Woman Is Our Word! Brandubh.
Update 602. This Is Terf Month. #BeMorePorcupine.
We have started our Terf Month ( to counteract Queer Month) a bit early and we will be featuring great speeches on the theme of women’s rights. Please keep those suggestions coming in. Please send a link if you can. Thanks to those readers who have already sent in great suggestions.
Next up is a poem from 14 year old ( at that time) Brandubh who brought down the house at Belfast Let Women Speak.
“I Am Not A Dress” by @brandubh4
We are women, we are warriors of steel.
Woman is something no man will ever feel.
Woman is not a skill that any man can hone.
Woman is our word and it is ours alone.
I am not a dress to be worn on a whim,
A man in a dress is nonetheless a him.
Women are not simply what we wear.
If this offends you, I do not care.
I am not an idea in any man’s mind
And my purpose in life is not to be kind.
So while my rights are trampled every day of the week,
I will not stand by being docile and meek.
I am not defined by sexist lies.
There is more to a woman than that shallow guise,
That guise of dresses, bikinis, and skirts.
Those clothes are not what womanhood is worth.
I am not a bitch, a TERF, a whore, a slag,
Hysterical, witch, a slut, a hag.
No, I am a woman. I am a female,
Who will not let her rights be put up for sale.
I am not defined by what men are not,
So to hell with cis misogynistic rot.
I am a woman, I’m not a subset of my sex.
If this makes me a dinosaur, so be it, I’m a T-Rex.
I am not a bleeder nor a menstruator,
A womb carrier or a uterus haver.
These words and phases are such a sham.
Just call me woman, it’s who I am.
We are women, we are warriors of steel.
Woman is something no man will ever feel.
Woman is not a skill that any man can hone.
Woman is our word and it is ours alone.
Thanks to three wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
United Kingdom - Castration On The Public Purse
Shocking news from Transgender Trend!! On the National Health Service!!!
The NHS is castrating two men a day, including teenagers. 2,071 men were referred for "feminising genital surgery" between 2021 - 2023. Data suggests over a third of the patients are under 30. In 2023 it was 42% of 266 surgeries, the youngest was 19.
https://x.com/Transgendertrd/status/1926712450566455313
England - Unsuccessful Tribunal Case
On her substack, Sarah Phillimore deals with an unsuccessful Tribunal case involving a sacked teacher and ‘protected disclosure.’ Sarah concludes that the Tribunal were right to dismiss the claim but raises serious concerns about the matter.
How not to challenge gender identity ideology in schools
We have another example of where the courts have determined that bad behaviour by a teacher at school is not rescued by either a protected belief or a 'safeguarding' motivation.
May 25, 2025
In May 2025 the Employment Tribunal has given us yet another opportunity to consider the limitations to a manifestation of a protected belief in the case of A v Nottinghamshire County Council. The ET here unanimously dismissed the teacher’s complaints of being sacked for making a protected disclosure.
The claimant was a teacher. In 2021 she was told that Child X would be in her class from September. Child X is a year 4 pupil, therefore aged 8 who wished to ‘transition’ from female to male. The teacher was concerned that her faith based objections to transgender identity were not sufficiently respected by the school who were also in her view not acting to safeguard the child in question. She formed this view by accessing information recorded about the child on the school systems, which she was not authorised to do.
She was dismissed in September 2022. Conciliation failed and she made a claim to the ET in February 2023. The ET were at pains to point out their judgment should not be seen as support for either side of the ‘sex v gender’ debate.
The full piece is here:
Scotland’s Care Inspectorate
One piece from the latest Women’s Rights Network newsletter ( 26 May):
Who’s Inspecting the Inspectors? Care Watchdog’s Alarming Ties Under Scrutiny
At Women’s Rights Network Scotland, we’re no strangers to raising the alarm when safeguarding is being quietly shuffled to the bottom of the priority pile. But even we were taken aback by the latest revelations about Scotland’s Care Inspectorate—the very body tasked with keeping our most vulnerable safe.
Nicola Sturgeon
WRN Scotland’s Mary Howden, a former government social work adviser, has formally lodged a complaint over the Inspectorate’s fundraising ties to LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS)—a charity that, shockingly, has had links to two convicted paedophiles.
Let that sink in.
