This Is The End
Update 503. Grand Old Duke of York edition. #BeMorePorcupine
This is a long one, dear readers, and it is a bit like the Grand Old Duke of York.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down…
You get the drift!
Lots to discuss here so please get commenting below and join some of the great discussions that arise from these updates. Go on, go on…
As we move into 2025 I am featuring, in alphabetical order, those Readers’ Choices for best film ever that did not make the top seven ( see Update 500 for the top seven).
Next up is Apocalypse Now.
One of my favourite English authors is Joseph Conrad who is now regarded as unacceptable because he was supposedly some kind of British imperialist ( aside from the fact that he was actually a Polish immigrant). I haven’t got time to go into the fine detail now but , suffice to say that a lot of his novels looked at the individual faced with the great struggle between good and evil. I regard Conrad as one of the greatest writers in the English canon. For more detail on this matter in general see this wonderful discussion between Jordan Peterson and Andrew Doyle:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/macbeth
The woke warriors will probably be blithely unaware that the great Francis Ford Coppola film Apocalypse Now is based on the Conrad novel Heart of Darkness.
In the film Captain Willard ( Martin Sheen) is sent to try and find Colonel Kurtz ( Marlon Brando) who has disappeared into Cambodia where he is now revered as a semi-god. The novel was originally set in Africa but the film moves the location to the war in Vietnam. Both the book and the film are a trip into the human psyche and, as I say, the conflict between ( to put it bluntly) good and evil within one individual.
All thoughts gratefully received.
Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
World Round Up!
Lots of news from around the world by Georgia O’Keefe on her substack, Woman: Adult Human Female.
https://wahf.substack.com/p/zuckerberg-changes-policy-gender?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true
Here are a couple of corrections to the original report:
https://wahf.substack.com/p/corrections?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true
Single Sex Spaces and Hockey
Two pieces from the latest Sex Matters newsletter (10 January).
Poll shows majority want single-sex spaces
A recent YouGov poll for Sex Matters reveals a significant shift in public opinion about allowing trans-identifying males into women’s spaces and sports. Nearly three-quarters of respondents believe women’s sports should exclude all males, regardless of gender identity – a rise from 61% in 2022.
The poll, conducted on 19th December 2024, also found that support for allowing trans-identifying males into women’s spaces decreases further when respondents learn that most have not undergone surgery.
A majority (54%) of those surveyed support amending the Equality Act to define sex as “biological sex”. This position garners support across all major political parties, with a 2:1 ratio favouring the change among Labour voters who express an opinion.
The number of “don’t know” responses has gone down since 2022, suggesting increased public awareness and confidence in expressing views on the topic.
These findings continue a long-term trend, with opposition to men’s participation in women’s sports growing steadily since 2018. The issue has gained visibility through high-profile cases such as Lia Thomas and Emily Bridges.
The new data suggests there is a growing consensus that biological distinctions matter in safeguarding women’s rights and spaces.
Hockey sticks to sex
England Hockey has announced a new Transgender and Non-Binary Participation Policy, set to take effect on 1st September 2025.
From next September, the women’s category will be open only to female players who are not undergoing masculinising hormone treatments. There will be an open category for anyone who does not meet those criteria.
A lengthy explanation for the new policy notes that: “The physical strength, stamina or physique of average people of one sex would put them at a disadvantage compared to the average people of the other sex.”
Meanwhile, Sport England has been criticised for launching a survey which asked children to identify whether they identified as a variety of options including “non-binary”.
UK - Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
EDI Jester explains why he feels this Bill is a Trojan Horse:
Ireland - Education
Great interview on the No Risk No Reward podcast with Jana Lunden of the Natural Women’s Council ( not to be confused with the National Women’s Council of Ireland - known by Irish women’s rights campaigners as the National Willy Council since they have a larping man on their boards of directors). The interview concentrates on the school where Enoch Burke teaches but also covers the situation in Ireland in general.
John McGuirk, editor of Gript News, addresses Enoch Burke’s case. I reported on the case recently here ( and I repeat what I said there):
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/mean-streets?utm_source=publication-search
Why your view of Enoch Burke shouldn’t have changed a jot
John McGuirk
This past week brought two notable interventions from people I respect on the subject of Enoch Burke.
First, Father Brendan Kilcoyne, arguably the most coherent and compelling Catholic Priest in the land, took to his very successful youtube show to tell his viewers that his mind was in the process of changing as regards Enoch, and that perhaps – to sum up his argument – the diplomatic approach has not worked and thus Burke’s views should be seen in that light. …
Then, my colleague Niamh, reacting in substantial part to that video, chimed in. She argued:
“There has been no referendum on the bonkers fallout from the Gender Recognition Act (Barbie Kardashian, women described as chest-feeders), but in my view the public took the opportunity in March of last year to deliver a message in the crushing NO to Roderic O’Gorman’s referendum to remove mothers from the Constitution.
