A Week in the War on Women: Monday 12th August - Sunday 18th August

Monday 12th August - The Ministry Of Truth #1

A public sector employee is the subject of a legal action for expressing his gender critical views in his workplace.

In March this year, we reported on Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley, a lawyer who works at a body affiliated to the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the chair of her workplace’s Sex Equality and Equity Network (SEEN). At the time, Elspeth was being sued by a fellow Civil Service worker over the expression of her ‘gender critical’ views.

The action taken against Elspeth related to various posts and comments she had made in the workplace such as a statement that ‘only women menstruate’ made during a seminar on Women and Autism and a post accurately listing the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act after staff training wrongly listed gender expression and/or gender identity.

Eventually, the claimant officially withdrew all accusations and the case was dropped.

Andreas Mueller works for an arm’s length body to a government department. (Arm’s length bodies - or ALBs - are a particular type of central government public body.) Andreas was listed as a Respondent to the claim against Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley. This claim had no chance of success as Andreas did not share an employer with the claimant (which would have been necessary to bring the action in question). Now, just months after the original claim was withdrawn, another attempt is being made to sue Andreas over his expression of gender critical views.

Andreas explains that, “A second individual, who works for the same ALB as myself, has sued me again. There are eerie similarities between the two claims. In fact, the new claimant has copied and pasted entire sections of the previous claim (perhaps in the hope that the allegations will be more successful because we share an employer). And so I’m being dragged to the tribunal for a second time”. The process is the punishment.

The case lists Andreas’ views expressed on an internal message board. For example:

• Challenging a post that equated gender critical people with racists and homophobes.

• Discussing the meaning of safeguarding following a post which minimised the genuine concerns women who prefer single sex bathrooms. 

• Asking colleagues not to publicly speculate on the motives for a murder which was still under active police investigation at the time.

The anonymous claimant is taking Andreas, the ALB where he works and a government department to the Employment Tribunal. They are also trying to shut down the SEEN staff network which Andreas co-chairs. “Given the repeated nature of the claim brought against the government department”, says Andreas, “It is clear that I have been specifically targeted because of my close and visible involvement with SEEN”.

Writing on his funding page, Andreas says that this case is critical for the freedom of expression in the Civil Service:

“Public servants cannot be allowed to use the courts to bully gender critical colleagues who express lawful views they disagree with. And yet this is exactly what they are doing.

Gender critical colleagues and friends are terrified that they will be targeted next. They fear that they will not be supported by their employers, like me and Elspeth, and left to fight alone. There is now a climate of profound fear and dread. We don’t know who might be next. The effect on public servants is tangible and chilling…

If the claim succeeds, it’s likely that expressing gender critical beliefs will become difficult, if not impossible, within the Civil Service and its related bodies. The remedies the claimant is seeking against the government department (if implemented) would effectively preclude any public gender critical discourse in the workplace.”

If you would like to contribute towards Andreas’ legal costs and help him fight this action, you can do so here.

Tuesday 13th August - Leave Them Kids Alone #1

UNHERD: Even more young girls in the US are undergoing double mastectomies in the name of so-called ‘gender affirming care’ than previously thought.

This week a report from the Manhattan Institute revealed that so called ‘top surgery’ for girls under 18 years in the US is far more prevalent than previously believed.

In the context of transgender medicine, elective double mastectomies are widely available to minors and are the most common so-called ‘gender affirming’ surgery carried out in the states. According to the Manhattan Institute, around 5,000 to 6,000 girls in the US underwent double mastectomies in 2017 to 2023. At least 50 of those girls were 12 years old or even younger.

As Laurel Duggan writes in Unherd, “While the US medical establishment and trans activists have long argued that cross-sex surgeries for children are exceedingly rare, evidence is emerging of a large and growing surgical industry impacting thousands of children”.

Also Today - This Unsporting Life #1

REDUXX: A female boxer and former sparring partner of Imane Khelif has spoken out with certainty that he is male.

