The Dambusters
Update 801. Stop The Gender Butchers Special. #BeMorePorcupine.
Here we go onwards to Update 1000!! I am expecting you Terven to have sorted it out by then! Do you hear me? 😀
Loads more news and views coming into Dusty Towers especially regarding the wonderful Fox Varian judgment, so this is another long one.
I reported on that judgment here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/will-the-dam-burst
The title I chose led to an exchange in the comments which in turn led to The Dambusters (1955).
In spring 1942, aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis is struggling to develop a means of attacking Germany’s Ruhr Dams in the hope of crippling German heavy industry. He worked feverishly to make practical his theory of a bouncing bomb which would skip over the water to avoid protective torpedo nets. When it hit the dam, backspin would make it sink while retaining contact with the wall, making the explosion far more destructive. Wallis calculates that the aircraft will have to fly extremely low (150 feet (46 m)) to enable the bombs to skip over the water correctly.
Bomber Command forms a special squadron of Lancaster bombers, 617 Squadron, to be commanded by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, and tasked to fly the mission. He recruits experienced crews, especially those with low-altitude flight experience.
Richard Todd is Wing Commander Gibson
Thanks to three wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
Stop The Clinical Trial
James Esses’ petition has got to 100,000 signatures which led the Government to respond with….waffle. There will also need to be a debate in the House of Commons. But, basically, let’s bring on the court challenge. Here’s the Government’s response:
It is essential for the Government and the NHS to be guided by expert clinical advice and act with caution and care when it comes to supporting children and young people living with gender incongruence. The independent Cass Review concluded that the rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, and that there is not enough clinical evidence for the safe and effective routine use of puberty suppressing hormones to treat gender incongruence in under-18s. For that reason, this Government supported and extended indefinitely the ban on their use outside of research. Despite these restrictions, some young people are going to great lengths to source these drugs from unregulated providers, in the absence of scientific evidence.
The Cass Review recommended that a programme of research be established to underpin the design and delivery of NHS gender care. It specifically recommended this include a clinical trial into puberty suppression in young people with gender incongruence. This recommendation addresses the lack of evidence about the relative benefits and harms of this treatment option, particularly when provided alongside an updated model of NHS care incorporating holistic assessment and a comprehensive and tailored package of psychosocial support.
The study protocol is available on the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) website: https://fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk/award/NIHR167530
The bar for a UK clinical trial to be approved is extremely high, with the PATHWAYS trial going through rigorous rounds of scientific, clinical, ethical and regulatory review. It was approved by an independent NIHR funding committee. The final protocol was subject to rigorous approval processes through both the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the Health Research Authority – including review by an independent Research Ethics Committee.
The Commission on Human Medicines also considered information on the trial in detail and made recommendations that were considered and adopted by the study team. With the strongest safeguards possible, a trial of this kind is the only way to build a sufficiently high-quality evidence base to inform decisions on the future use of this treatment option for this vulnerable and distressed group of young people.
Protecting and promoting the health and wellbeing of affected young people is the primary concern and there are strict eligibility criteria in place to join the PATHWAYS clinical trial. Parental consent is an integral component, with the parent needing to not only agree to their child’s involvement but also demonstrate sufficient understanding of the nature of the treatment, and what is currently known and unknown about its effects. Informed assent from the child will also be required. This will include the young person explaining in their own words to the clinician what the risks are and what they understand by those risks.
The only children to get to that stage will have already been diagnosed with gender incongruence for at least two years, will have received tailored psychosocial support, and will have been deemed clinically appropriate, within the context of the study, by both their NHS care team and the National Multi-Disciplinary Team. They will also have had to be assessed as being in stable physical and mental health.
Those young people receiving (or not receiving) puberty suppressing hormones will continue to receive other elements of routine support and treatment provided as part of newly established NHS Children and Young People’s Gender Services, whose practices have been shaped by the recommendations of the Cass Review. Participants can leave the trial at any time, at which point they would receive support in their withdrawal from puberty suppression as well as ongoing psychosocial support from NHS services.
Healthcare must always be led by evidence. Puberty suppression has been provided in the past with insufficient evidence, and young people have been left to go without the support and care that they need. This Government is determined to change that, and it is only through evidence-based research that we can determine the most effective way to support these young people. We believe that children and young people with gender incongruence have the same right to participate in ethically-approved research, and to receive evidence-based care, as any other group of individuals seeking the support of the NHS.
Finally, it is important to reiterate that gender incongruence is an internationally recognised disorder. It is defined in the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision as “a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex”. It does not describe girls and boys experimenting with gender norms, which for many children is a normal part of growing up. These important differences are properly understood and reflected in the new model of care being provided by the NHS.