“As I wrote at the time, the referendum “was rightly seen by mothers as a move urged on by the state’s embrace of nebulous but pernicious gender identity ideology, where women are “chest-feeders” and mothering is belittled and demeaned. The current government and most in Opposition seem wholly captured by this nonsensical ideology.”
“But nine months after the referendum, where is the row-back on dangerous gender ideology practices that could harm our children by blindly setting them on a gender-affirmation pathway that might lead to medication and irreversible surgery and a lifetime of distress? Where is the child-centered approach? Where is the respect for parents’ rights? Where do we see the Irish educational authorities catching up with best international practice? Instead we have institutes like DCU [ Dublin City University] riddled with queer theory drivel and captured by the most harmful aspects of gender ideology. Where, as Fr Kilcoyne asks, has the diplomacy got us?”
There are, I’d concede, some important points here. Essentially, both Father Kilcoyne and Niamh take the view – to a greater or lesser extent – that the public has rendered its verdict on the underlying issue in the Burke case (the teaching of “transgenderism” in schools) and that the public has been ignored. To some extent, therefore, both of them are coming to the conclusion that Burke’s conduct is at least on some level warranted and defensible, because nothing else has worked to change the policy.
…
Now, here’s my problem with Enoch Burke himself, which has not changed and is highly unlikely to:
You can say all you want about his alleged “courage”, or his undoubted determination, or his sheer stubbornness. You can admire till the cows come home his tenacity. You can say that he is dead right. You can even claim, as many of his supporters do, that the system is rigged against him or the courts are biased (though there is little evidence of either, in truth, aside from the fact that the courts have not sided with him).
The problem is that he has behaved stupidly from the start, if the aim of his protest was to change policy.
If Enoch Burke believes, as he professes to, that his constitutional rights have been abridged, then he should have taken that case to court and fought it smartly and intelligently, with the aid of professional legal representation. If he could not afford professional legal representation, then he could have at least argued that case professionally as a layman. As I have written before: If going into courts and shouting at Judges was a successful legal strategy, every top barrister in the country would be doing it.
Few, to my knowledge, are.
At every single juncture in his fight, he has handed the moral and legal high ground to the school with which he is in dispute: He demands a court order re-instating him, but will not comply with a court order made against him, leading the school to the very obvious (and successful) legal argument that there must be equality of arms, and that the state cannot expect the school to be bound by orders when Mr. Burke refuses to accept the authority of the court himself. What few if any of his supporters seem to recognise is that no court could ever side with him while he refuses to pledge to abiding by the authority of the courts in the first place. It would be like a Premier League team taking the field and vowing only to obey the referee when he awarded fouls against their opponents, and to ignore any ruling made against them.
The league, rightly, would just cancel the game. Which is what the courts have essentially done in this case, having been left with no other option.
All thoughts on this gratefully received.
The full piece is here:
https://gript.ie/jmg-enoch-kilcoyne/?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_5_17_2022_13_19_COPY_01)
Grooming Gangs Scandal
I said in the last update that I would provide final references to this scandal since it was outside the remit of this substack but one of the wonderful readers mentioned above referred me to an amazing interview on Tousi TV ( some of the sound quality is very bad unfortunately) and Matt Goodwin has referred to a very interesting You Gov poll. I also recommend the work that EDI Jester and Kellie-Jay are doing on this vital issue and, in case you missed it, also see below the Let Women Speak event today in Oldham.
Given the clear analogy between this scandal and the scandal of the medicalisation and (effectively) abuse of confused children by so called ‘gender affirming care’, when I spot good podcasts or interviews or substack pieces on the grooming gangs I will provide you with references ( without going into more detail than that) and I hope this will be of assistance to some readers.
All thoughts gratefully received.
Free Speech
Lord Justice Sedley in Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions [1999] EWHC Admin 733:
'Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having. What Speakers' Corner (where the law applies as fully as anywhere else) demonstrates is the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear.
From the condemnation of Socrates to the persecution of modern writers and journalists, our world has seen too many examples of state control of unofficial ideas.'
Andrew Doyle on his substack reports on Mark Zuckerberg removing the politically biased fact checkers from Facebook and Instagram. Andrew asks if this is a cynical change arising from Donald Trump’s victory? I would say ‘yes’. Andrew goes on to ask whether this matters? While we will be happy for any victory for free speech, I think we must remember, for future reference, what has happened in the past.