Joana Nwamerue is a professional Bulgarian-Nigerian female boxer, thus far undefeated in her career.

In February this year, ahead of Sofia’s annual Strandzha Cup, Nwamerue was matched in sparring sessions to fight against Imane Khelif. She is positive that he is male. She told Reduxx, “[Khelif] has some kind of internal issues. But he is a man. I will stay [by] my words until he/she does a test to prove to the world that he/she is a woman. But we all know that won’t happen”. She added, “I think we played 3-4 sparring sessions. I have a record of everything. I can confirm that this is a man to me. Male power. Men's techniques, everything.”

Nwamerue says that the issue of Khelif’s sex was raised during this Sofia training session, causing the Algerian National Team to try and persuade other participants that Khelif is really a woman by claiming that living in the mountains had somehow altered his biology. Nwamerue states, “[Khelif’s] teammates came to me and told me ‘Imane is not a man. She is a woman and just lives high in the mountains with her relatives and parents and so there may be a change in her testosterone or chromosomes and the like’”.

Joana Nwamerue - IMAGE CREDIT: The Mirror

Another boxing professional has also spoken about his experiences of Khelif in training. Rafa Lozano, a former Olympic boxer, is a coach with the Spanish national boxing team. This week he spoke to Radio Marca about an occasion on which his female boxers sparred with Khelif at a training camp in Blume. He said that Khelif caused injuries to every woman he fought with and that, eventually, it was necessary to pair Khelif with a male boxer.

Wednesday 14th August - Leave Them Kids Alone #2

THE DAILY MAIL: Two parents in Colorado are taking legal action against their daughter’s school after staff there helped to ‘trans’ the teen behind their backs.

A couple in Denver are suing Brighton High School after staff there facilitated the social transition of their troubled teenage daughter without their knowledge or consent. (The couple are being referred to as John and Jane Doe in court documentation and their daughter is known only as AD.)

According to the 523-page lawsuit, AD was suffering from depression and anxiety when she first started at the school in 2022 and began to ‘identify as a boy’. She was 14 years old. It is claimed that the school counsellor assigned to her care focused on AD’s ‘gender identity’ rather than her mental health issues, helping her to assume male pronouns and a male name. The school database was flagged with a note that her parents should not be informed of these changes.

The school counsellor helped AD to connect with a trans-identified therapist. AD attended online sessions with the therapist, using her school counsellor's office and computer in order to keep these sessions a secret from her parents. The therapist told AD that she is really a boy and discussed her taking testosterone and having a double mastectomy as the next steps in her ‘transition’.

Brighton High School

In March 2023, John and Jane Doe learned about their daughter’s ‘gender identity’ and put an end to her meetings with the trans-identified therapist. AD is now 16 years old, regrets her social transition and has abandoned her ‘gender identity’. According to the law suit, “She now believes that her prior identification as a boy was a subconscious attempt to mask her other mental health struggles”.

Earlier this year Colorado Governor, Jared Polis, signed HB24-1039 into law. Under this legislation, public schools are required to validate a trans-identified pupil’s ‘chosen’ name and do not need the consent of parents to do so.

John and Jane Doe are now pursuing a legal action and seeking to change both state law and school policy in order to prevent other families from being harmed.

Thursday 15th August - This Unsporting Life #2

UNHERD: A trans-identified male sprinter has been selected to represent Italy in the women’s team at the forthcoming Paralympic Games.

We have written previously about the 50-year-old Italian sprinter, Valentina (formerly Fabrizio) Petrillo. He did not transition until middle age but has spoken of the ‘joy’ he felt dressing up in his mother’s clothes when he was young, describing it as ‘like touching heaven with your finger tip’. The father of two children, he took the decision to ‘transition’ in his mid-40s when he was in bed with his wife. He told her, “Remember I told you I once dressed up as a woman? In reality it wasn't once, I do it every day”.

