The Spitfire Squadron

Update 485 (amended). Skrmetti Special. #BeMorePorcupine

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We had to eventually get to the Battle of Britain in the British Heroes season.

Our Terf Battle in Britain now( waged peacefully, of course) is not against an enemy without but against an enemy within, namely the Labour Government: curtailment of free speech and ramping up hate crime; failing to deal with the indoctrination in schools and the capture of the police, the National Health Service and many government departments', the proposed conversion practices bill, proposals re gender self ID and so on.

OK, ok you want the theme tune!

Thanks as ever to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.

Some of the linked pieces below may be behind paywalls.

Irish General Election

I can’t believe I’m quoting the BBC! Wonders will never cease but this does seem a fairly accurate report.

Fianna Fáil emerges as largest party in Irish election

Image source,PA Media

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin previously served as taoiseach from 2020 to 2022

Enda McClafferty

• 2 December 2024

Fianna Fáil has won the most seats in the Dáil (lower house of parliament) following the Republic of Ireland's general election.

It won 48 seats while Sinn Féin - the main opposition party in the last Dáil - won 39.

Fine Gael, which has been in coalition with Fianna Fáil since 2020, was third with 38 seats.

Those two parties seem best placed to form a new government, but Sinn Féin insists it will still be involved in the coalition talks.

Candidates fought it out for 174 seats in the Dáil, with 88 needed to secure a majority.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael combined have 86.

First preference percentage share for the largest three parties was: Fianna Fáil 21.9%, Fine Gael 20.8%, Sinn Féin 19.0%.

Turnout for the election was 59.7%, the lowest in more than a century.

Fianna Fáil's deputy leader Jack Chambers told RTE's Morning Ireland on Monday that he did not expect a new government to be formed before Christmas.

But he said he did not expect talks to take five months like the last time.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's junior coalition partner, the Green Party, had a disappointing election, dropping from 12 seats to just one.

Who could form the next government?

To return to government, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have a number of options, including doing a deal with Labour or the Social Democrats - who each won 11 seats - or trying to strike an agreement with the right-wing party Independent Ireland, which has four seats.

Another option would be to work with a combination of some of the 16 independent politicians, two Aontú TDs (MPs) or the single TD from the 100% Redress Party.

The frontrunner to be the next taoiseach (Irish prime minister) is Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin.

Nothing at this stage can be ruled out as weeks, if not months, of political talks are now likely.

Labour TD Marie Sherlock said her party would not go into government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael alone without other smaller parties.

"There is no circumstance that I can envisage that the Labour Party will be going into government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We can only form a basis for negotiation if we're with other small parties," Sherlock told RTÉ.

Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Mid West, said his party was keen to talk to other "progressive parties".

He emphasised that "no deal has been done yet".

"Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael clearly would prefer to go in with each other, despite the cost that it'll have for the general population but they haven't formed a government yet," he said.

"It's incumbent on us to meet with other likeminded parties to see how we can ensure that those really urgent pressing issues for people, housing, healthcare, cost of living, remain at the centre of the agenda."

Chambers, who was re-elected in the Dublin West constituency, said his party was "very clear" on its position with Sinn Féin.

“There is no common ground when it comes to substance in policy," he added.

Speaking to the BBC's Good Morning Ulster, he said: “We’re going to significantly increase our representation here in the capital of Dublin and indeed across the country.

"And we will have a greater level of representation in the next Dáil than we did in the last one, and that’s having served in government when we had serious economic challenges."

Party Seats

Fianna Fáil 48

Sinn Féin 39

Fine Gael 38

Independent 16

Labour 11

Social Dem 11

Ind. Ireland 4

PBP - Sol 3

Aontú 2

Green Party 1

Other 1

The full piece is here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpdnlv8n758o

My analysis of manifestoes from the point of view of gender ideology and free speech was here:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/irelands-call

I missed out Independent Ireland from my analysis , so many apologies for that. Here are relevant bits from their manifesto. They manage to avoid any mention of gender ideology!

Oppose any hate-speech legislation; Implement stricter sentencing guidelines for serious violent and sexual crimes, and introduction of legislation that prohibits suspended sentences for such crimes; Prohibit sex offenders from legally changing their name to avoid detection in the future.

Oppose any politicisation of education; Ensuring that Irish culture, tradition, and language remain cornerstones of our education system; Ensure all sexual education is age appropriate.

Their manifesto is here:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64cdfa8cebed2a5db88d4067/t/67476ca41cf5ad046974fbcf/1732734118555/Compressed+General+Election+Manifesto.pdf

We can only hope that Aontú and/or some of the Independents who are sympathetic to the Terfs will be included in the ultimate coalition government. Watch this space! It could be a long wait!

