The Hurt Locker

Update 681. Minneapolis Follow Up. #BeMorePorcupine

We are continuing with Dusty’s film series and the latest version of the list is here:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/empire-of-light-dustys-film-series

Please let us have your suggestions for films but please check the list first to see if it is there already. I am updating the list as we go along. We are going through them alphabetically and have got to H.

Next up is The Hurt Locker (2008).

During the second year of the Iraq War, a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team with Bravo Company identifies and attempts to destroy an improvised explosive device with a robot, but the wagon carrying the trigger charge breaks. Team leader Staff Sergeant Matthew Thompson places the charge by hand, but is killed when an Iraqi insurgent uses a cell phone to detonate the charge. Squadmate Specialist Owen Eldridge feels guilty for failing to kill the man with the phone.

Sergeant First Class William James replaces Staff Sergeant Thompson. He is often at odds with Sergeant J.T. Sanborn because he prefers to defuse devices by hand and does not communicate his plans.

Brilliant reconstruction of what it must have been like on the ground.

In the clip below James and Sanborn save Eldridge who is being kidnapped.

Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.

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

The States - The Minneapolis Killings

I am just going to flag up two points here about this awful event and the fact that the killer was a larping man.

Firstly, this just adds to the long list of larping men who have committed crimes of violence and sexual offences which I am now keeping a record of here:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/this-never-happens

This is contrary of course to the ridiculous trans rights narrative that these men are harmless!

Secondly, this adds to the belief that, especially with adults, declaring yourself to be ‘trans’ is a sign of mental health problems.

All thoughts gratefully received.

I recommend pieces by Andrew Doyle:

https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/the-unfathomability-of-evil

And by SEEN In Journalism:

https://seeninjournalism.substack.com/p/the-lessons-of-minneapolis?publication_id=2442132&post_id=172236637&isFreemail=true&r=20xc5g&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

UK - The British Broadcasting Corporation

SEEN In Journalism have sent an excellent letter to the BBC:

Our open letter to the BBC

Call for a return to accuracy supported by charities and organisations across the UK

Aug 29, 2025

Call for the BBC to adopt Accurate Biological Sex Descriptors and Pronouns

Dear Dr Shah and Mr Davie

We call on the BBC to embrace accuracy in its coverage of ‘transgender’ issues and adopt an editorial policy of accurately describing sex.

The BBC has a unique responsibility to deliver accurate, impartial, and transparent reporting to its diverse audience. The current default, of using preferred pronouns and the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ according to a person’s ‘gender identity’ is at best highly misleading and at worst a betrayal of the BBC’s public service remit.

The adoption of self-identification of sex has eroded trust and harmed vulnerable groups. Reversing it is essential to upholding journalistic integrity and foster informed public discourse.

Scientific Truth

Biological sex is an objective reality defined by gamete size, determined by chromosomes and resulting in two distinct body types with specific physical traits relevant to reproductive anatomy. Sex cannot be changed. This is indisputably true: hormones and surgery can lead only to a superficial resemblance to the opposite sex.

Gender identity, while deeply personal, is subjective and distinct from sex. The words man, woman, boy, girl - and their equivalent in other languages - evolved to describe people with these two distinct body types. They did not evolve to describe people with ‘gender identities’ and it is misleading to use them in that way.

There is no evidence to support the claim that a person can be the opposite sex or no sex at all. This is an ideological position that the BBC should report on, but not adopt.

The full piece is here:

https://seeninjournalism.substack.com/p/our-open-letter-to-the-bbc

The States - School Bathrooms

It seems to me that the States are pulling ahead of Terf Island due to the fact that the Federal Government are on board with the Terf agenda and can exercise the power of withdrawal of federal funding. They are also re-asserting the correct meaning of Title IX. All thoughts gratefully received.

Feminist Legal Clinic reports:

US Education Department says Denver school district’s all-gender bathrooms violated Title IX | The Independent (30 August)

The U.S. Education Department said Thursday that Denver Public Schools violated Title IX protections against sex-based discrimination in education by creating all-gender bathrooms and allowing students to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

The investigation began after the school district converted a girl’s restroom into an all-gender restroom while leaving another bathroom on the same floor exclusive to boys in January. The school district has said that was done as a result of a student-led process and the bathroom had 12-foot (3.6-meter) tall partitions for privacy and security.

The Education Department said it has offered the school district a chance to agree to voluntarily make changes, including converting multi-stall, all-gender bathrooms back to ones designated by gender, within 10 days or risk unspecified enforcement action. Among other changes, it also wants the district to use biology-based definitions for the words “male” and “female” in all policies and practices related to Title IX and to rescind any policies or guidance allowing students to use bathrooms based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex.

