Scrooge, a Christmas Carol.

Update 489. Moira Deeming Special. #BeMore Porcupine

This is a long one, dear readers and there are some heavy duty issues so all comments very gratefully received.

Thanks to Tenaciously Terfin and Liz for suggested Christmas films which will keep us going 😄

On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer Scrooge tells two businessmen that he has no intention of celebrating Christmas. He refuses to donate to two men collecting for the poor. His nephew, Fred, invites him to dinner the next day, but Scrooge refuses, disparaging Fred for having married. Scrooge reluctantly gives his clerk Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off since there will be no business for Scrooge then, but expects him back earlier the following day. Scrooge returns home and is visited by the ghost of his seven-years-dead partner, Jacob Marley. According to him, Scrooge must change his ways or after death forever walk the earth bound in chains, as Marley does. He warns Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits; the first will arrive at one o'clock in the morning. Frightened, Scrooge takes refuge in his bed.

Alastair Sims is Scrooge.

Michael Dolan is the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Don’t forget, 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.

Thanks as ever to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.

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

Moira Deeming Wins!!

I recently reported on Moira Deeming’s defamation trial against Australian Liberal Party leader, John Pesutto. The first report was here:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/buffalo-bill

I am amazed how quickly the judgment has been delivered especially given its length but, in any event…..IT’S A WIN FOR MOIRA!! Great news! Here is Moira’s press conference:

https://x.com/Wommando/status/1867077383880110475

The judgment is some 850 pages long ( not including the annexes)!! Asap I will be producing a special update with what I hope will be useful excerpts from the judgment. Since this will obviously take a significant amount of extra work I will initially be releasing this just to my paid subscribers. I will release it to my free subscribers about a week later. I will sporadically be doing specials for paid subscribers though my ‘ordinary’ updates will always be available to all subscribers.

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber for the cost of a pint of beer a month: £5 per month or the special deal of £50 per annum. Thanks to all my subscribers for their support.

Here is the judgment:

https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2024/2024fca1430

No Compromise

Andrew Doyle has done a piece on what he describes as a ‘bullying fringe’ of the gender-critical movement.

The bullying fringe of the gender-critical movement

A handful of activists are bringing an important cause into disrepute.

Dec 11, 2024

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As we enter what might be the final phase of the culture war, with gender identity ideology being challenged openly in the highest courts, we are seeing LGBTQIA+ crusaders becoming more ferocious in their rhetoric and more defamatory in their slurs. At the same time, a handful of gender-critical activists and their self-proclaimed “allies” are assuming more extreme positions and lashing out at those they deem guilty of heresy. Purity spirals are not specific to any one cause.

Those of us who have been engulfed in this subject will be familiar with the small contingent of GC figures whose tactics are indistinguishable from the trans rights activists they claim to oppose. Such people are a gift to the gender lobby, because they provide them with proof that there exists within GC circles some who are authentically reactionary, bigoted and willing to smear and lie about anyone who has the temerity to disagree with them. They are, in short, authoritarians. And although they are in no way representative of the movement they ostensibly support, and have been robustly criticised by most sensible women in the fight, they continue to undermine the crucial task of opposing the pernicious effects of genderism.

This was made perfectly clear this week when it was revealed that one of these so-called “allies” – an anonymous account on X called “@FraserDAnderson” – had created an online “Troon Index” (“troon” is a derogatory term for those who identify as transgender). The site included profiles of almost 500 trans-identifying individuals, and had conflated law-abiding citizens with registered sex offenders, drawing no distinction whatsoever between either group. Names and photographs were published, and those listed were referred to as “creatures”, “perverts”, “filth”, “sex deceptionists” and other similarly degrading terms.This isn’t, as some people have scrabbled to claim, a project intended to safeguard women from predators – if that were the case, the list would be limited to those who have criminal convictions – but rather a clear attempt to intimidate and publicly shame those who are perceived as depraved. Dr Michael Foran, lecturer in law at Glasgow University, has explained how the “Troon Index” is an exercise in dehumanisation, defining it as “the inferential alienation of human rights from a group, usually accompanied by a disgust response based on stereotypes of deviance, most insidious when there is a genuine underlying heightened risk associated with the group that is totalised to all members”. As he points out, the list is “very likely illegal for a whole host of reasons, from defamation to criminal harassment. It’s not activism. It’s abuse”.