All thoughts, as ever, gratefully received.
Has Mark Zuckerberg genuinely rediscovered the value of free speech?
The big tech mogul is scrapping politically-biased ‘fact-checkers’ on Facebook and Instagram. Does it matter if his reasons are cynical?
Jan 09, 2025
There’s a song by Dar Williams called ‘Play the Greed’ about how the selfishness of corporations can effect positive change. The first verse makes the point far more evocatively than I could:
‘I finally learned that the market’s righteous holler
Comes from a pale face on a paper dollar,
And I bet ya got few bucks in your hemp wallet,
So throw a tiny wrench in the fibre optic wires.
Morals are cheap and you can be the buyers.
We can let ’em poison and pillage foreign lands
Or we can play the greed right into our hands.’
If the fashion changes, Williams implies, the avarice of multi-billion-dollar corporations will ensure that they follow. Even if their intentions are simply to bleed the world of its resources to enrich their own pockets, the outcomes might still be positive from time to time.
I could not help but think of this song while watching Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement yesterday that he was changing the policies of Facebook and Instagram in order to reclaim the principle of freedom of speech. Having permitted censorship on his platform for so long, with completely reasonable points of view being stifled for political and ideological reasons, has he now experienced that Damascene conversion? Does it even matter?
The full piece is here ( and I like the song 😁):
https://www.andrewdoyle.org/p/has-mark-zuckerberg-genuinely-rediscovered
New Zealand - Puberty Blockers
The New Zealand Ministry of Health are conducting a consultation exercise with regard to puberty blockers. On their substack, Resist Gender Education respond to this:
Puberty blockers - a human wrong
Public consultation closes on 20 January.
Jan 09, 2025
The NZ Ministry of Health is seeking public submissions on whether puberty blockers should remain readily available or whether prescribing them should be restricted in some way by regulations.
‘Puberty blockers are a type of medication called Gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues. They are licensed only for use in young children (for precocious puberty) or older adults (for certain cancers).
‘They are not licensed for use for adolescents, and they are not licensed for gender incongruence or dysphoria.
‘Licensing of medicines requires a robust assessment of safety and effectiveness data. These medications have not undergone that process, which means the safety and risk implications for use with gender dysphoria have not been assessed.’
(Source: UK Department of Health and Social Care.)
Those who advocate for continued easy access to puberty blockers (1) have condemned the possibility of restrictions, saying regulating the suppression of puberty is against the human rights of children and discriminatory against “transgender children”, who desperately “need” this medication.
They are woefully wrong on all counts.
Fabricated “need”
In the same way that no children are born with a belief in God but are instead raised to hold religious beliefs; no children are born with the concept that they are trapped in the wrong body. It is the adults and the society they live in that teach them to embrace the magical thinking that their sex is a matter of choice and puberty is something they can blithely opt out of.
Harmful messages are being sent to young children when puberty blockers are offered as a “healthcare” option - that unhappiness can be ‘fixed’ by altering the body; that puberty is something to be feared and can be avoided without any consequences; and that it is easy and even ‘brave’ to change sex.
Of course, none of these things is true and misleading children into believing them is reprehensible. That some people assert that there is a “need” for unregulated access to puberty blockers is not sufficient reason to allow hundreds of our children to be given life-altering medication when there is no good-quality research to confirm positive outcomes.
‘In March this year, NHS England took the decision not to commission the routine use of puberty blockers for the treatment of gender incongruence - informed by an evidence review conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
‘These findings were echoed in the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (the Cass Review), and accompanying systematic reviews, which found insufficient evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of puberty blockers for adolescents.
‘The Commission on Human Medicines (CHM), an independent expert body which advises ministers on the safety and efficacy of medicines, has also advised that the current prescribing environment is unsafe, and that an indefinite ban should be put in place until a safer prescribing environment can be established.’
(Source: UK Department of Health and Social Care.)
According to the Ministry of Health’s own figures, the rate of prescribing puberty blockers in New Zealand has increased dramatically – by nearly 600% – in a few short years: from 25 in 2010 to a high of 140 in 2021.
When children are so clearly being influenced by a fashionable societal trend, it is the government’s responsibility to protect them from its harms. It is not possible for children or their parents to weigh up the benefits and risks of puberty blockers when long term outcomes are largely unknown. Children cannot give informed consent to eliminating puberty because they cannot possibly understand the very complex and critical process that it is, nor the many long-term consequences of rejecting it.