Valentino Petrillo

Petrillo runs in the T12 classification for athletes with a visual impairment. Between 2016 and 2018 he won 11 men’s national titles. Then he began ‘identifying as a woman’ and started to compete in female events. Unsurprisingly, he currently holds 8 women’s running championship titles.

In September 2020 he won gold medals in the women’s 100, 200 and 400 metre events at the Italian Paralympic Athletic Championships. In 2021, he was permitted to compete in international women’s events and last year took bronze in both the women’s 200 and 400 meters at the Para Athletics World Championships.

Valenina Petrillo - IMAGE CREDIT: NY Post

Last March he ‘won’ the 200 metre race for women aged 50 to 54 at the Italian Indoor Masters Championship in Ancona. Statistician Marco Alciator told Italy’s Feminist Post that had Petrillo competed in the equivalent men’s race, he would have been placed 14th.

Valentino Petrillo (C) on the podium - IMAGE CREDIT: Feminist Post

After the race, Cristina Sanulli, the female athlete who came second, expressed her disappointed in the results. Sanulli would have taken first place and set a women’s indoor running record had it not been for Petrillo’s inclusion. “We do not feel equal, precisely because [Petrillo’s] physical structure is male”, she said. “So we are not running at par… We feel very discriminated against.”

In a Facebook rant a few days later, Petrillo lashed out at those who criticised his inclusion, likening them to Nazis and claiming they are “On the same level as Hitler”. He compared the exclusion of males from female sport to the ban on Jewish athletes at the 1936 Munich Olympics. He was similarly enraged at being denied access to the women’s locker room, a decision he described as ‘xenophobia’.

This year Petrillo will be competing at the Paris Paralympic Games which start on 28th August. He will run in the women’s T12 200m and 400m races. World Para Athletics has no specific ‘trans policy’ but allows individual sporting bodies to set their own rules regarding the inclusion of trans-identified males in women’s events.

Petrillo told BBC Sport “I deserve this selection”. He added that his participation will be an ‘important symbol of inclusion’. It’s hardly ‘inclusive’ of the women whose places and opportunities he is taking and whose medals and records he may steal.

Friday 16th August - “Both Sides”

THE TELEGRAPH: Trans activists have sent death threats to sports journalist, Laura Woods, over a three-word tweet praising a newspaper article.

Laura Woods is an award-winning sports presenter and can be seen on ITV, Amazon Prime Video, and TNT Sports. Earlier this week she shared Oliver Brown’s Telegraph article about the Olympic women’s boxing fiasco on her X (formerly Twitter) account. She congratulated Brown by commenting “Great article, Oli”.

She was, of course, immediately subjected to the usual outpouring of vitriol and aggression from online gender zealots. Woods, who is pregnant, has not only received threats to her own life but to that of her unborn baby.

Commenting on X she said, “I’ve had numerous death threats to myself and my unborn child. Questions on my own gender (I’m pregnant so guess that clears that one up) calls for my employers to sack me, threats to my home. I’ve been called a racist, a bigot and a sexist as well as various insults - c*nt, sl*g etc”.

Both sides, eh?

Saturday 17th August - The Ministry of Truth #2

THE TELEGRAPH: Taiwanese authorities are trying to silence a leading women’s rights organisation from expressing its concerns about Olympic boxer, Lin Yu-Ting.

We have written much in recent weeks about Taiwanese athlete, Lin Yu-Ting, who took the women’s featherweight boxing Olympic gold medal amid numerous and very plausible allegations that he is not female.

Lin Yu-Ting winning the 2018 AIBA Women's World Championships - IMAGE CREDIT: Inside the Games

Last year, like Imane Khelif, Lin was disqualified from the women’s World Championship. Both boxers failed two separate so-called ‘gender tests’ which were implemented after the International Boxing Association (IBA) received complaints from several coaches. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused to recognise the validity of the sex tests and allowed Khelif and Lin to compete - both taking gold medals in their respective weights - in the women’s category.