Those who know anything about the history of witch hunts will recognise the tactic. It is difficult to think of an authoritarian regime that hasn’t at some point drawn up lists of thought criminals. Consider the proscriptions of the dictator Sulla during the Roman Republic, or Robespierre’s list of “enemies of the revolution” in the Reign of Terror, or the Soviet Union purges of “counter-revolutionaries” under Stalin. In The Gulag Archipelago, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn recalls how “lists of names prepared up above, or an initial suspicion, or a denunciation by an informer, or any anonymous denunciation, were all that was needed to bring about the arrest of the suspect, followed by the inevitable formal charge”. And of course the Red Scare under Senator Joseph McCarthy is still within living memory.

The full piece is here:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-152935296

One of my readers has commented:

Andrew, this was a difficult one for me to read. Whilst I agree that innocent human beings should not be abused and I also agree that no one should be coerced into accepting the opinions of others, I can also understand the anger that has created such reactions. Women have been dehumanised, abused, treated as sub human, the rights of sex offenders taking precedence over our rights, for example rape victims having to refer to the rapist as ‘she’, paedophiles being incarcerated in prisons with mother and baby units. We are all human, we all make mistakes when angry. I always try to express my anger against the ideology rather than individuals but I’m pretty sure I’ve had my unguarded moments. I’m not trying to excuse anything or anyone and I’m glad the site was taken down. I agree it’s not helpful and we must oppose anything with authoritarian tendencies. I’m simply saying that I understand what is behind it. All I can say is that I can’t wait for this vile episode in our history to be over. And for that to happen, the insanity of gender ideology has to be defeated.

Agreeing with the comment from the above reader, I then additionally commented as follows:

Barry Wall often says that we on the Terf side are collaborationist not collectivist.

We should, of course, oppose authoritarianism, bullying and homophobia. But our collaborative approach does not mean we have to compromise. In some political causes you can compromise. In some you can't. In this one we can't. This is because:

1. We need all men ( even if they are nice and reasonable) out of all women's spaces and women's sports;

2. We need the end of prescribing puberty blockers and wrong sex hormones and the carrying out of genital surgeries and double mastectomies with regard to children. We need to stop the transing away of the gay. Provide confused or distressed children with therapeutic services.

There are many other important related topics but I will leave it at that for the moment!

I would even question how you can call yourself a Terf or 'gender critical' if you think the above can be compromised in some way ( not suggesting you think this, of course, Andrew) .

For comprehensive documentation of those trans identifying men who have been convicted of serious offences including murder, rape, child sex offences etc I recommend the wonderful JL on the Glinner Update and her weekly Week on the War on Women.

Someone else commented:

I agree wholeheartedly, and this is a very useful piece. One name left off Stella O'Malley's list of people bullied by other GC feminists is Posie Parker/Kellie Jay Keen. Plenty of left-wing GC 'activists' - I won't name them - have smeared KJK as 'far-right adjacent', even repeating those slurs in the context of the events in Melbourrne, when neo-Nazis gate-crashed one of her Let Women Speak rallies. (KJK has won some defamation cases after various journalists and Australians labelled her a neo-Nazi, including a grovelling apology from Liberal Party leader John Pesutto.) Supporters of the now defunct WPUK - as well as the risible witch-hunters of Hope Not Hate - were to the fore in these lies. I know that Stella and Kellie-Jay don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and KJK is far more hard-line and populist, nevertheless the latter has contributed a great deal to raise public awareness of the threat posed by gender ideology, at great risk to her personal safety, and the attempts to undermine her and her movement from the left are unforgiveable, in my opinion.

I then commented on that:

Well said,… and I totally agree.

I am proud to be a member of Let Women Speak ( have attended 6 rallies) and the Party of Women.