Department of Health and Social Care
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/751839
UK - The Good Laugh Project
Jolyon Maugham. A fox.
We have been following Sarah’s case against the Good Laugh…sorry, Law Project who have defamed her. Here is her latest update. Please donate to Sarah’s crowdfunder if you can.
Tilting at Windmills
When the world is burning, why court a fight with a determined and unreachable ideologue, who has deep pockets filled with other people’s money?
Feb 03, 2026
If you have valued anything I write but don’t want to subscribe, please consider buying me a coffee. Or donate to my crowdfunder!
The saga of my battle against the defamatory words of Jolyon Maugham KC inches on. On August 26 2025 he publicised his complaint about me to the Bar Standards Board in defence of ‘young trans woman’ Kate, who is neither young nor called Kate.
Jolyon Maugham had instructed senior counsel to draft the complaint on behalf of Euan Weddell/Sophie Sparkles who was recast as a vulnerable transwoman, driven to an overdose of anti histamines due to my constant ‘harassment’. I have written at some length about the activities and proclivities of ‘Kate’ and why I politely doubt the claimed narrative of victimhood.
On August 29 2025 Maugham defamed me to his then 400K followers on ‘X’ . On September 4 2025 he followed this up with some angry videos across social media, apparently thinking he was about to cross swords in court with JK Rowling. He has ended up with just me. I started my crowdfunder in September and I very grateful to the 1,072 people who so far have contributed.
I sent my letter before action on 8 December 2025. He replied to ask for further and better particulars and got those. He made substantive reply on 30 January 2026. Of course, apology and deletion were never on the cards.
The Good Law Project have published his response on their website; of course they have. Maugham appears to consider he is indistinguishable from the Good Law Project and the money it raises, and is encouraging yet more donations to fight his personal battles under a general umbrella heading of ‘trans rights’. It raises interesting questions about the extent to which Maugham has sought or received any independent advice.
It’s an interesting letter. He relies on a broad and colloquial interpretation of ‘harassment’ rather then the stricter definition offered by the Protection of Harassment Act 1997 which requires a course of conduct that a reasonable person would see as causing harm and distress. Maugham doesn’t appear to think there is any issue of credibility around his star witness and produces no evidence whatsoever for the causal link to the alleged suicide attempt.
So what am I doing? Am I really going to risk my house for this man? I am very grateful for the £40K raised, but about £25K of that has been spent just to get this far, combined costs of a meaning hearing are likely to be in the region of £150K.
I now have some issues to sort out before issuing, for example, further investigation of an insurance policy to try and mitigate the costs risks, but at the time of writing I want to proceed.
The full piece is here:
Ireland - The Gender Recognition Act
The GRA was sneaked in in Ireland in 2015. A conference is coming up in Ireland to discuss how to send in the Lancaster Bombers to destroy it! As reported by Catherine Monaghan on Inspecting Gender.
Gender Recognition in Ireland: Charting a path back to reality-based legislation.
Let’s reclaim the truth.
Feb 02, 2026
Many people in Ireland are unaware of quite how easy it is to legally change one’s sex for all intents and purposes, and of the implications of allowing a highly contested belief (that one can change sex) to be reified in law. Enacting legislation that allows men to legally identify as women has undermined all of the sex-based rights of all women and essentially made a mockery of our Equal Status Act. How was this allowed to happen? And is there anything we can do about it?
Irish women were largely kept out of the loop when gender recognition legislation was being developed; they were neither consulted nor considered. As time goes on though, and Irish people begin to see the effects of this legislation - men in women’s prisons and refuges, men playing in women’s sport, and the imposition of gender ideology in schools and other institutions - a growing number of citizens are asking questions and looking for a way to challenge it.
This coming March 7th a one-day conference in Dublin will provide an opportunity to listen, learn and engage with this issue. For more information, read on. Follow the links below for details and tickets.
What is The Gender Recognition Act?
Just over ten years ago, the introduction of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) quietly altered the legal landscape around sex and gender in Ireland. The Act, passed by the Oireachtas in 2015, enables anyone aged 18 and over to legally change their sex through a simple administrative process known as self-ID.
This process requires no clinical assessment, diagnosis, or treatment. Applicants simply fill out an online form and submit a statutory declaration. They are then issued a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). Once issued, that certificate legally changes the person’s sex for all purposes from that date forward. For people aged 16–17, the process requires parental consent, written approval from medical professionals, and a court order exempting them from the adult age threshold. Activists and some politicians in Ireland continue to campaign for lowering or even abolition of the age limit and for legal recognition of other “gender identities”.
