I am now turning this update into three parts, dear readers, to make it more digestible.
Still sticking with The Lady in the Van. Claire Foy is Lois, the (it has to be said) truly awful social worker:
We’d be much happier if she moved on.
Thanks as ever to two wonderful readers for suggesting certain of the pieces below.
The Cass Review
Oh boy, I am enjoying the reverse ferreting! I am sure we are all delighted that Gillian Keegan has confirmed that women do not have, nor have ever had, a penis. I was worrying that some prehistoric women may have had penises 🤣
Daniel Martin in The Telegraph ( Gillian Keegan: I’ll stop saying trans women are women 24 April) reports:
Gillian Keegan - Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph© Provided by The Telegraph
A ferret ( thinking about reversing).
Gillian Keegan has said she will no longer use the phrase “trans women are women”, explaining that her understanding of the issue has “evolved”.
In 2020, in response to a question from an LGBT+ forum in her Chichester constituency, the Education Secretary made the statement that “trans women are women”, adding that trans people should have equal access to “safe spaces”.
But she told The Telegraph she had since “learnt a huge amount more about this complex and challenging subject”.
It comes after Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said he had been wrong to use the phrase “trans women are women, get over it”.
His U-turn came in the wake of the Cass review, which found that much gender medicine was built on shaky foundations and warned against the use of puberty blockers for children and young people.
Ms Keegan’s remarks followed Whitehall concern that she has not been strong enough, as Education Secretary, in standing up to the influence of trans rights activists in schools.
Four years ago, in her response to the Chichester LGBT+ forum, she said: “I recognise that more must be done to help transgender people with the unique and difficult challenges that they face.
“Trans women are women and trans people deserve equal and fair access to health care, safe spaces and opportunities, as well as to live their life with dignity.”
But she told The Telegraph: “Since becoming an MP and later a minister I have learnt a huge amount more about this complex and challenging subject.
“At the time of writing that response, I didn’t have any direct experience of this topic and took advice on how best to respond, given the complexities surrounding individual cases. Having now spoken to experts [ Dusty - could have talked to me, I’m an expert on whether women have penises or not] and professionals, like many, my understanding has evolved.
“I have since been crystal clear about my concerns that women are being erased in this debate, and have always been clear that women do not have, nor have ever had, a penis.”
Her comments were welcomed by Sex Matters, a women’s rights group. Maya Forstater, its chief executive, said: “This change in position by Gillian Keegan is a welcome development and sets an example for other politicians to start using clear, serious language rather than trans activist slogans.
“For several years, trans activist lobby groups pushed the use of phrases such as ‘trans women are women’ as a tactic to silence debate and fair questions about how gender self-identification clashes with women’s rights.
“Many didn’t recognise the dangers of these slogans early on, including politicians who doubtless thought they were simply supporting a good cause. It takes guts to publicly change your mind. Women’s rights and the safeguarding of children are serious issues that need to be addressed with clear and accurate language.”
The full article is here:
Reem Alsalem - talk about a voice crying in the wilderness!! Thanks to Feminist Legal Clinic as ever.
UK: Implementation of ‘Cass report’ key to protecting girls from serious harm, says UN expert (25 April)
GENEVA (24 April 2024) – The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, today welcomed the recent commitment by the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to implement recommendations contained in the Independent Review of gender identity services for children and young people (Cass Review), and announcements by NHS Scotland and the Welsh Government that they would suspend the prescription of puberty blockers to children in the wake of the report’s findings.
First chink of light in Australia!! Thanks again to FLC.
Lib ban on trans drugs just the start (25 April)
A pledge by Western Australia’s Liberal leader to ban the use of puberty blockers in children could be the start of a nationwide political battle on the issue, with party leaders in other states confirming they were scrutinising practices in the wake of a landmark United Kingdom review.
Libby Mettam on Monday declared that the Liberal Party, if elected, would ban the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments and surgical intervention for children under 16 for the purpose of gender transition.
She said her decision was based on the recent findings of the UK Cass Review – handed down this month – which recommended the National Health Service exercise “extreme caution” in prescribing masculinising or feminising hormones to under-18s.
Around 100 children a year are treated by WA’s Gender Diversity Service, according to data tabled in state parliament, and the youngest child to receive treatment last year was 10.
A spokesman for Queensland’s Liberal National Party said the party was very cognisant of the concerns around the “questionable practices” around gender services in the state.
