The Big Country
Update 411 Woolympics Special #BeMore Porcupine
Thanks to a reader for suggesting The Big Country as the next in the Western Season.
Former sea captain James McKay ( Gregory Peck) travels to the American West to join his fiancée Patricia (Carroll Baker) at the enormous ranch owned by her father, Henry "The Major" Terrill (Charles Bickford). After a meeting with Patricia's friend, schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), McKay, and Patricia are accosted by a group of drunks led by Buck Hannassey (Chuck Connors), the son of the Major's ardent and implacable enemy Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives)− with whom he's had a longstanding feud over water access for cattle.
When the Major learns of Buck's pestering of his daughter and future son-in-law, he gathers his men and goes to raid the Hannassey ranch, despite McKay's attempts to defuse the situation.
Oh, and some bloke called Charlton Heston makes an appearance!
And for the rest, if you haven’t watched it, you’ll just have to watch it!
And for the clip, it’s got to be the famous theme tune.
Please keep the Western suggestions coming 😊
Thanks as ever to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
The Olympics As Farce
After the appalling opening ceremony, especially the take off of The Last Supper involving drag queens, and the fact that there may be larping men in up to 26 sporting categories, it is not surprising that many people are calling for a boycott of the Olympics.
Women’s Rights Network provide full details in their latest newsletter (27 July).
“Gender Equality” in the Olympics
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is touting the 2024 Games as the #GenderEqualOlympics, but does it want to know the response? Well, its promotional film on YouTube has comments turned off but there was an indication of the value the Games place on women as it displayed its “equality” when the Olympic torch arrived in Paris [ the torch was held by two men, one larping as a woman].
Under the IOC’s new policy, both of these men could be eligible to participate in women’s Olympic events.
The Games’ respect and regard for women was made clear in the opening ceremony’s repeated mockery of women regardless of their involvement in sport.
WRN’s Jane Sullivan looks at the current situation created by the IOC’s Gender Equality Review Project. The Committee could have ruled that qualification for any women’s event requires an athlete to be female – previously established with a cheek swab – but they didn’t. Instead, they passed the decision to individual International Sports Federations. Of the 32 sports involved, a whopping six upheld women’s right to fair competition – against women only.
Of the 24 sports that allow men to qualify for women’s events, they either have no international policy and allow national governing bodies to set their own rules, have policies that allow males to compete in female categories, or they follow IOC guidelines. Unbelievably, two contact sports – taekwondo and wrestling – allow males in the female category.
Without the requirement for sex-testing at the Olympics, male athletes fulfilling their sport’s criteria for entry into female categories could make selection and as they’d be listed as female, we’d be none the wiser.
The public perception of male athletes in women’s events has been very carefully curated by the IOC, and this year they have published Portrayal Guidelines to ensure the watchwords are “inclusion and diversity” rather than “female, fairness, and opportunity”. They want sports to “adopt and adapt these Guidelines according to cultural contexts”, so women are reduced to cultural relativity!
Jane’s piece makes the issues clear and, with a possible change in leadership, she asks what the future holds.
The Mysterious Promotion of Men
We’ve been asking why the IOC seems hell-bent on erasing women’s sport and an interview with @Madeleine_Pape, a sociologist and ‘gender specialist’, reveals all.
Pape represented Australia in the women’s 800m at Beijing 2008 and has now masterminded the IOC Media Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination.
The Framework is a masterpiece of Orwellian gobbledegook but contains the frankly outrageous ruling that there should be no presumed advantage of being male in any sport. This neatly ignores over a hundred years of sports records that demonstrate that there is indeed a presumed male advantage in almost any sport you care to look at.
WRN thanked Cathy Devine for her critique of Pape’s IOC MEDIA Framework on “Inclusion” and for reminding us that Madeleine Pape had been involved in an attempt to silence elite female athletes standing up for their rights to fair and safe sport.
Cathy’s critique noted the IOC’s aim to “provide opportunities for inclusion in an athlete’s preferred category wherever possible” and asked, “Since when did athletes get to choose a preferred category? And as ever the problematic ‘gender equality’. Conflating sex with gender, and gender with gender identity. As a sleight of hand to argue that some biological males should be included in female categories.”
Pape tells us that the IOC “recognises that transwomen are women”. She asks us to “consider the human beings at the centre of the debate”, by which she means men wanting to access female sports, not the women who will lose out to them – they’re bigots!
Meanwhile, Reduxx in their latest weekly round up (28 July) report that they are cataloguing the larping men involved and that they have already identified two involved in the women’s boxing. BOXING!!??