The comment about Kellie-Jay is well timed given the Moira Deeming verdict!!

Though not in response to Andrew’s piece, Kellie-Jay herself has just dealt with the question of compromise ( and I agree with what she says):

All comments gratefully received.

Puberty Blockers

I don’t know if any of my much, much older readers might remember the radio comedy It’s That Man Again (ITMA). Well, it’s prolific Andrew Doyle again! And another very important piece on his substack.

The ban on puberty blockers is long overdue

The medical and political establishments have failed vulnerable children for long enough. At last, the tide is turning.

Dec 12, 2024

The United Kingdom is regressing in many ways, but when it comes to the threat of gender identity ideology it is the indisputable world leader. After years of tireless work from women’s rights and gay rights campaigners, a rigorous four-year study into pediatric gender care by Dr Hilary Cass, and persistent pressure from a handful of politicians in the face of fierce opposition, the government has now announced an indefinite ban on the prescription of puberty blockers to minors.

This follows on from a previous ban under emergency powers by the Former health secretary Victoria Atkins at the end of May. Wes Streeting, the current Health Secretary, made the announcement in parliament yesterday.

“The Cass review made it clear that there is not enough evidence about the long-term effects of using puberty blockers to treat gender incongruence to know whether they are safe or beneficial. That evidence should have been established before they were ever prescribed for that purpose. It is a scandal that medicine was given to vulnerable young children, without proof that it was safe or effective, or that it had gone through the rigorous safeguards of a clinical trial.”

Unscrupulous private health clinics who were profiting from the prescription of these drugs had been trying to find legal loopholes to continue even after the NHS had banned the treatment back in March. Dr Aidan Kelly from private clinic Gender Plus appeared on Novara Media’s podcast to argue that the evidence demanded by Cass is neither deliverable nor desirable. Now Streeting’s announcement has made clear that all such loopholes will finally be closed. The likes of Dr Kelly will no longer be able to get away with their unethical practices.

Some ill-informed politicians were not happy with Streeting’s statement, having persuaded themselves that such a thing as “gender identity” exists even when no-one has been able to provide a satisfactory definition. Streeting has made clear that he is observing the evidence of medical experts in the implementation of this ban. Nevertheless, the denials in parliament came thick and fast, with his fellow Labour MP Kate Osborne saying that she was “hugely disappointed” by his statement and that “the restrictions on puberty blockers remove the clinical expertise from medical decision making”. Of course, the precise opposite is true.

The Green Party representative for Brighton Pavillion, Siân Berry, went even further, asking: “Does he understand that this is, at heart, discriminatory?” It’s as though she has never read the Cass Review. Streeting’s response summarised what should have been asserted many years ago, that such claims from ideologues like Berry demonstrate “why we should listen to clinicians, not politicians”.

We should not necessarily be surprised at this imperviousness to evidence from know-nothing politicians. Ever since the Cass Review was published in April, activists have been scrambling to dismiss the study’s findings as “evidence-free”, “transphobic” and even (in the case of one particularly ignorant comedian) “far right”. Part of the reason why this ban has taken so long is that major medical institutions and organisations have been infected with the toxin of ideology. The WPATH Files (internal memos leaked from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the world’s leading and most influential body on “gender medicine”) revealed that the organisation is largely dominated by activists with scant or dubious medical qualifications. Doctors who have expressed concerns have been intimidated into silence, and so the donkeys have been leading the handlers.

The full piece is here:

https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/the-ban-on-puberty-blockers-is-long

I commented on this piece:

I am, of course, delighted that there is now to be an indefinite ban on puberty blockers being prescribed to children but I note with alarm that the clinical trials involving children are to proceed. Whilst Dr Cass refers to clinical trials she does not try and address the ethical guidance for the use of clinical trials which any government must address first before deciding to proceed. I have previously featured a piece which explains clearly why , in these circumstances, such a trial cannot be justified in the case of children - it seems to me that this stage in the consideration of this matter is being missed out:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/two-horses-too-many

In light of the fact that puberty blockers do not work but cause serious harm a clinical trial is equally scandalous and Wes Streeting is on the verge of undoing all his good work here.