The full piece is here:
New Zealand - Light At The End Of The Tunnel?
Katrina Biggs on her substack, A B’Old Woman thinks she can see a bit of light.
I can feel a sea change around gender ideology coming in.
We may still have to fight against gender ideology with all we have, and undoubtably the fight back will be fierce, but there's some light beginning to shine through the cracks in it.
Jan 10, 2025
The last few months have brought a gradual, but perceptible, sea change around gender ideology. There is a growing visible and verbal public rejection of it, even if that is still tenuous. Terfs and terf-supporters may not be seeing a total win just yet, but little by little, the wins against the implementation of gender ideology are stacking up. Many of those wins so far are coming out of the USA, though, and not happening in New Zealand.
However, where the USA goes with its social culture, most Westernised countries eventually follow, whether we like to admit that, or not. Importantly, changes to policies, and the outcomes of court cases can be influenced by a country’s social culture. I’m not saying all judges are influenced by social culture, but some are at least some of the time, as the Australian court case Tickle v Giggle appeared to demonstrate. Just getting cases against gender ideology to court can be swayed by social culture, too, as public fundraising is often required for them.
I’m aware that comparing New Zealand to the USA is not exactly comparing apples with apples. But, even though NZ is more like the UK in its social culture, if we’re making comparisons, the USA still tends to lead the way with social changes – which is why we blame it for gender ideology 😊 The USA has been in a dark place with that, so seeing even a little bit of light shining out from that neck of the woods is like a beacon of hope for us here.
The full piece is here:
European Union - Going Backwards?
On the substack, Inspecting Gender Faika El-Nagashi, Anna Zobnina and Róisín Michaux report on the situation with the European Union.
One Strategy to Rule Them All: The EU’s Descent into Queer Activism
What to expect from the European Union in 2025, by Faika El-Nagashi, Anna Zobnina and Róisín Michaux
Jan 10, 2025
While commentators in the UK and US celebrate what they see as a turning tide against gender identity ideology, the European Union appears to be swimming doggedly in the opposite direction. Across much of Europe, the agenda isn’t stalling; it’s gathering steam.
In November 2020, the EU unveiled its first LGBTIQ Equality Strategy (2020-2025)—a grandiose political manifesto designed to weave LGBTIQ issues into the fabric of EU policies, legislation, funding programmes, and even its external relations. Though the strategy carries no legal force, its influence is undeniable. Civil society organisations and activists on the ground wield anything bearing the EU stamp like a blunt instrument, treating it as irrefutable proof of progressive consensus. That strategy is then recycled and repurposed in national debates, magnifying its effect far beyond its official remit.
The full piece is here:
https://genspect.substack.com/p/readyone-strategy-to-rule-them-all?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true
Puberty Blockers - Clinical Trials and Dr Cass
Dr Cass has presented a seminar where she comes out in favour of a clinical trial. Bernard Lane reports on this on his substack, Gender Clinic News.
Trial and tribulation
Sharp and polarised dissent has only reinforced the view of Hilary Cass that a clinical trial of puberty blockers is the right choice
Jan 09, 2025
Here is an extract from this piece:
Trial and error
Dr Cass highlighted the sharp disagreement about the puberty blocker trial recommended by her review and supported by the UK Labour government’s Health Secretary, Wes Streeting.
“There’s already quite polarised views [in the UK]… Some people say it’s not ethical to say to young people, you can only get this drug by joining a trial. Some people say that’s coercion, and it’s not right, and you should have these medications freely available,” she said.
“And on the other side are some people who say that, after years, you haven’t shown any benefit of these drugs, and you’ve shown possible harm—so, it’s not even ethical to consider a clinical trial, [blockers] should just be stopped.
“And so, with those two views being so extreme, I think that demonstrates that we do need a trial.”
She said in her view, “social justice” for gender-distressed young people required that their care be supported by the “same standard of evidence” as for any other patient group.
“If I suggested giving your child a treatment for asthma which has as poor a research base as these [hormonal] medications do for gender dysphoria, you’d say, absolutely no way,” she said.
“I think the only way that we can move forward in this area is by saying, how would we approach this for any other area of medicine, and to make sure we match the standards.”
Asked during the webinar about the possibility of a minor seeking to join the UK puberty blocker trial without parental agreement, Dr Cass said the consent of parents would be necessary for a child under 16 to take part in a research study.
“If [this conflict] did arise, then where the clinician strongly felt it was in the interests of the child to go on to the puberty blockers and the parents weren’t prepared to give consent, I guess it would end up in court—but I think that’s a not a very likely scenario,” she said.