Though we are diligently working to catalogue and confirm every instance we have been alerted to, we were able to release the first story yesterday, revealing that two individuals scheduled to compete in women’s boxing had previously been disqualified from a women’s tournament for allegedly being male.
Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting were previously stripped of medals and placing at the Women’s World Boxing Championship 2023 after the International Boxing Association conducted tests revealing the two had “XY chromosomes.” Speaking to Russian-language TASS News at the time, IBA President Umar Kremlev went so far as to say that Khelif and Lin were “pretending to be women” and had “deceived” their colleagues.
As mentioned earlier, Reduxx is aware of other suspected cases and the whole team is working to get those stories to you as soon as we receive confirmation.
Interesting discussion about the Olympics on the latest Mess:
https://youtu.be/zs1HBrVJ2Ps?t=1
Let Women Speak
I hope some of you managed to watch the livestream yesterday.
It was a lovely sunny day and there were no trans rights activists so we could hear most of the excellent speeches (some were a bit quiet and we were right at the back). Three Party of Women (PoW) candidates spoke and Mr Menno got to speak at the end with his story abut a unisex loo. Here are a few photos from the event.
Catherine (PoW candidate)
Speaker (poet)
Kelly (PoW candidate)
Kellie-Jay
Mr Menno
Free Speech
I reported on the shocking decision by the Government to repeal the Freedom of Speech Act here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/they-call-me-trinity
What on earth can be the justification for this decision!!?? I am pleased to see that the Free Speech Union intend to challenge it.
There is a report about this on Claire Fox’s Academy of Ideas site:
A gut punch for free speech - join the fightback
Claire Fox on Labour's decision to repeal the only pro-free speech legislation of recent years - and what you can do about it.
Jul 27, 2024
It’s a gut punch for anyone committed to free speech. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s decision ‘to stop further commencement’ of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 is an act of sabotage that has shocked many of us. I am furious, and have written an article for the Telegraph, reproduced below, explaining why.
I was recently asked if the new Labour Government represented a threat to free speech? I said ‘not immediately’, naively assuming that as there was nothing apart from the draft Conversion Therapy Bill in the King’s Speech. There was time to breathe. More fool me. Because who needs the King’s Speech when democracy - Labour government style – just exploited a timing technicality to repeal the ONLY pro-free speech legislation of recent years. The law itself was the culmination of a growing free-speech crisis on campus, and, despite denials from opponents of the legislation, even they – faced with a mountain of evidence from grassroots lecturers and students – conceded something should be done.
Now repeal is very much on the cards as further statements have emerged from the Department for Education, But it is worse than simply rolling back the law. Justifying the move, Phillipson uses all the buzzwords associated with attacks on free speech, saying enhanced free speech would be ‘damaging to the welfare of students’, ‘could expose students to harm and appalling hate speech on campuses’ and ‘could lead to providers overlooking the safety and well-being of minority groups’. Phillipson sounds as though she has eaten the whole Cancel Culture Dictionary of justifications for closing down debate and limiting opinion-diversity. You can be damn sure that this means many in universities will take this as a green light for clamping down on all dissent by rebranding it as hate speech, and all in the name of keeping minorities ‘safe’ from views labelled harmful.
The education secretary has the nerve to note that ‘for too long, universities have been a political battlefield and treated with contempt, rather than as a public good’. But she has now ensured that battle will intensify and the public good of academic freedom will be sacrificed on a culture war that Labour has launched.
Phillipson says universities should instead focus on ‘the core issues they face… with greater emphasis on ensuring the financial stability of the sector’. A self-serving plea for survival of vested interests and management apparatchiks. Saving universities without their core purpose of intellectual freedom, open-ended research and the pursuit of truth is guaranteed to alienate public support and further gut higher education of its special role. The sector might well rue the day it betrayed its own historic purpose for short-term convenience.
Doubtless the gender critical will be near the top of the list for cancellation and silencing.
The full piece is here:
Free Speech Union in their Newsletter (27 July) write:
Yesterday, the new Labour Education Secretary issued a written statement to the House of Commons saying she was sabotaging the Freedom of Speech Act. You can read about this wanton act of vandalism in the Telegraph, UnHerd, the Mail and the BBC.
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was the one tangible thing the Conservatives did to defend free speech in their 14 years in office. Indeed, it was thanks to the lobbying efforts of the Free Speech Union that this legislation found itself on to the statute books. It would have imposed a new legal duty on English universities to uphold and promote freedom of speech on campus, and created a couple of enforcement mechanisms, such as a new statutory tort, to make sure universities didn’t ignore that duty.
Now, because Rishi Sunak called an election before the Act had been implemented, this Government has seized its chance to derail it.