In the final, Lin Yu-Ting beat Poland’s Julia Szeremeta. The Daily Mail reported that he ‘pummelled’ his opponent “With a blistering flurry of punches”, leaving her with a bloody nose.

Lin Yu-ting v Julia Szeremeta

Of course, being a prominent women’s rights group, Fair Play For Women (FPFW), reported on this boxing fiasco as it unfolded, sharing updates and expressing opinions on its social media account.

Now the Taiwanese authorities are trying to censor FPFW’s coverage. The office of the Taiwanese ambassador contacted the organisation this week, expressing its ‘gravest concern’ that FPFW had chosen to “Verbally attack a biological female”. The letter went on, “We sincerely urge you to pull out those inappropriate posts on social medias such as X in respect of Ling Yu Ting, and to put an end to the act of spreading disinformation and harmful comments”.

Dr Nicola Williams, FPFW Spokeswoman and a research scientist specialising in human biology, responded to the Taiwanese Embassy. She asked the Taiwanese authorities for confirmation that Lin Yu-Ting has XX chromosomes and is genuinely, as they claim, a ‘biological female’. There has been no reply.

Also Today - No Pride in Misogyny

BBC SOUNDS: A lesbian group was barred from Warwickshire Pride this weekend over allegations of ‘transphobia’ expressed in a private Facebook group.

Established in the 1980s, Spa Sisters is a lesbian group based in Leamington. In previous years, the group has had a fund-raising stall at Warwickshire Pride and taken part in the march. This year, however, Spa Sisters were barred from attending Warwickshire Pride with event organisers accusing the group of ‘transphobia’.

BBC radio presenter, Richard Williams, spoke to Chris Doherty of Spa Sisters. She told him that the group had received an email from a couple of the Warwickshire Pride committee members in March, rescinding the Spa Sisters’ stall booking and informing them that they could not take part in the Pride march. The email accused the group of ‘transphobia’ and ‘hate’ but no further details or explanations were given.

Spa Sisters emailed the organisers on six different occasions, asking for further information and evidence of the alleged ‘transphobia’ etc. They did not receive a response. The group then lodged an appeal with Warwickshire Pride which was dismissed immediately with no right of reply.

Spa Sisters - IMAGE CREDIT: Facebook

The BBC invited the organisers of Warwickshire Pride to give an interview but they declined. Instead, the board of trustees sent a statement, claiming that the decision had been taken because members of Spa Sisters had posted ‘transphobic hate’. The examples given were references to trans people as ‘fetishists’ and as ‘men claiming to be women’. It is assumed that the complaints referenced posts made within the Spa Sisters own private Facebook group. The Warwickshire Pride board of trustees claimed that Spa Sisters had breached their code of conduct regarding hate speech and that is why they had been excluded from the event.

Despite claiming to have screenshots of the ‘transphobic’ comments made, the Warwickshire Pride trustees refused to share them, insisting that they wish to protect the anonymity of their alleged whistle-blowers. Chris Doherty told the BBC that she has looked through the content of the private Facebook group but has not been able to find the posts referred to. She added, “Our priority is women, our priority is same-sex attraction. Some of us feel this is a lash-back basically for not prioritising Warwickshire Pride’s priorities.”

One of Warwickshire Pride’s trustees is a man called Healey who uses he/him and they/them pronouns and runs the trans group. He also performs as a drag queen and calls himself Sassi Afrika.

In this drag persona, Healey recorded a song called Terf Island in which he names a number of prominent women’s rights campaigners (eg JK Rowling, Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey and Rosie Duffield) referring to them as ‘terfy bitches’. The royalties from this single are donated to Warwickshire Pride.

Apparently, calling women ‘bitches’ does not breach Warwickshire Pride’s code of conduct on hate speech.