Dusty - With all due respect, I think that Dr Cass’s apparent position that, since there are differing views on whether to have a trial, we should, therefore, have a trial is totally illogical. She accepts (without expressing an opinion on this) that one argument is that a clinical trial involving children would be unethical. Surely we need to answer that question before going any further!? As regular readers will know I have featured this issue on several occasions - for example here:
Once again all views very gratefully received.
The full piece is here:
https://www.genderclinicnews.com/p/trial-and-tribulation?publication_id=627677&r=1v403b
The Gender Ghouls
Very interesting piece by Peter Sim on his substack. Are the ‘gender ghouls’ ( my phrasing) now saying that children should have ‘gender affirming care’ simply because they want it?
The End of Gender Medicine
Activist clinicians no longer claim that gender affirming medical treatment does any good, but they don’t care
Jan 06, 2025
A new article by a group of professionals working at the main gender clinic in Amsterdam has upended the debate on gender affirming treatments for children and adolescents. The article (Oosthoek et al., 2024) is entitled Gender-affirming medical treatment for adolescents: a critical reflection on “effective” treatment outcomes. Annelou de Vries, one of the founders of the “Dutch Protocol”, is a co-author. The article has been accessed over 24,000 times in less than 2 weeks and is receiving wide attention, although not the type the authors would want. An X/Twitter thread by J.K Rowling describes the article as an example of what Hannah Arendt described in The Banality of Evil. It has also been the subject of a question in the Dutch Parliament.
What the article says, in very simple terms, is that the measures of the effectiveness of gender affirming medical treatment (GAMT) which researchers have used to date, such as improvement of psychological function and absence of regret, are irrelevant. Treatments should be provided simply because young people desire them.
The full piece is here:
https://justdad7180.substack.com/p/the-end-of-gender-medicine?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true
Queering Babies!
A horrifying mix of surrogacy and ‘queering babies.’ Lucy Leader deals with this on her substack, Bodies get in the way - all thoughts, yet again, gratefully received:
Queering Babies: Is There No Escape from Narcissists?
Deliberately "queering" the future of babies is wrong, however you spin it
Jan 09, 2025
I recently waded through the verbiage of an essay entitled “Queering babies: (Auto)ethnographic reflections from a gay parent through surrogacy.” Authored by a gay man, Dr. Balazs Boross, who is an Assistant Professor in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam; his specialty areas according to the University of Amsterdam website include gender, health and cross-media studies.
I’m guessing that he fancies himself as a bit of an armchair philosopher as well, given the otiose nature of the last sentence in his abstract which reads, “Alluding to the notion of double-liminality, I conclude with the epistemological challenges involved in this informal project and the ontological paradoxes of coexisting in time as babies and parents.” Clearly this man is an acolyte of the Queen of Obscure Rubbish, Judith Butler.
It is also clear that as a self-proclaimed queer person, he is not happy with any identity that is not queer, including his children and furthermore he is also not much of an academic as he has taken his own experience as a complete data set to make his points. (He did eventually ask ten gay couples and ten heterosexual couples to assist him by creating their own baby journals, but he found that overall, they failed to provide him with the information he requested.)
The full piece is here:
https://lucyleader.substack.com/p/queering-babies-is-there-no-escape?publication_id=1056660&r=1v403b
Endpiece by Liz
For all who want to abolish hate speech laws ( and see above regarding the European Union)
And from Liz especially for Tenaciously Terfin ( German Shepherd lover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDpAjGDuwD0
#BeMorePorcupine
#LetWomenSpeak
#Grassroots Army
#FightForFreeSpeech
#KeepOnTerfing
#GenderEnders
#FightForTruthAndReality
I'm quite disappointed in Dr Cass, to be frank. She is quite correct that a proper *study* needs doing, but this does not mean, nor should it be, a drugs trial. There is no way to blind such a thing, and no effective way to randomise it. There is a large cohort of people out there already that can be accessed for a retrospective study (though that would not be without its problems, such as (deliberate?) poor record-keeping and history-taking on the part of gender-ghouls). Trialling puberty-blockers is the same as trialling PCP - we know the substance is harmful, and any benefits are far outweighed by the risks. I think we are going to have to resort to the law to stop such a trial, if that is possible (I don't think anything like that has ever been litigated, so I don't even know the mechanism!)
Recently, Dr Charlotte Paul - an epidemiologist at Otago Uni (NZ) - made the observation that we were handling 'gender medicine' with a rights-based approach, instead of an evidence-based approach. I.e. those who want it have the 'human right' to have it. This is such bonkers, but aligns with the gender ghouls approach you mention above.