The Gender Recognition Act is the legal application of gender ideology - the idea that boy, girl, man, woman, both, or neither is determined by how you feel rather than by your actual, physical body, and that it is possible to change one’s sex. Gender ideology has no basis in fact or science. In fact, sex is binary and immutable. One is either male or female, and it is not possible to change.
Dusty - Irish readers, please let me know if you are going to this conference.
The full piece is here:
https://substack.com/home/post/p-186463012
The States - The Fox Varian Judgment
We have been following the wonderful Fox Varian judgment.
Excellent summary and discussion of the case by Mr Menno. You might notice me appearing in the chat😀
Andrew Doyle thinks this may be the turning point:
The lawsuit that could end the gender panic
A detransitioner has been awarded $2 million in damages. Could this be the turning point in the struggle against gender identity ideology?
Feb 02, 2026
It is curious that one of the proven cures for human hysteria is the threat of legal action. During the Salem witch trials of 1692, the supposedly ‘tormented’ girls who had accused villagers of cavorting with the devil ‘cried out’ against a gentleman from the nearby town of Andover. He promptly issued a writ for defamation, and the girls swiftly retracted their claim. It turns out that the forces of God will back down from Satan when faced with the prospect of a lawsuit.
This week, a jury in New York has awarded $2 million in damages to a detransitioner called Fox Varian. Now twenty-two years old, Varian had previously struggled with her gender identity and was subjected to a double mastectomy at the age of sixteen. Both the surgeon and the psychologist were found culpable for not following the standards of care or communicating adequately with each other during the consultation period.
Varian no longer identifies as transgender, but the damage has been done. During the trial, she said she regretted the surgery almost instantly. ‘I immediately had a thought that this was wrong,’ she said, ‘and it couldn’t be true’. After surgery, she recalled the pain in her chest as being akin to ‘searing hot… ripping sensations’ and that she felt ‘shame’ at the fact that she was now ‘disfigured for life’.
It goes without saying that no medical professional should be complicit in the mutilation of a child who is so clearly in need of psychotherapeutic support. According to research by the Manhattan Institute, between 2017 and 2023 around 6,000 girls under the age of eighteen had undergone double mastectomies. Worse still, at least fifty of these children were under twelve-and-a-half years old. Activists have routinely claimed that no minors are being subjected to ‘gender-affirming’ surgery. This is a lie.
What now for the many thousands of detransitioners who have grown up to regret their treatment? Even puberty blockers have been linked with testicular atrophy, increased risk of cancer, osteoporosis and impaired brain development. It is shocking enough that all of this was encouraged by those in a position of authority and trust, but we should never forget that it was in the service of a pseudo-religious belief in a gendered soul.
This was hysteria, plain and simple, and not even the brightest minds were immune from falling under its spell. No reputable study has found that ‘gender-affirming medicine’ is beneficial to patients, and yet the medical establishment kowtowed to activist pressure. It is reminiscent of the judges and ministers of Salem, going along with nonsense out of fear that they too might be accused of witchcraft.
The full piece is here:
Bernard Lane on Gender Clinic News reports on the American Society of Plastic Surgeons suddenly changing their attitude to paediatric ‘gender surgery’. Can’t think why!!
Consensus shatters
America’s surgeons lead the way towards a more cautious position on paediatric gender transition
Feb 04, 2026
Put down the knife
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) has become the first major US medical association to adopt a cautious stance on paediatric gender medicine, citing the weak evidence base and potential long-term harm to young people.
In its new position statement, the ASPS recommends “that surgeons delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old.”
At least 5,200 American teenage girls had breasts surgically removed as part of a gender transition from 2017 to 2023, according to a Manhattan Institute analysis of insurance claims.
Last month, a young woman named Fox Varian was awarded $2 million in damages for the trans double mastectomy performed on her at age 16. Hers was the first claim by an American detransitioner to reach a jury verdict. There are 27 other known lawsuits filed by US detransitioners, according to journalist Benjamin Ryan.
Dusty - note above the list of ongoing cases from Benjamin Ryan. Please let him know if you know of any others. Benjamin was the only journalist who sat all the way through Fox Varian’s trial and we look forward to his report on that.
The full piece is here:
Fox Varian had a double mastectomy at 16! Below Amy Sousa and Karen Davis discuss other cases of young women who have had double mastectomies.