The Queensland government earlier this year launched a review into the state’s Children’s Gender Service, which treats around 1000 patients a year, after several pediatricians called for a moratorium on gender treatments on children.
School Toilets
And thanks again to FLC but this time bad news.
Brisbane State High School: Girls are left too scared to go to the toilet after female-only bathrooms are converted into a unisex block – with boys ‘loitering outside and urinating in sanitary bins’ ( 22 April)
Prestigious co-ed Brisbane State High School recently converted its P Block of female-only toilets to accommodate for either sex.
Since then, male students have been accused of intimidating female classmates outside the unisex block and urinating over toilet seats and sanitary bins, the Courier Mail reported.
The decision to change the bathroom’s gender restrictions is required by the state’s Department of Education and Queensland Human Rights Commission.
Times Round Up
Thanks as ever to my mate, Fingers for cuttings from the Times. Just using two here.
Alex Farber (News website ‘blacklisted’ over columnists on gender 18 April) reports:
The editor in chief of a news website has raised concerns about Foreign Office investment in a ratings agency has blacklisted it for featuring gender-critical columnists.
Freddie Sayers said Unherd, which “challenges conventional thinking”, had been wrongly penalised by the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).
The independent body, which received £2.6 million from the government over three years from 2019, relegated Unherd to its “exclusion list“ of publications that promote disinformation and should be boycotted by brands.
The decision has cost Unherd thousands in lost advertising income after it received as little as 2% of the revenue it would otherwise have expected.
James Beal (Support for Stonewall crumbles after review 20 April) reports:
In a sign that the charity’s influence is waning, The Times understands that NHS England has distanced itself from the organisation, cancelling conference tickets and a planned membership of the charity’s Diversity Champions Scheme.
Other quangos which The Times revealed last month had kept their membership, despite a government diktat to withdraw from the scheme, are now reviewing their associations.
Sport England has been part of the Diversity Champions Scheme, which brought in £3.9 million for Stonewall last year. But a spokesman told The Times: “We have reviewed the partnership and Sport England will not be renewing membership.
“As a public body which scrutinises how we spend every penny of public funds, this decision has been taken with value for money as our primary concern.”
Historic England had also paid £3000 a year for the scheme. It said it was also reviewing whether to renew its membership “based on a value-for-money test“ with the Stonewall partnership due to end this month.
Arts Council England, which had a three-month membership which ended in October, is also no longer part of the scheme.
Other government departments have also withdrawn from the scheme over the years, and Kemi Badenoch, the women and equalities minister, said last year: “We have engaged with numerous LGBT groups, but the fact of the matter is that many of them support self-ID.
“ That is not this government’s policy. Stonewall does not decide the law in this country.”
A government source added: “Stonewall has gone from being a leading civil rights organisation, to the leading pusher of the dangerous trans ideology that led to the outrageous events documented in the Cass Review.”
They said the government had “made it clear that Stonewall’s divisive schemes aren’t welcome in Whitehall” but that some arms-length bodies and civil society groups still handed over funds.
“This needs to stop,” they said.
Stonewall was contacted for comment.
Al Capone would have been proud of this total scam. Look at the amounts of money involved! We need to get Stonewall gone! All thoughts, as ever, gratefully received.
New Zealand
Excellent piece here from Katrina Biggs on the substack A B’Old Woman.
The 'Let Kids be Kids' roadshow of the South Island NZ gets pushback from the usual suspects.
APR 24, 2024
I chose not to be a parent, for no other reason than I simply didn’t seem ‘wired’ for children. However, I’m not completely disinterested in parents and children, and like some parents, I also have concerns about what children are being taught in New Zealand schools regarding gender-identity ideology, and age-inappropriate sex education.
Those concerns saw me going along to the Let Kids be Kids presentation in Christchurch on their South Island roadshow. The event outlined what kids are being subjected to in the Ministry of Education’s Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) guidelines, and the transgender ideology targeted at kids by neo-rainbow organisations (i.e. those organisations primarily driven by transgender and queer ideology). Although I retained my own opinion about some things presented, I agreed that others were disturbing, and I could understand parents’ concerns.