We’re intending to fight this with all we’ve got and we need your help. Next week, we’re going to apply for a judicial review to stop the Government in its tracks, but to do that we need to raise as much money as possible. You can help by joining the Free Speech Union (here) or donating to our Legal Fighting Fund (here).
…
Our fight to defend free speech doesn’t end here. We anticipate that this will be the beginning of an unrelenting attack on this fundamental human right that will include a Westminster version of the Scottish Hate Crime Act, the criminalisation of ‘Islamophobia’, a trans inclusive ‘conversion practices’ ban, a Race Equality Act that will further institutionalise critical race theory, and an attempt to force newspapers and magazines to bend the knee to a state-controlled press regulator.
That’s why it‘s so important that you should become a member of the Free Speech Union now.
The enemies of free speech are massing under Labour’s banner. If we don’t band together, they’ll pick us off one by one.
There has been quite good media coverage of this disgraceful action by the Government. Here is another article in Epoch Times:
Also good discussion about this by JL on the Glinner Update:
https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/a-week-in-the-war-on-women-monday-820
Also, and as ever, I recommend JL in general and especially this time the harrowing story of the distraught father who wrote to the surgeon asking him not to carry out the double mastectomy on his 20 year old daughter. He did not get a response!
Joshua Sutcliffe
I reported on this judgment here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/they-call-me-trinity
Michael Foran has now done an analysis of the case on his substack Knowing ius .
The facts that were relied on in making a prohibition order against Mr Sutcliffe were:
Mr Sutcliffe had failed to use Pupil A’s preferred male pronouns ( Pupil A is a girl) on one or more occasions in the classroom while teaching maths at Cherwell.
When appearing on “This Morning”, Mr Sutcliffe had used female pronouns on multiple occasions when referring to Pupil A.
When discussing homosexuality in a maths lesson at Cherwell, Mr Sutcliffe had told pupils about a person who had, through God, “stopped being gay” as it was “wrong”.
On or around 18 October 2019, Mr Sutcliffe showed pupils at St Aloysius College a video uploaded by PragerU in form time. The video, which was entitled “Make Men Masculine Again”, contained comments to the effect that:
The growing problem in today’s society is that men are not masculine enough.
When men deny their masculinity, they run away from responsibilities leaving destruction and despair in their wake.
Children who grow up without a father are generally more depressed than their peers who have a mother and a father. They are at far greater risk of incarceration, teen pregnancy, and poverty. 71% of High School dropouts are fatherless.
Women want “real men” and the presenter did not know any woman of any age who is attracted to a passive man who looks to her to be his provider, protector and leader.
Passive men don’t defend, protect or provide. Passive men do not lead.
Michael Foran concludes by discussing the High Court decision:
The first thing the Court did in its analysis was set out the general legal framework regarding equality and human rights law as it relates to this case. Specifically it noted:
Mr Sutcliffe’s religious and gender critical convictions are protected under the ECHR [54]-[55].
Mr Sutcliffe has a general right to express and manifest these views [56].
As clarified by Choudhury J in Forstater v CGD Europe (EAT) at [118], only a proportion of people who identify as transgender will have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment [57].
A small number of people who identify as transgender will get a GRC. Without a GRC, “the law regards sex as an immutable and binary matter of biological fact” [58].
“unless a transgender person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, equality law does not expressly protect the concept of social transitioning.” [58].
The Court then went on to stress that all of this misses the central point of this appeal. Limiting the manifestation of protected beliefs by requiring them to treat the pupils in their care with dignity and respect and to safeguard their wellbeing is proportionate [60]. To this, the Court added:
“[61] By virtue of their immaturity and inexperience of the world, children and young people are vulnerable and many children struggle as they navigate adolescence. Whatever a teacher’s religious or philosophical beliefs about the immutability of a person’s gender or the morality of homosexuality, it is their professional obligation:
to treat their pupils with dignity;
to respect and celebrate the pupils’ personal autonomy;
to understand that adolescence may be particularly difficult for children who either identify as transgender or are questioning their gender identity (such as Pupil A), or who identify as gay, lesbian or bi-sexual or are questioning their sexuality (such as Pupil B); and
to safeguard the wellbeing of all children in their class.
[62] Just because misgendering a transgender pupil might not be unlawful does not mean that it is appropriate conduct for a teacher or that, when done repeatedly and deliberately both in class and on national television in breach of the school’s instructions and ethos such that distress is caused to the child, it cannot amount to professional misconduct.”
