that White is an activist in gender-identity politics. I sent screenshots of White comparing gender-critical women to Nazis and calling Sex Matters a “hate group” and the Minister for Women and Equalities “evil”.
The NPCC just doubled down some more. Gavin Stephens said: “The NPCC has considered at great length who is best placed to provide legal advice and given the subject matter.”
In November 2024, when British Transport Police issued its new policy based on the NPCC approach, we started down the road to legal action. After the FWS [ For Women Scotland] judgment the NPCC, BTP and other police forces withdrew their faulty policies, but didn’t say Sorry. Instead they developed new policies to let trans-identifying detainees request that an officer of the opposite sex would search them “consensually”.
When we raised concerns about female officers being put under pressure to strip-search trans-identifying men, the NPCC and BTP said that officers who refused to search trans-identifying detainees of the opposite sex would not face career detriment.
We know from experience that sometimes you have to continue up the court system to find judges willing to see past the years of exceptional practice and declare that ordinary truth and ordinary laws apply to everyone. It is infuriating. But we will keep going.
Why we’re continuing this legal fight
Read more about why we think this judgment is wrong in law, why we are seeking permission to appeal and why this case matters for female police officers, detainees and the rule of law.
The judgment is here:
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/AC-2025-LON-002926-Sex-Matters-v-NPCC.pdf
Free Speech
Andrew Doyle looks at how tyrants usually cannot tolerate jokes about themselves or their particular regime and looks at the current position in Germany!!
Why tyrants hate jokes
From Caesar to Stalin, rulers have revealed their true character by how they respond to mockery.
Jul 28, 2026
One of the defining characteristics of a tyrant is his or her unwillingness to be mocked. When the poet Osip Mandelstam poked fun at Stalin’s ‘cockroach whiskers’ and his fingers ‘fatty like worms’ he was exiled and eventually sentenced to five years in a corrective labour camp. Within a year of his imprisonment, he had died of malnutrition and was buried in an unmarked grave.
One might have expected that, given its history, Germany would be especially wary of laws that ringfence politicians from ridicule. Yet in 2021, its government expanded Section 188 of the Criminal Code – aimed at protecting politicians from defamation – so that even crude insults could result in prosecution. This draconian law is why the Free Speech Union is now hoping to launch a branch in Germany.
As with all ‘hate speech’ laws, Section 188 is wide open to exploitation by any politician seeking to suppress dissent. In November 2024, Bavarian police raided the house of retired soldier Stefan Niehoff for a social media post in which he had referred to Robert Habeck, then Germany’s vice-chancellor, as a ‘Schwachkopf’ (dummy). That mild insult was all it took to see his liberties violated by the state.
The full piece is here:
https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/why-tyrants-hate-jokes
England - Keeping Children Safe In Education
Sex Matters do a really excellent analysis of this new policy in a conversation between Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce and explain why what is needed is a ‘whole school policy’ - do bookmark this. They have produced a report which parents may want to send to their childrens’ schools.
https://www.sex-matters-news.org/p/keeping-children-safe-in-education-ebd
The report is explained here. I do intend to do a one off piece for paid subscribers arising from this:
https://www.sex-matters-news.org/p/updated-school-model-policy-send
UK - Single Sex Charities
Sex Matters have been busy!! They explain here why single sex charities need to make sure that they abide by their objectives which have been endorsed by the Charity Commission:
Why single-sex charities cannot become “trans inclusive”
Jul 30, 2026
During the past decade many charities for women or girls, among them the Women’s Institute and Girlguiding, became “trans inclusive”, meaning that they started to admit trans-identifying men and boys, and to regard such men and boys as beneficiaries of their charitable objects.
They did this not by rewriting their membership rules or going through the formal process required to change a charity’s objects, but by simply claiming that the words “girl”, “woman” and “female” included trans-identifying boys and men. This was never lawful. But girls and women who complained directly to charities generally discovered that the boys and men were allowed to stay, that they were subjected to disciplinary action and sometimes excluded – and that the rules were left unchanged. Meanwhile, instead of holding these charities to their objects the Charity Commission deferred to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which misinterpreted the law.
Since the Supreme Court judgment of April 2025 on the meaning of “sex”, many charities and other not-for-profit membership associations are revisiting such decisions.
Both the National Federation of Women’s Institutes and Girlguiding have accepted that they got the law wrong, and are in the process of requiring trans-identifying male members to leave.
KENRIC, the UK’s longest-running social group for lesbians, held a consultation with its members regarding membership criteria and announced in June that it would return to being open only to biological women who identify as lesbian.
Women’s Aid Federation has reaffirmed that it exists “to promote the protection of women and children survivors of domestic abuse”. It has welcomed the EHRC guidance, recognising that some services that are female-only will no longer be able to support “Trans +” survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence and saying that these survivors may need alternate caring, expert and reliable sources of support into which they can be referred.
Similarly, Rape Crisis England and Wales says its purpose is “is to relieve the trauma and distress of women and girls who have experienced any form of sexual violence and abuse”. Some rape crisis centres offer services to men and boys (including those that identify as trans) while others offer services just to women.