The organisation responsible for holding Scotland’s care providers to account is raising money for a group with a deeply troubling history. If this doesn’t scream “conflict of interest,” we don’t know what does.
Mary’s complaint calls for:
An immediate withdrawal of all fundraising ties
A full investigation into potential safeguarding failures.
A thorough reassessment of the Care Inspectorate’s relationship with LGBTYS.
Because when the regulator isn’t regulating itself, the whole system is on shaky ground.
Breaking News: The Care Inspectorate has responded—by confirming the complaint will now go through their complaint process. Bureaucratic speak for “we’re thinking about thinking about it.”
But this isn’t the moment for delay or deflection. This is about the safety of children and vulnerable people in care settings. And we expect those tasked with oversight to take that responsibility seriously.
As Mary Howden rightly put it: “Safeguarding must never be optional.”
We’ll be watching closely—and so should you.
See Marion Scott’s article in the Sunday Post.
Let Women Speak - Reformers’ Tree
Some excellent speeches as ever at yesterday’s event - the livestream was split into two parts.
Father Ted The Musical
Ian O’Doherty is a writer and this is his first podcast on his new channel, The State Of Us. It is a fascinating discussion with Glinner. They knew each other when they were young and, initially, didn’t get on. However Ian was one of the only people who stood up for Glinner when he started getting cancelled. And, at the end of the interview, since Glinner now thinks that Father Ted the Musical will never see the light of day, he gives away the main plot and finale of the musical!! So, if you live in hope that it will one day be produced, avoid the end!!!!
Vaishnavi Sundar
Excellent interview by Jenny Poyer Ackerman on her podcast, UnMuted with Vaishnavi Sundar, director of the four part series Dysphoric and of the recent film about trans widows, Behind The Looking Glass.
Thanks to Terf Vibes for bringing this to my attention and she also discusses Dysphoric as well as the current situation in New Zealand on her substack:
Sall Grover
Sorry to bring you yet another Crowd Funder but here is a message from Sall Grover:
We are now just 69 days away from our Federal Court appeal in Sydney on August 4, 2025. This moment is critical.
The first judge ruled that “sex is changeable”—an absurd decision threatening my livelihood, my daughter’s future, and every woman’s right to female-only spaces.
I shared my story in a YouTube interview with Andrew Gold. Now we fight on—before three judges—determined to win.
This appeal is Australia’s stand to protect sex-based rights. The U.S. and Great Britain have defined sex as biological — a woman is an adult human female. Australia must follow.
We’ve strengthened our legal team with Stuart Wood AM KC and are refining every aspect of our appeal. We will be ready to fight. Our revised legal budget is now $970,000.
Every dollar helps fund:
Legal counsel
Federal Court submissions and filings
Ongoing advocacy for women’s rights
Your support—no matter the amount—brings us closer to justice.
Can you help by forwarding this campaign to three friends who believe women and girls deserve protected spaces?
With heartfelt thanks for standing with us,
Sall Grover
@salltweets
Iran - Transing The Gay Away
Barry Wall picks up on a Malcolm Clark thread which in turn picks up on a British Jew being charged for a poster opposing Hezbollah. Malcolm points out that Iran made being gay a capital offence but were fine with transing away the gay!
Puberty Blockers
In case you missed it, Mr Menno has done a great round up of the situation with puberty blockers around the world:
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
On her substack, Bodies get in the way… Lucy Leader discusses some of the alien invasion novels and films of the 1950s and then links them in to latter day ‘gender ideology’.
In The Garden
Our Hydrangea Petiolaris. The plant to the right at the front is a Kiwi which we have had for years, is always very healthy but has never flowered. It is probably pining for New Zealand!
Endpieces
From Tenaciously
From Liz
#BeMorePorcupine
#LeaveKidsAlone
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#FreeLucyConnolly
#KeepOnKeepingOn
#HoldTheLine
#KeepOnTerfing
#NeverSurrender
#NeverForget
#TruthWillTriumph
I discovered just yesterday, from a completely different route (I was researching Viking Chess) that there is an old Irish derivative called "brandubh", and that the word means "Black Crow". I can't decide whether that suits the marvellous young woman or not!
Thanks Dusty, what great speeches per update, compare and contrast to the hate riddled drivel of the tras.
LGBTYS has been reported on so often. Any support they’re now getting is intentional; they must know.
Lovely hydrangea.
#TerfsUnited