Naturally, the Let Kids be Kids roadshow got pushback. There’s always pushback when we want to talk about the impacts of gender ideology on us or our kids. The reactive hyperbolic lambasting from trans activists hits overdrive, which – to be honest – it’s seldom out of, even on an average day. Sunita Torrance, the female drag queen character (yes, there is such a thing) of the Erika and CoCo Flash duo, who read to kids in libraries in full drag queen garb, got busy on the phone ringing around the venues trying to get them to cancel the Let Kids be Kids bookings. I suspect there may have been a bit of revenge motivation behind her actions, due to the duo having a couple of library gigs cancelled because of the threat of (apparently unfounded) public protests by those who think drag queens aren’t suitable entertainment for kids. Imagine that.
Sunita also got into community Facebook groups in the South Island to give them the usual telling off – hate, bigotry, lies, etc - for promoting or hosting the presentation. She got a bit more innovative in one group, though, and invoked Jesus in her castigation of them -
So far, two venues have had the willies put up them, and cancelled their Let Kids be Kids bookings, however, other venues were easily obtained. Neither of these cancellations were in Nelson at the top of the South Island, though, much to the disappointment of the Deputy Mayor -
Stuff reporter Amy Ridout gallantly took up the challenge to life, liberty, and freedom in Nelson from Let Kids be Kids, and sent Penny Marie an email for information about their event –
After initially replying with a standard Let Kids be Kids response, Penny Marie followed up to ask where the complaints came from -
It seems that someone went digging into Penny Marie’s personal social media accounts and tied comments made in that capacity to the Let Kids be Kids event. Whatever we think of the issues named in Amy’s emails, or how anyone’s opinions are expressed about them, I have a tiny suspicion that Amy may have been trying to discredit the event through the time-honoured rag tactics of personal character assassination.
If I was to say I’m surprised that the Deputy Mayor of Nelson made the claims he’s alleged to have, in the above email from Amy, I’d be lying. And if I also said I was surprised that the claims of one “member of the community” could get a Stuff reporter chasing a story, I’d be lying again. The claim has all the trigger words in it guaranteed to get a woke 23 or 24-year old deputy mayor and Stuff reporter frothing at the mouth. It was a surefire thing - no gun could have been more easily loaded.
The “member of the community” squawks out the standard ‘what about what went on in the Church’ trope, without one gram of comparative common sense. Policies which allow drag queens to entertain kids in full drag queen regalia, and policies which allow men who say they’re women into all women’s and girls’ spaces have been with us for barely five minutes, and collecting data on that is still in its infancy. No official agencies in New Zealand have been set up to collect and monitor the consequences from these policies, of course, as that’s bound to be considered ‘transphobic’, ‘hateful’, and ‘bigoted’.
We are relying on informal data collecting here, which is liable to be considered inadmissible in any official context, as well as what gets recorded by overseas endeavours, such as the online magazine Reduxx. Funnily enough, though, informal data collecting both here and overseas, in the form of self-reporting and unscrutinised surveys from the LGBTQIA+ community, are embraced and held up as incontrovertible ‘evidence’ of how that community (primarily the TQIA+) need everything they ask for, otherwise life is unbearable for them.
What is actually incontrovertible, is that there’s content in the Relationships and Sexuality Education guidelines which some parents are concerned about, but parents are finding that they are increasingly being removed from having a say about what is going on with their kids in school. Our new-ish government has agreed to review and replace these guidelines, amidst howls of protest. In recent media interviews, the Mental Health Foundation’s CEO, Shaun Robertson, was a whisker away from outright insulting parents when he appeared to imply they were ignorant for having objections to some of the content in the guidelines. My argument back is that if those who champion the RSE guidelines are so confident the guidelines are beyond legitimate reproach, then they won’t mind them being reviewed.
Before going on leave, Amy from Stuff didn’t get any further response from Penny Marie, but her editor followed up –
Warren’s clarification of what exactly the Deputy Mayor of Nelson said is appreciated. At the time of this blog-piece ‘going to press’, Penny Marie is contemplating letting Stuff have their story, in full knowledge that it’s likely to be unflattering, to put it politely. Keep your eye out for it in the Nelson Mail.
As well as the group Let Kids be Kids, Resist Gender Education is dedicated to exposing and resisting the disruptive teaching of gender identity ideology and age-inappropriate sex education in schools; and Mana Wāhine Kōrero are fighting to protect children, and women, from the harms of gender ideology on a wider front. They also emphatically refute that pre-colonial Māori culture embraced ‘transpeople’ in the manner popularly disseminated now, whilst acknowledging that same-sex relationships existed as they have in every culture all throughout history.