“Denver is free to endorse a self-defeating gender ideology, but it is not free to accept federal taxpayer funds and harm its students in violation of Title IX,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of the department’s Office for Civil Rights, said in a news release.

Source: US Education Department says Denver school district’s all-gender bathrooms violated Title IX

https://feministlegal.org/us-education-department-says-denver-school-districts-all-gender-bathrooms-violated-title-ix-the-independent/

New Zealand - Yvonne van Dongen

We reported here on Yvonne having a complaint made against her by a larping male to NetSafe ( the NZ Online Safety Commissioner):

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/high-plains-drifter?utm_source=publication-search

Yvonne has now given an interview to Maree Buscke on Reality Check Radio:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/high-plains-drifter?utm_source=publication-search

This is also reported by our friend, Katrina Biggs on her substack, A B’Old Woman here:

https://aboldwoman.substack.com/p/straight-talking-interview-featuring?publication_id=1177996&post_id=172287363&isFreemail=true&r=20xc5g&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Canada - U Turn On The Evidence

Bernard Lane on his substack, Gender Clinic News reports on McMaster University in Canada commissioning reports from Professor Gordon Guyatt on ‘gender affirming care’, these reports funded by the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine. Prof Guyatt produced reports basically backing up the Cass Review only to do a U turn after pressure from trans rights activists.

https://www.genderclinicnews.com/p/activist-biased-medicine?publication_id=627677&r=1v403b

Australia - Psychiatry

Feminist Legal Clinic reports:

Journal slammed over trans paper ban | The Australian (30 August)

Open warfare has broken out in the normally sedate world of Australian psychiatry after a leading medical journal refused to publish a paper by three prominent psychiatrists who want the profession’s governing body to ­“acknowledge its culpability” in gender affirming medical treatment for children and apologise.

The paper called on the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists to support a statutory compensation scheme for “the growing numbers of people harmed by gender affirming interventions for minors”.

The three psychiatrists, Jillian Spencer, Roberto D’Angelo and Patrick Clarke, submitted the paper to the RANZCP’s journal Australasian Psychiatry but were told: “We regret that we cannot publish your paper on this ­occasion.”

Journal editor Jeffrey Looi said that “after careful deliberation, and under the eternal pressure of space restraints, the Editorial Committee has concluded that your paper is not suitable for publication”.

In 2023, the RANZCP acknowledged shifting international evidence on transgender healthcare and puberty blockers, and declined to endorse gender­ affirming care as the key intervention for children who believe they may be transgender. But Dr Spencer, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, says the College must go further and accept responsibility for failing to challenge the model over the past two decades.

She points to the growing number of “detransitioners” who underwent gender transition as adolescents but now seek to psychologically recover from what they perceive as medical harm.

Dusty - Great work from these three psychiatrists. Good to see push back in Australia.

Source: Journal slammed over trans paper ban

https://feministlegal.org/journal-slammed-over-trans-paper-ban-the-australian/

Let Women Speak

The next two events are today in Worthing and on Sunday at Reformers’ Tree. I will be at Reformers’ Tree in (weather permitting) my Thought Criminal T shirt and my trilby and replete with my new Terf Island flag, so let me know if you will be there.

https://www.letwomenspeak.org/events

Terf Island Discs

Thanks to an excellent suggestion from Tenaciously Terfin, we have paused Endpieces for the time being and we are giving Tenaciously and Liz a well earned rest from their hard work. So , since 07 July, we have been running Terf Island Discs.

Several readers have chosen up to 4 songs or pieces of music each and we are going through those one at a time in each update. This is going so well that I am going to continue it a bit further and you can now choose up to 6 songs or pieces of music each. They need to be reasonably short. We can’t expect to have readers listening to the whole of Tchaikovsky's piano concerto in B flat minor, albeit it is magnificent.

They don’t have to be from Terf Island BTW - anywhere in the world 😊

Please send links as well if you can.

So for those who have already chosen 4, please choose 2 more and, if you have not yet taken part, please choose 6!! If you repeat a song or piece of music that has already been chosen, I’ll let you know and you can choose another one. Please let me know your choices in the comments at this link:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/beware-of-the-flowers-terf-island

Next up!

Chosen by: Petal.

‘Sex On Fire’ by Kings of Leon

#BeMorePorcupine

#DontFollowTheHerd

#AdultHumanFemale

#LetWomenSpeak

#LGB✂️TQ

#KeepSpeaking

#LeaveKidsAlone

#JustSayMen

#NeverSurrender

#NeverForget

#TruthWillTriumph

#WeWillWin

The next update will probably either be on Sunday or Monday, Terven, and will include a report back from Reformers’ Tree.

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.