The States - Letitia James
We have reported recently on Terf substacker Glenna Goldis being sacked by the New York Attorney General, Letitia James. Let’s have a closer look at Ms James care of Glenna herself on the substack, Bad Facts:
Letitia James’s Empty Threat Against Responsible Doctors
Why New Yorkers should ignore their Attorney General when she cries “discrimination”
Feb 02, 2026
Imagine you’re a surgeon. Many of your patients are women who need a mastectomy to excise breast cancer. You’ve also removed tissue from teen boys with gynecomastia. One day a 14-year old girl and her parents darken your door. They want you to remove the girl’s breasts because, they say, she is a “transgender boy.”
As a surgeon, you know that the procedure would destroy function by killing erotic sensation that most women’s breasts possess and the ability to breastfeed in the future. (Apologies for the remedial mammary lesson – many of my subscribers are gay men.) This makes the operation different from removing boys’ excess chest tissue. The operation would also carry all the typical risks of mastectomy, like nerve damage and a long recovery period. Finally, you know this treatment for supposed “gender dysphoria” is not evidence-based. So you tell the family you won’t remove her breasts.
Then your state’s Attorney General charges you with violating the girl’s civil rights.
New York’s AG Letitia James wants surgeons to fear this scenario. But her threats are empty. In this post I’ll explain why. It’s not intended as legal advice but rather as a public service announcement. Any doctor who’s worried should consult a lawyer with this link in hand.
DISCLOSURE: I used to work for James. She fired me on Jan. 22 because my public critique of trans legal arguments “undermines [James’s] mission, work and efforts (including litigation positions), and credibility.”
Go, Glenna!!
The full piece is here:
The States - Boys in Girls’ Sports
There are a few sensible Democrats especially Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender (DIAG Democrats):
Advocacy, Not Journalism
Editorial standards go AWOL when the topic is trans
DIAGdemocrats and Martha Wexler
Feb 03, 2026
Readers may recall a shiver of excitement last summer in the gender critical camp. Mainstream media outlets were starting to report the grim truth about the puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones, and surgeries prescribed to an exploding population of young people. Finally, liberals could read from their trusted sources that there is no reliable evidence for the mental health benefits of harmful sex-rejection interventions. Some prominent advocates for biological reality proclaimed that the tide of news coverage had turned. A review of recent press stories and broadcasts (see our two-part Substack series, “The Shifting Tide”) indicated that the celebration was premature.
Premature indeed. Before the year was over, the Washington Post published a tendentious profile of “transgender athlete” Verónica Garcia, two-time Washington State champion in the girls 2A 400-meter dash. The front-page article by reporter Casey Parks is pure propaganda, crafted to tug at the reader’s heartstrings. Or, as gender clinic whistleblower Jamie Reed put it in The Informed Dissent podcast, it is a fairy tale in the manner of Cinderella. The hero Verónica, abandoned by his father at an early age, lives in a cramped studio apartment where he sleeps on the floor (his mother and sister share the only bed). The Spokane Valley teenager often goes hungry and wears donated running shoes, two sizes too small. Still, he perseveres and triumphs as a sprinter on the track after transforming into a new “gender identity.” Sadly, the tale does not have a happily-ever-after ending.
Reed and her podcast co-hosts raised excellent questions about the story, which reporter Casey Parks tells solely through her subject’s eyes. Parks writes that a doctor suggested to Verónica he might be “transgender” when the teen asked whether he had a “chromosomal disorder” because his “hips widened like a girl’s.” What kind of doctor would plant such an idea? What clinic or hospital prescribed hormone interventions, disrupting the healthy endocrine system of a depressed, undernourished young man from an unstable home? Did that clinic not have a social worker to help Veronica’s mother apply for food stamps? Did Verónica not qualify for free meals at school? We’re told that in the week before the track finals, he ate only a few boxes of Spanish rice. The podcasters question why an editor did not press Parks to verify what Verónica told her and report out the story more fully.
The full piece is here:
The UK - David Toshack
We just reported briefly on David Toshack’s case:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/update-800?utm_source=publication-search
Here are more details from the Feminist Legal Clinic via the Daily Express:
Prison officer sacked for ‘refusing to use trans prisoners’ pronouns’ | Daily Express (04 February)
All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
A trainee prison officer was reportedly sacked for “refusing to use incorrect pronouns” when referring to transgender prisoners. David Toshack, a 51-year-old former soldier, claimed he was dismissed with immediate effect and has taken GEOAmey to an employment tribunal.
Christopher Hutton, an instructor at GEOAmey, a British company specialising in prisoner transport for the Ministry of Justice, said at the tribunal in Edinburgh on Monday (February 2) that Mr Toshack was asked to leave a training session on January 7 last year. The 51-year-old allegedly said he would only use sex-based pronouns. He has denied being “hostile” to colleagues over the disagreement.