LGBT Youth Scotland - Under Investigation - At Last!

At last action is being taken against this appalling organisation as reported by EDI Jester.

Skrmetti

The Skrmetti case has finally got to hearing in the US Supreme Court as reported by Bernard Lane on his substack, Gender Clinic News.

Judgment day

Gender dressed up as sex; Alberta's new protection law; trans surgery on German minors; UK adult clinic review; Texas prosecutions; Oz whistleblower asks for votes; AMANDA's award; gagging Dr Haim

Dec 04, 2024

GCN in brief

Supreme test

America | Tomorrow, US time, the Supreme Court will hear argument in a test case on whether the American Constitution prevents the state of Tennessee from prohibiting the gender medicalisation of minors. Tennessee is one of 26 Republican-run states to enact restrictions or bans on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery for distressed minors who reject their birth sex.

Although there has been much litigation over such laws at lower levels of the court system, Tennessee’s is the case that the Biden administration—an aggressive promoter of “gender-affirming care”—decided to challenge before the highest tribunal in the nation, the Supreme Court, where legal conservatives are a majority on the nine-strong bench of judges. The Tennessee law, known as SB1, was ruled valid by the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit last year.

The US government’s argument is that SB1 is invalid because it discriminates on the basis of sex and breaches the equal protection clause of the Constitution’s fourteenth amendment. The government’s petition says: “SB1 classifies based on sex, through and through… [It] bans puberty blockers and hormone therapy if—and only if—those treatments are provided ‘for the purpose’ of ‘[e]nabling’ an adolescent to identify with a gender ‘inconsistent with the minor’s sex’ or treating distress ‘from a discordance between the minor’s sex’ and gender identity.”

Puberty blockers would still be available in the state for the purpose of treating minors with precocious puberty. It is the sex of the patient, according to the US government, that decides whether or not the medicine is for a prohibited purpose. “SB1 restricts care only for transgender individuals who seek to induce physiological effects inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth.”

In response, Tennessee’s Attorney-General Jonathan Skrmetti insists that SB1 “does not classify based on sex. At most, it draws lines based on age and the nature of the medical intervention. Certain medical interventions may not be administered to minors for certain purposes, but boys and girls are treated equally.” That is, neither boys nor girls may be given medical treatment to transition their gender.

Mr Skrmetti also says the law does not “treat similarly situated individuals differently based on their sex. An adolescent boy might be given testosterone to correct a deficiency and restore the biological baseline. But that boy suffering from a disorder (testosterone deficiency) is in no relevant sense similarly situated to an adolescent girl suffering from gender dysphoria who is administered testosterone to induce different physical traits than would otherwise develop.”¹

On the wider context, Mr Skrmetti says: “States across the country are facing a surge of minors receiving gender-dysphoria diagnoses and being administered unproven and risky medical interventions with potentially irreversible effects on their health and fertility. The question here is whether the Constitution prohibits Tennessee from acting to protect minors who may not fully grasp the lifelong implications of these interventions.”

There are other cases involving paediatric gender medicine which did not go up to the Supreme Court, but are already affording many mainstream people a warts-and-all glimpse inside the gender medicine machine. A challenge to Alabama’s law banning these interventions—a law similar to Tennessee’s—has spilled into the public domain a vast number of internal documents damaging to trust in gender-affirming care.

As journalist Lisa Selin Davis explains in the Boston Globe, “Over and over in the evidence uncovered by these lawsuits, we see the government organizations, medical associations, advocacy groups, and clinicians that insist on the safety and efficacy of youth gender medicine admitting, and hiding, the opposite.

“WPATH [the US-based World Professional Association for Transgender Health], AAP [the American Academy of Pediatrics], and [the US Department of Health and Human Services] twisted and concealed evidence, lied about research, protected and enriched themselves and their members, and politicized science. They indemnified practitioners instead of protecting patients. They are unfit to manage the care of increasing numbers of gender dysphoric young people in America.”

For an eye-opening introduction to the various players in tomorrow’s Supreme Court drama, courtesy of lawyer Glenna Goldis, go here. As for WPATH, it is seeking a new executive director whose duties include expanding the organisation’s “global impact as a leader in transgender health.” Competitive medical benefits are part of the package.