There are no such beings as 'trans children' just confused and distressed children who may need therapeutic assistance, have been caught up in a terrible social contagion or who are being pressurised by homophobic parents.

Increasingly experts are questioning whether there is such a thing as 'gender dysphoria' or is this not something dreamt up in a back room in New York? I have also dealt with that issue recently: https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-gender?utm_source=publication-search

Wes Streeting needs to urgently apply the ethical guidance to the question of clinical trials.

Once again, all comments gratefully received.

Gareth Roberts

Gareth Roberts is a gay campaigner, a Terf and author of Gay Shame. He wrote a piece in The Spectator about Nicola Sturgeon and her views on ‘transgender rights’ and mentioned one Juno Dawson who had interviewed Ms Sturgeon and who Gareth referred to (correctly, of course) as a man who ‘claim[ed] to be a woman.’ Dawson complained to the Independent Press Standards Office (IPSO) who upheld one aspect of the complaint:

In the view of the Committee, referring to the complainant as a man “claiming” to be a woman was personally belittling and demeaning toward the complainant, in a way that was both pejorative and prejudicial of the complainant due to her gender identity, and was not justified by the columnist’s right to express his views on the broader issues of a person’s sex and gender identity given that this targeted her as an individual.

By way of remedy, IPSO stated:

The Committee considered the placement of this adjudication. As the article appeared online only, the adjudication should be published online, with a link to this adjudication (including the headline) being published on the top 50% of the publication’s homepage for 24 hours; it should then be archived in the usual way. If the newspaper intends to continue to publish the online article without amendment to remove the breach identified by the Committee, a link to the adjudication should also be published on the article, beneath the headline. If amended to remove the breach, a link to the adjudication should be published as a footnote correction with an explanation that the article had been amended following the IPSO ruling. The publication should contact IPSO to confirm these amendments it intends to make to the online material to avoid the continued publication of material in breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

https://x.com/nickwallis/status/1866502704870113319

Michael Gove, the editor of The Spectator, has responded robustly:

In defence of Gareth Roberts

• 10 December 2024

Readers need to be able to trust The Spectator. Every fact you read in the magazine must be true. And every opinion uncensored.

On 21 May this year we published an article by the brilliant writer Gareth Roberts headlined ‘The sad truth about “saint” Nicola Sturgeon’. Gareth was reporting on the former Scottish first minister’s appearance at a literary festival in Sussex. Ms Sturgeon was discussing the controversies which had attended her time in office – including her views on independence and gender recognition laws. Gareth noted that she ‘was interviewed by writer Juno Dawson, a man who claims to be a woman, and so the conversation naturally turned to gender’.

Juno Dawson subsequently complained about those words to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), the regulator of print and digital media established in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry. It was claimed the words were inaccurate, a breach of section 1 of the Editor’s Code, which governs inaccuracy; a breach of section 3, which covers harassment; and a breach of section 12.1, which holds that ‘The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability’.

Ipso found there was no breach of section 1 or 3. Gareth’s words were not inaccurate and were not harassment. But Ipso concluded they were a breach of section 12.1. In its judgment, the article had included a reference to the complainant’s gender identity that the committee considered to be both pejorative and prejudicial. The committee had expressed its concern that this reference was personally belittling and demeaning toward the complainant. Given the nature of the breach, the appropriate remedial action was the publication of an upheld adjudication.

We publish what Ipso requires of us here. But I am in no doubt this is an outrageous decision, offensive to the principle of free speech and chilling in its effect on free expression.

When Ipso was set up it was established as a lesser evil. The Leveson Report had called for effective state regulation of the press. The Spectator was resolutely opposed. In place of that undoubted curtailment of free expression, media organisations, including The Spectator, instead agreed to be bound by an independent regulator, whose remit was both to uphold high standards and defend free speech. Ipso was set up to fulfil that role. The Spectator agreed, with other media organisations, to fund the body, subscribe to its Editor’s Code and abide by its rulings. We did so on the basis that self-regulation by an independent body was infinitely preferable to state regulation. But our first duty is not to any committee, no matter how well-intentioned – it is to you, our readers. We are here to report honestly, uphold freedom of speech and defend the right of our writers to express themselves, within the boundaries of the law, as they see fit.