So there is some general discussion on pronouns usage and the manifestation of protected beliefs. Specifically the Court notes that it may not be unlawful to misgender a transgender pupil but that this does not mean that reliance on protected beliefs immunise a teacher from being found to have engaged in unprofessional conduct when acting in breach of school instructions with little regard for the wellbeing of students.
The Court therefore accepted the panel’s identification of the limits on what it has been called to decide [63]:
“Broad representations were made on behalf of Mr Sutcliffe that this case related to issues of freedom of expression and speech in the abstract. It was not the function of this panel to assess such broader issues. The panel has no role in determining the veracity, reasonableness or otherwise of Mr Sutcliffe’s beliefs. This panel was concerned with the Teachers’ Standards and the distinct professional considerations which apply to the specific conduct alleged, and its findings were similarly limited …
Mr Sutcliffe contended that biological sex is immutable and cannot be changed, that Pupil A did not have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, and that there is no legal requirement to use preferred pronouns. However, it was not the function of the panel to determine these three matters. The questions for the panel [were] not whether Mr Sutcliffe breached the Equality Act 2010, or whether Mr Sutcliffe harassed or discriminated against Pupil A. The question for the panel was whether it was more likely than not when performing his duties as a teacher he failed to treat Pupil A with dignity and respect, and failed to safeguard Pupil A’s wellbeing.”
Equally, the Court was also emphatic that “this case is not about whether Cherwell was right or wrong to accept Pupil A’s request to use his preferred pronouns.” [64]. The Court mentions the draft schools guidance which was issued after the events that this case concerns occurred. It recommends a cautious approach to social transition and affirmation of preferred pronouns. But it also stresses that, while it envisages social transition to be rare, it is ultimately down to the school in consultation with parents to decide the best course of action. As such, the Court noted:
“As the draft made plain, such decisions are complex and are made by schools and not individually by each member of staff according to their own assessment of the merits of the request. Whether an individual teacher agreed with the school’s decision or considered it a dangerous transgender-affirming decision that was not in the best interests of the child is not the point. The responsibility for that decision lay with the school.”
In addition to this, the Court stressed that there was evidence before the panel of the negative effect of Mr Sutcliffe’s actions on Pupil A. Mr Sutcliffe’s conduct madePupil A cry, suffer panic attacks and miss school. The redacted decision that the Court was able to see also referred to “evidence of a far more serious impact of Mr Sutcliffe’s actions on Pupil A’s health, wellbeing and safety.” [72].
So we have a case which is
not about whether Pupil A should have been treated as transgender and referred to by preferred pronouns (such a decision being one for the school to make);
not about what toilets or communal facilities a given pupil should use (not being a matter considered in this case);
not about the appropriate delivery of healthcare to gender-questioning children.
Instead, this case was about a vulnerable pupil who had suffered from the serious negative impact caused by the conduct of a teacher who refused to engage with management and had no regard for the distress he was causing. The Court was itself struck that [90]
“in this appeal how, even now, Mr Sutcliffe fails to understand or accept the harm that he caused vulnerable children in his class or accept that his right to manifest and express his religious convictions might have to be balanced against his professional duties to treat children with dignity and respect and to safeguard their wellbeing. As Mr Steele put it, he failed to differentiate between teaching and preaching.”
Ultimately, the High Court concluded that the findings of professional misconduct were entirely within the scope of what the panel was entitled to find and that the decision by the Secretary of State to accept its recommendations was perfectly lawful.
That can only be the correct decision in my view.
I have read the judgment in this case but I am not going to contest Michael’s great expertise here. I would say that it seems to me that, if this case had just been about misgendering and not muddied by other issues, there might have been a much better chance of appeal. In any event, it seems Mr Sutcliffe may be appealing and, if so, best of luck to him.
In the same update I mentioned another ‘pronouns case’ namely that brought by James Orwin and I would hope that has a much better chance of appeal. I hope to read that judgment as soon as I can get to it. Watch this space.
Puberty Blockers
Great news from Guido Fawkes that the case brought by the Good Law Project to the temporary ban on prescription of puberty blockers by private clinics has lost:
Good Law Project’s Case Against Ban on Puberty Blockers Thrown Out by High Court (29 July).
Jolyon Maugham and his Good Law Project have faced yet another defeat. Earlier this year, Jolyon’s brigade attempted to overturn former Health Secretary Victoria Atkins’ ban on puberty blockers, raising a whopping £60,000 from gullible donors to fight their case. The High Court has now upheld the ban, citing a study that identified “very substantial risks and very narrow benefits” of puberty blockers. Another one bites the dust…
The Good Law Project took to X to bemoan their loss, promising they are “consulting on next steps.” This marks the second case Jolyon has managed to lose in less than a week. When will credulous donors wake up and realise that when it comes to campaigns, Jolyon seems to be the kiss of death?