In the rest of this report, Bernard brings us news from around the world including news that the UK review of adult gender clinic services has started.

https://www.genderclinicnews.com/p/judgment-day?publication_id=627677&r=1v403b

100 Inspiring Women…Hold On, Make That 99…

Craig Simpson in The Telegraph ( Trans scientist makes BBC’s 100 Women list 03 December) reports:

Every year, the broadcaster compiles a list of women who have achieved great things in public life.

Its nominees include transgender biologist Brigitte Baptiste, described in the citation as a “trans woman” who “explores the common patterns between biodiversity and gender identity”.

The BBC says the scientist uses a “queer lens to analyse landscapes and species in a bid to expand the notion of ‘nature’ to better protect ecosystems”.

In a 2018 TED talk, Ms [ MR] Baptiste claimed scientists had discovered “transsexual” palm trees and stated that the “change of sex and gender has been reported regularly in science”.

On this basis, she [ HE!] argued that it was wise to do away with ideas of “naturalness” in nature, stating: “There is nothing more queer than nature.”

The full piece is here:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/03/trans-colombian-scientist-makes-bbcs-100-women-list/

Australia - Teen Allowed To Access Wrong Sex Hormones

Thanks to Feminist Legal Clinic for the next three reports. In this one, this is a quote from The Australian hence the wrong pronouns!! It involves a boy, of course!

Court grants teen access to cross-sex hormones | The Australian (03 December)

A gender dysphoric 15-year-old has been granted access to cross-sex hormones despite a Family Court judge citing a legal void of the consequences of people regretting their change of gender and medically trying to reverse the decision.

Judge Terry McGuire ruled in favour of the child – known to the court as Kelly – taking the treatment, despite Kelly’s father indicating he did not support the intervention and did not provide his express consent.

Kelly has a developmental disorder, has identified as a girl since she was a toddler [ Dusty - hmmm, really!!??] , and is currently experiencing bone degeneration, which is at least partly caused by the puberty blockers she has taken since 2022.

In delivering his decision, Justice McGuire said the court was “not oblivious” to medical, social science and legal considerations in respect of gender dysphoria, and relied on the evidence of five medical practitioners to inform his ruling.

But he said there was a “dearth of jurisprudence” pertaining to “regret syndrome” experienced by children who change their mind or wish to reverse their medical transition, despite there being a “prolificity of social comment” on the topic.

Barrister Belle Lane, who has been at the coal face of dozens of complex family law cases, in an interview in October said Australian judges were relying on precedent based on “outdated” medical information when allowing gender dysphoric children to access permanent treatments.

The Australian has been following a complex matter in which two parents differ on whether their eldest child should be prescribed with cross-sex hormones, which was the subject of a multi-week trial this year.

A decision in that matter will be handed down in due course.

Source: Court grants teen access to cross-sex hormones

Australia - Dr Jillian Spencer

Well done, Dr Spencer!

Premier, stand up and end this gender madness | Courier Mail (04 December)

A courageous Queensland Health psychiatrist who was suspended for daring to question the “affirmation model” at the Queensland Children’s Gender Service says she now feels vindicated.

Dr Jillian Spencer should be reinstated immediately, and the new Health Minister Tim Nicholls should offer her a public apology.

So should Shannon Fentiman, who championed transgender rights as health minister and minister for women in the last government.

Spencer believed many young people complaining of gender-related distress or “gender dysphoria” may in fact be suffering from autism spectrum disorder or have hidden traumas or distress due to family breakdowns or bullying and exclusion at school.

In England, a landmark four-year study by Dr Hilary Cass exposed the “shaky foundations” on which the National Health Service allowed the growth in gender identity services.

The NHS has now banned puberty blockers for those under 18.

In the US, the American Society of Pediatricians has called for gender clinics to stop using puberty blockers. And it has called for an end to social affirmation and trans support programs like those still operating in Queensland state schools.

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to defund gender clinics and ban puberty blockers.

Spencer, 47, who had an unblemished record at Queensland Health for two decades, was suspended on full pay 19 months ago after she drew criticism for not fully accepting the “affirmation model” – well before the Cass report was released.

Spencer refused to drink the Kool-Aid. In response she was directed to use children’s preferred personal pronouns.

In documents filed with the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission, psychiatrist Jillian Spencer alleges that her human rights were breached when Queensland Health stood her down for her gender-critical beliefs.

In three other cases she is asking the QIRC to give her whistleblower status.

Source: Premier, stand up and end this gender madness

Good News from Spain

Socialists doing something positive on our side of the argument! I can’t believe it!

Spain’s Socialists to ban trans women from female sports |MSN (04 December)

Spain’s ruling Socialist party intends to ban transgender women from competing in female sports and to remove the Q+ from the LGBTQ+ acronym.[ Dusty - what about the T!?]