Speaking about an incident where officers were moving a transgender prisoner who was known to self-harm, Mr Hutton added: “The prison officer had written down ‘he’. The (person in) custody has seen it…and assaulted the officer.”
He continued: “I understand that Mr Toshack has his personal beliefs, but he has to follow the company policy.”
Source: Prison officer sacked for ‘refusing to use trans prisoners’ pronouns’
Best of luck, David!
Assault On Women
Georgia O’Keefe reports on Woman: Adult Human Female on a ludicrous and perverse article by a victim of a gang rape, Anna Krauthamer in The Nation and draws analogies with ‘transgenderism.’ . I am very sorry at what happened to Anna but is she happy to let these animals who did this to her get away with it and quite possibly go on and do the same to other women!!?? All thoughts gratefully received.
The Progressive Assault on Women’s Last Line of Protection: Holding Rapists Accountable
The radical left’s push for prison abolition sets its eye on persuading women to let their rapists go free
Jan 27, 2026
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article and all op-eds published by WAHF are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of WAHF.
Last weekend, a horrific and ludicrous article in The Nation went viral on X. The article, “Why I Didn’t Report My Rape,” was written by Columbia University doctoral candidate Anna Krauthamer. In the article, Krauthamer sought to justify her decision to refrain from filing a police report after being gang raped by six men throughout the night.
In her own words:
“The simple answer to the question of why I never reported the rape is that I believe in the abolition of police and prisons. The less simple, less articulate answer is that to pursue prosecuting and potentially incarcerating other people is inconceivable to me, even when they have hurt me more than I could have ever believed possible. Because of this, I can only vocalize what I want in negative and inherently impossible terms: that all I want is for it to never have happened. The prospect of being a participant in other peoples’ incarceration is as alien to me as anything could be, to the point that I can only conceive of it in childish terms—how silly and strange it would be to have a group of people incarcerated at my expense when doing so would do nothing to fix the damage they have already so thoroughly done.”
The emergence of transgender ideology has brought about the erosion of women’s rights and safety in every way. On this Substack, we have reported on this relentlessly. Wild radical political theories have become the basis for dismantling legal, social, and moral safeguards that protect women. The removal of barriers was then normalized and the seriousness of harms to women minimized by credentialed individuals presented by institutions as intellectuals. These credentialed people are supposed to be smarter than us, deeper than us, and know better, when what they’re really good at is stringing together many words in ways that confuse and make others doubt even the most basic, universal truths.
The full piece is here:
Terf Island Discs
Thanks to all readers ( and me 😀) who have made suggestions and we still have lots of songs to go that will take us well into 2026. It’s been great (I think anyway 😊).
We will then be reverting to Endpieces.
Endpieces, as regular readers will know, consisted of comic pieces, animal videos, songs etc to provide a bit of relief after some of the horror stories we detail on this substack. Endpieces was run by Tenaciously Terfin, Liz Parker and myself and we are delighted to now have been joined by Becca Shambles, Petal and Jeremy Wickins. Please let us know if you want to join the Endpieces Club 😊
I have an Endpieces folder so Endpieces suggestions can be sent to me at any time from now even though Terf Island Discs will be continuing for the moment as explained above 😊
Onwards with Terf Island Discs.
Given our film choice, I think it is has to be this, followed by the D-Day Darlings 😀
#BeMorePorcupine
#KeepTerfing
#StandWithSandiePeggie
#PubertyIsAHumanRight
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#LGB✂️TQ
#KeepBoppingTerfs
#HoldTheLine
#NoBlockersTrial
#NeverSurrender
#NeverForget
#TruthWillTriumph
#WeWillWin
It might take more than a little Dutch boy's finger to plug the growing leak in this dam. 😊
Following the Fox Varian case, the Association of American Plastic Surgeons just changed their guidelines to recommend that any Gender related surgeries be deferred until the patient is 19 years old.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/04/health/plastic-surgeons-gender-affirming-surgery#:~:text=The%20nation's%20largest%20professional%20organization,other%20major%20medical%20organizations'%20guidance.
Any plastic surgeon operating on a person under 19 will now be doing so in direct contradiction to their professional guidance. Watch the Insurance market jump all over this now.
I need to buy a thesaurus. I don’t have enough words to describe my disgust at the moronic imbecile Krauthamer. What kind of indoctrination creates such mind numbing stupidity, irresponsibility and selfish disregard for the safety of others.
🤞good luck Ireland. And great news re the plastic surgeons in the US.