Affirmative Care
Transgender Trend ( ‘Affirmative gender care’ at The Bridge clinic 26 July) report:
Activist GPs are offering ‘affirmative gender care’ and bridging prescriptions for hormones. With no age limits on who can attend these special clinics, we’re concerned that once 18 young people will be able to access cross-sex hormones without any oversight. Shelley Charlesworth looks at just one of these clinics, The Bridge clinic in south London, and asks who is going to tackle the problem of activism posing as medicine.
The enormous task of returning the NHS to normal standards of healthcare for children and adolescents with gender distress has begun.
At the macro level we have the ground-breaking final report of the Cass Review which has had a worldwide effect, showing there is a very low evidence base for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The ban on puberty blockers by the NHS and Department of Health both show serious intent to protect children from harmful hormonal treatments. There’s to be a new oversight body headed by the independently-minded clinician Professor Simon Wessely which will oversee wider research.
But at surgery and clinic level there are still too many activist doctors and nurses working hard to undermine the turn to reality. And at all levels there are trans activists who seek to obstruct the reforming work of the Cass Review. Some sit on national bodies advising the NHS on both children’s and adult services, which oversee commissioning. The presence of activists from Mermaids and Transactual on the National Programme Board for Gender Services is a glaring example.
Activism in General Practice
The example of The Bridge Clinic in Southwark shows how unevidenced and ideological care is being promoted at ground level. Despite its name it is not a standalone clinic, but a one evening a month service operating within a GP surgery. This surgery is itself part of a federation of 18 GP surgeries run by Improving Health Ltd (IHL). There are no displays of gender allegiance on IHL’s website, no rainbow messaging or pronouns in bios. Details about the clinic, which was set up in 2022, are signposted discreetly with an email address and this explanation:
“A new primary care clinic has opened for the trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming community. We provide routine GP services and can offer some gender-affirming care, such as bridging hormones. We also have a health and wellbeing coach working as part of the team. It will run a monthly clinic in South Southwark.”
The full piece is here:
https://www.transgendertrend.com/bridge-clinic-affirmative-gender-care/
Is Your Doctor A Man Or A Woman!?
Excellent piece by Rebecca Says No on her newsletter about the General Medical Council in the UK removing the sex of some doctors from the public register.
GMC Reveals Gender Identity Groups Lobbied to Remove Doctors’ Gender from Public Register
General Medical Council Stopped Accurately Showing Doctors’ Sex Due to Groups British Association of Gender Identity Specialists and GLADD UK
Jul 28, 2024
As previously discussed in my article Doctor, No, the UK’s medical regulator the General Medical Council has been allowing doctors to remove or change their ‘gender’ marker on its public register. Several people have put in FOIs with the General Medical Council so that we could discover more information regarding this. In February 2024, a Freedom of Information response informed us of the following:
The GMC has removed the gender of 45 doctors from the public register
The GMC has agreed to represent 54 male doctors as female on the register
The GMC has agreed to represent 24 female doctors as male on the register
The GMC also stated ‘We do not record the sex of doctors, so we do not hold this information’. Only doctors’ gender, which they are treating to mean ‘gender identity’ - which most of the population will not realise.
The piece continues:
In March 2024, we sent further Freedom of Information requests to the General Medical Council. The responses to these were only eventually received in June 2024. These revealed that the organisations who pressured the GMC to allow doctors to change or remove their ‘gender’ on the public register were the Association of LGBTQ+ Doctors and Dentists (GLADD UK) and the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists (BAGIS).
The full piece is here:
https://rebeccastwitter.substack.com/p/gmc-reveals-gender-identity-groups
Andrew Doyle
Excellent discussion on a podcast by American Michael Malice comparing the political parties in the UK and in the States and dealing with, of course, the gender madness.
Endpiece by Liz
Spot on, Liz!!
#BeMorePorcupine
Dear readers
Both this update and the last one, They Call me Trinity, are proving a bit sluggish in terms of viewing figures so, if you can push them around, that would be appreciated.
Obviously I am aware that most of the 'heroes' in the Westerns are male, so I am thinking of moving on very shortly to a general Heroes ( to include Heroines) series which can encompass all different categories of film. All thoughts gratefully received 😊
Here's one of my favourite heroines ( as regular readers will know):
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/joan-of-arc?utm_source=publication-search
Dusty
I love that music, thanks Dusty.
There’s a larping man at the LWS wearing a thought criminal t shirt. At least Mr Menno has a topknot. The thought criminal hasn’t even removed his beard. Shocking story though! 😁