The Socialists, led by Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, included plans to limit participation in female sports to “people with a female biological sex” in a policy document decided on at the party’s congress over the weekend.

The passing of a transgender rights reform in 2023, allowing anyone to change their official sex simply by stating their wish to switch, caused a bitter rift within Spain’s ruling Left-wing forces.

Carmen Calvo, the former Socialist deputy prime minister, said at the time the reform would “destroy the powerful battery of equality legislation in our country”. Activists espousing what they call traditional feminism have flagged abuses of the law, including newly registered transgender women attempting to avoid convictions for violence committed against female partners.

[Ed: Great to see feminist resistance scoring a win in Spain! We don’t need to join the right wing of politics to resist what is clearly an attack on women’s rights.]

Source: Spain’s Socialists to ban trans women from female sports

What is a Woman

At the beginning of last week’s For Women Scotland Supreme Court case, Aidan O’Neill KC for FWS went right back to the original common law when women weren’t even considered to be ‘persons’! See my report here:

https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/for-women-scotland-day-one

Women then fought to obtain the right to vote, the right to own property in their own right and ultimately equality under the law and freedom from discrimination on grounds of sex. And now the trans rights lobby is attempting to bring it back to the start again! Tongue firmly in cheek, Andrew Doyle addresses this on his substack.

What is a woman?

The UK supreme court is currently addressing this ancient riddle, one that has perplexed the greatest minds throughout the ages...

Dec 02, 2024

---

It was known as the sphinx: a terrifying hybrid with a lion’s body and a human head. According to the legend, the sphinx was sent to guard the city of Thebes by the goddess Hera who wanted to punish the citizens for some ancient crime. It perched on a nearby mountain, and whenever anyone attempted to enter or leave the city it would pose a riddle. If the traveller failed to answer, he or she would be devoured, but the riddle was so confounding, so esoteric, so abstruse, that even the greatest intellectuals of the day soon found themselves reduced to snacks for the mighty sphinx.

And what was this riddle? What was the question that foxed even the sharpest of minds? It was simply: “what is a woman?”

And now, a hearing at the UK’s supreme court has taken place to solve the sphinx’s riddle once and for all. The campaign group For Women Scotland raised the case in order to challenge the Scottish government’s contention that the word “sex” in the Equality Act includes men who identify as female and hold a Gender Recognition Certificate. We can expect the results of this hearing over the next few months.

And yet I’m sure most of you are thinking to yourselves: “How will these judges possibly answer such a metaphysical conundrum?” And you’re not alone. Many valiant and learned individuals have fallen in the attempt.

The full piece is here:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-152414858

The Erasure Of Language

James Macpherson, on his substack, brings us yet another new phrase from the gender peddlers, ‘non-transgender women’!!!!! FFS!!!!!

The Media's New Term for "Women"

That a once esteemed newspaper now casually refers to "non-transgender women" as if that’s even a thing is a sign of just how far into insanity our culture has slipped

Dec 03, 2024

The trans movement will erase women completely.

If you don’t believe me; believe the New York Times.

The former newspaper [ Dusty - arf, arf] published an article at the weekend in which they referred to women as “non-transgender women”.

In other words, women have now been placed in a classification slightly lower than chicks with dicks.

Trans women are the norm. Non-trans women are the anomaly.

I was talking about this stuff more than a decade ago, much to the bemusement of friends and colleagues.

They considered the trans movement to be a fringe issue that was best ignored.

But ideas have consequences. Language shapes thinking. Culture creates norms.

Churches should have been preaching the truth of Genesis 1v27 (not that God exists, but that women do) at least 10 years ago when this stuff first started raising its head.

But, typically, we wait until that which is on the fringe becomes the whole hairdo and then, in a panic, we hurriedly put a hat on it.

Women were called birthing parents.

Then they were called chest feeders.

Then they were called menstrators.

Then they were uterus havers.

Then they were vaginal presenting.

Then they were cisgendered.

And now women are non-trans women; a mere subset of a class that was once their’s and their’s alone but that now belongs to men as well. There are men and there are non men. Women are no more.

The degradation and misogyny is unbelievable!

The full piece is here:

https://jamesmacpherson.substack.com/p/the-medias-new-term-for-women

James Dreyfus

Excellent speech by James Dreyfus at the recent LGB Alliance conference in case you missed it.

Endpiece by Liz

#BeMorePorcupine

#LetWomenSpeak

#Grassroots Army

#GenderIdeologyIsEvil

#MenCantBeWomen

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