When Gareth Roberts wrote that Juno Dawson is a man who claims to be a woman, he was exercising his right to free speech and indeed expressing a view that many would consider a straightforward truth. Dawson may have a Gender Recognition Certificate but no piece of paper, whatever it may say, can alter biological reality. Parliament may pass laws, but they cannot abolish Dawson’s Y chromosome.

Respecting the right of people to live as they wish, and exercising consideration and sensitivity towards them, is a virtue. Society has, understandably, sought to accommodate and make changes to ensure people who wish to live as trans women, even though they were born biological males, have every opportunity to find the happiness they seek in their assumed identity. Juno Dawson is no exception. But Dawson cannot dictate how others think, nor decide what language others use when they describe the reality they see.

Gareth Roberts’s right to see as he finds and write as he sees must be defended. It may be offensive to some and difficult for others. But as George Orwell argued: ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’

And upholding the right to speak freely on questions of gender identity and gender reassignment is not some quixotic cause to be defended as a matter of purist principle. It has saved lives. It is only because campaigners and journalists have pursued the truth, in the face of vehement opposition and attempts to silence them, that wickedness perpetrated in the name of gender ideology has been exposed and stopped.

The activities undertaken by NHS clinicians at the Tavistock Clinic to reassign the gender of children involved unquestioning affirmation, chemical interventions to halt and delay the onset of natural puberty and set children on the pathway to surgical mutilation. It was only thanks to the campaigning and investigative work of journalists that this scandal was uncovered and the Tavistock closed down. The testimony of victims of these practices, such as Keira Bell, is heart-breaking. Subsequent work by the distinguished paediatrician Hilary Cass laid bare the unethical, unscientific and unsupportable nature of what had been going on.

We trust our readers to make up their own minds on vital and sensitive questions of moral and ethical importance. We believe that individuals are better able to do so if they can read and hear from writers and thinkers who ask uncomfortable questions. We will continue to give free thinkers and brilliant writers such as Gareth Roberts a platform. And we will resist any effort to pressure them into conformity with another’s morality. For The Spectator, free speech is not a cause among many others which we may champion – it is the essence of our existence.

In defence of Gareth Roberts

I am not clear if there will be any challenge to IPSO (I do hope so!). In the meantime we will have to continue to endure articles in the MSM where, for example, larping male rapists are referred to as ‘she’ and ‘her’!!

Our Loss, Arizona’s Gain!

Bad news for us in the UK that Glinner is leaving but I am sure we are all very pleased and wish him all the best now that he will be working on a new sitcom ( at last) in Arizona ( working with Andrew Doyle and two others though not clear if they will also be in Arizona). My initial concern is what will happen to the priceless Glinner Update and I will be messaging Graham about that.

The Not So Proud Trust

Excellent piece about an alarming new ‘school toolkit’ from Transgender Trend but given the wealth of news today I am just providing the link here:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/proud-trust-trans-inclusion-school-toolkit/

Pearl Red Moon

I have recently reported on Pearl’s exhibition that is now taking place in Australia. Here is a link to her latest piece on the exhibition and here is another lovely work from the exhibition.

https://pearlredmoon.substack.com/p/more-csf?publication_id=929412&post_id=152939610&isFreemail=false&r=20xc5g&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Endpieces from Tenaciously Terfin and Liz

Thanks to Tenaciously for joining in in true festive spirit 😀 and spot on given the film choice!

Liz sticks with Two Tier! Please, God of the Terfs, make it the Christmas NUMBER ONE!

#BeMorePorcupine

#LetWomenSpeak

#Grassroots Army

#GenderIdeologyIsEvil

#DontRentQueerCars

I hope that the next update will be on either Saturday or Sunday, 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.