‘Trans Teacher’
Oliver Price in The Mail Online ( Parents' fury after trans supply teacher explained their gender identity to seven-year-old pupils and told them 'I'm so gorgeous because I've put makeup on and had a shave' 24 April) reports:
Parents at a Church of England primary school have complained after claiming that a trans supply teacher told seven-year-old pupils 'I'm so gorgeous because I've put makeup on and had a shave.'
Year 2 pupils were said to have been left 'confused' when the teacher - who was wearing women's clothing - explained their gender identity to them at the start of an English lesson.
Bitterne Church of England Primary School in Southampton, Hampshire, said it had not been aware that the issue would be discussed in class.
According to one seven-year-old pupil's parent, the teacher said: 'If you're wondering why I'm so gorgeous, it's because I've put makeup on and had a shave.'
Rachel Bennet, whose daughter was in the class, has complained to the school.
Bitterne Primary School
She said: 'I think it's a bit much for Year 2 children and can be very confusing for them.
'It seems to have caught everyone off guard, particularly when my daughter was in an English lesson and the teacher is talking about their gender and wearing women's clothing.
'You could understand more if it was a PSHE (personal, social, health, education) lesson but then the parents should have been notified beforehand.'
She added: 'We have strong religious values, and you have to question whether it's something the children need to be exposed to at this age.'
In response, headteacher Jen Johnson sent a letter to parents and carers.
It said: 'I want to make it very clear that whilst we were not aware that the supply teacher would be sharing this information related to their gender identity ahead of teaching the lessons, we are a tolerant and respectful school.
'Moving forward, and having spoken to the supply agency, we have reaffirmed the school's expectations for what we expect supply teachers to deliver.'
Dusty - and what precisely is that?
In a statement, a spokesperson for Southampton City Council said: 'Our schools, including Bitterne C of E Primary School, use supply teacher agencies who apply rigorous checks to deliver high quality teaching staff and safeguard students.
'The supply teacher in question is well regarded and the quality of the teaching was of a high standard.
'In classroom, the supply teacher introduced themselves and then responded to a small number of questions about their gender quickly and without detail, before moving on swiftly to deliver the lesson in a professional manner.'
Dusty - oh really, were you there?
They added: 'Bitterne C of E Primary School, like many schools in Southampton, has a policy of inclusion and the school has written to parents and the letter has been positively received, with many parents offering supportive feedback.'
Dusty - hmmm, really! What about the gaslighting of the children? It is, in my opinion, not appropriate for a male teacher to turn up dressed as a woman. What he wants to dress up at home is up to him but when attending school he should be dressed appropriately and not gaslight and confuse the children. All thoughts gratefully received.
Endpiece
Andrew Doyle has just put up on his substack a debate he had with Peter Boghossian in 2021. Since the critical social justice authoritarians who want to prevent free speech will not debate the matter, he took on that role with Peter B speaking for free speech.
https://andrewdoyle.substack.com/p/the-case-against-free-speech
It's always good to see encouraging developments, particularly from government representatives revising their previous willingness to parrot the gender ideology mantra, but they shouldn't have been repeating it in the first place, of course. And good to see government departments and public bodies making the decision to withdraw from the Stonewall extortion scheme. Again, they should never have been part of it, or they should have at least researched what they were putting public money into.
Following the full Cass review, there are grounds for hope, but it's obvious that grounds for the opposite and worse are going to pop up all the time. Trans ideology authoritarianism has burrowed its way into the deepest corners of bloody everything, and those responsible for this, and the people who deliver its message and make its demands have become very bold and bullying.
And, obviously, they still have their enablers scurrying to defend them and their decision to give them opportunities to spread their bullshit. Like the supply teacher who had the confidence to behave inappropriately in front room of a classroom of 7 year old kids. What an arsehole, but not as big an arsehole as the headteacher who claimed that the school was tolerant and respectful. What does it matter if this wasn't extended to the pupils and their parents? Untangelling the numerous strands of the gender catestrophe, and neutralising the poison it has deposited everywhere is going to take a long time.
Those toilets in Brisbane don’t even have floor to ceiling doors! And I’m sick of hearing that people are being inclusive… at the expense of women’s dignity and safety, they should add.
Well done Libby Mettam, Rees Alsalem and the Let Kids be Kids crowd in NZ. Operation fightback does seem to be gaining momentum. It’s not helped by authoritarians gagging independent thinkers such as those at Unherd.