Sunday 18th August - This Never Happens

THE TELEGRAPH: The founder of Pride in Surrey, a vocal advocate of gender identity ideology, has been charged with 37 child sexual abuse offences.

40 year old Stephen he/him Ireland is the founder and, until his recent arrest, was the director of Pride in Surrey. On his X profile, he describes himself as a journalist, the author of two books, and a radio presenter on Trans Radio UK.

He’s also an ‘Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’ trainer.

As you may have gathered from the pronouns in his handle, Ireland is a keen advocate of gender ideology and a loyal supporter of disgraced child-catcher charity, Mermaids.

He is clearly of the opinion that a sexualised parody of womanhood is suitable entertainment for children.

Ireland believes that “Educating children about gender and sexuality is so important”.

He was a keen supporter and patron of gender zealots, Educate & Celebrate. This now-defunct organisation peddled gender woo in primary and secondary schools for years, encouraging even very young children to question their ‘gender’. As detailed by TransgenderTrend, the “Conflation of sex and gender” pervaded all of Educate & Celebrate’s activities and publications.

In 2020 the Educate and Celebrate founder and CEO, Elly Barnes, addressed the Irish National Teachers Organisation Conference in Wexford. In a recording from that event, she can be heard telling teachers to keep parents in the dark when they are indoctrinating children into gender ideology. “We’ve had to have parent consultations. The only advice I can give you around that is don’t send a letter home to say you’re about to embark on this work. That’s the worst thing you can do. Don’t hold a parents’ meeting. You don’t want 30 parents shouting at you. Who wants that in their life?”

Ireland seems to react with anger when women reject gender ideology in defence of their rights and to uphold child safeguarding.

You will notice that Ireland often tries to invoke the police when he’s attacking women with gender critical opinions. He seems to have had a very cosy relationship with the Surrey Police force, particularly in his role as the director of Pride in Surrey.

For example, he was allowed to address the force on its training days.

And he was taken for a tour of Surrey in the force’s ‘pride car’.

Stephen Ireland (rear) posing with Surrey Police officers and the force’s ‘pride car’ IMAGE CREDIT: Surrey Live

In June this year Stephen Ireland was arrested on a number of child sexual abuse offences together with fellow Pride in Surrey volunteer, 26 year old David Sutton.

Ireland and Sutton face a series of charges including six counts of conspiracy to sexually assault a child, conspiracy to kidnap a child, voyeurism and arranging the commission of a child sex offence. Ireland is facing a further 22 charges, including rape of a child under 13, sexual assault, making indecent photographs of children, and possession of an extreme pornographic image.

Both Ireland and Sutton have been remanded in custody and will appear before magistrates later this week.

In similar news, in Aberdeen Sheriff Court this week, a man called Andrew Easton was convicted of distributing child sexual abuse material.

Someone called Andrew Easton co-wrote the LGBT Youth Scotland’s ‘Guide to Coming Out for Trans Young People’.

And an Andrew Easton was fundraising for the charity via Facebook in 2020. Could this be the same Andrew Easton referenced in the news story above?

LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS) is a trans lobby group, funded by public money, that has been allowed to groom young children into gender ideology for years.

Convicted in 2009 for a series of child sexual abuse offences, James Rennie was one of the ringleaders of Scotland's biggest paedophile network. At the time of his arrest, Rennie was the chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland. The organisation was in the news again in December 2022 after two young men came forward to allege that they were groomed and sexually exploited by LGBTYS staff when they were children. A year later, a former LGBTYS volunteer spoke out about the shocking lack of child safeguarding measures at the charity.

We have written previously about the men who, motivated by a deeply sinister agenda, glom onto ‘trans rights’ in order to shill for the removal of the protocols, boundaries and spaces which keep women and children safe. Not only that, it gives them the perfect excuse to attack and belittle the women who stand between them and their victims. As we see time and again, gender identity ideology can be the perfect Trojan horse for predatory men.

See you next week.