Some of these organisations are now experiencing a backlash. They are coming under pressure, both internally and externally, to become formally “trans inclusive” – that is, to make explicit what had previously been done by linguistic trickery.
Organisations such as the Good Law Project argue that Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of association, as well as the way the Equality Act is drafted mean that it would be lawful for women’s charities to remain “trans inclusive” (that is, to include trans-identifying men among their beneficiaries).
This is not the case.
As the EHRC Code of practice for services, public functions and associations makes clear, associations can limit membership to particular groups, but beyond that they must not discriminate.
The full piece is here:
https://www.sex-matters-news.org/p/why-single-sex-charities-cannot-become
Is ‘Trans’ A Religion?
On GB News ‘Free Speech Nation’, Anne Kalvig, who is a former professor of religious studies and now represents Women’s Declaration International Norway, argued that ‘gender ideology’ should be recognised as a religion. Kara Dansky discussed this on the Terf Report and was concerned about this suggestion. I would totally oppose the suggestion. Article 9 of the Human Rights Act 1998 states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
If ‘trans’ was confirmed as a religion, it would be totally protected from discrimination. On the other hand the gender ideologues are welcome to argue that ‘trans’ is a belief but a belief has to be ‘worthy of respect in a democratic society’ ( WORIAD). I would suggest that ‘gender ideology’ would not meet that requirement.
I will also be expanding on this discussion in a paid subscriber piece.
All thoughts gratefully received.
The full piece is here:
https://karadansky.substack.com/p/is-trans-a-religion
Larping Men and Gaslighting
Jean Hatchet discusses how larping men gaslight women and how women can deal with that:
You can’t see me right?
A new level of gaslighting.
Jul 29, 2026
Men who pretend to be women are liars. Nothing more or less. They aren’t in some secret, unbearable pain. They aren’t living wretched lives where they were zoomed into the wrong body by their evil mother and her crazed womb. They aren’t suffering “gender dysphoria” where the whole world is a cruel blur, imposing a distress on their delicate little, actually female, minds.
What they are is some of the most supremely abusive and manipulative men on the planet.
That’s all they are. No exceptions. We each of us know perfectly well what sex we are and if these men don’t then they are simply mentally ill. There’s something seriously wrong with them and it’s nothing to do with “trans”.
Some of these men who lie and say they are women are mentally ill too of course. They are serious narcissists, sociopaths or, in some cases, psychopaths. They are all abusing women.
We have known for a long time that men like these are gaining pleasure from making society believe that they are not men, that they are special, that they are actually a special kind of woman. This seems to be accelerating rather than declining in both intensity and variety.
Imagine if you were a twisted and sick individual, who enjoyed manipulating other people, and you worked out that you could wield power over others in your life and in wider society just by persisting in a lie and refusing to back down. So much so that some believed your lie was true. These are not normal men and it is precisely because they are not normal that they are such a risk to women. The mere demand that they are treated “as women” is abuse and should be seen as such from the moment they begin to say it. There are no exceptions. Not for your friend, not for your kid, not for your neighbour or your Uncle Kevin.
The full piece is here:
https://jeanhatchet.substack.com/p/you-cant-see-me-right
Queers for Palestine?
Mr Menno is interviewed by Kelvin MacKenzie and discusses attacks on gays by Islamists highlighted especially by the horrific attack on the Berlin Pride parade and, separately, how Pride has been taken over by the T and the Q!! And maybe the ‘plus’!!
Related to that, Karen Davis discusses a larping man who fled San Francisco (!?) when Donald Trump was elected, ended up in a refugee camp in the Netherlands, now feels in fear of his life from Islamists in that camp and is now desperate to return to the States!!!
https://ykright.substack.com/p/man-flees-san-francisco-becomes-homeless
In an excellent and exhaustive round up of various stories in Europe, Róisín Michaux also looks at attacks on gays by Islamists.
https://www.peaked.news/p/the-weekly-peak-16
It seems that LGB people are under attack both from the organisers of and participants at the Pride parades and from Islamists.
All thoughts gratefully received.
Endpiece
From Liz Parker
#BeMorePorcupine
#KeepTerfing
#BringDownAmnesty
#KeepFighting
#RepealTheGRA
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#LGB✂️TQ
#BeMoreDissident
#HoldTheLine
#StopTheBlockersTrial
#NeverSurrender
#NeverForget
#TruthWillTriumph
#WeWillWin
Tbh Minecraft isn’t the worst fillum I’ve ever seen
I have a small cutout of aquaman in my bathroom and a life size one in my bedroom but lp is scared of it so ………… - she’s not allowed in my bedroom anymore 🤣🤣
Thanks for all your hard work Dusty. So disappointing that there’s an ever expanding list of bad news to report. The strip search idea of ‘consent’ is appalling. Of course female officers will be put under pressure by the demands of larping men. And no appeal allowed here or for the puberty blocker trial.
I agree that classing gender ideology as a religion would give it all kinds of protections and rights. We’d probably end up unable to criticise it. It’s been hard enough over the past few years. We don’t want a return to ‘no debate’. There’d be the introduction of back door blasphemy laws with accusations of transphobia instead of Islamophobia.
#FreeSpeechNotSilencedSpeech