Every country’s got at least one: a national sad-trans blackmail story.

Sometimes it’s a little pre-gay boy who liked dresses so much he had to be castrated (aaaw that’s so sweet!), while other times it’s a secret crossdresser who turned up to the construction site one day SURPRISE! looking like a cross between an anime slut and a rotisserie chicken.

These people often get plucked out and refurbed by state-paid NGOs who use them as a propaganda canvas upon which they create heart-warming bargain-bin civil-rights kayfabes, with the sole goal of shoving them down the necks of plebs so they can blackmail our natural instincts out of us.

The sad-trans sympathy merchants themselves are part-victim, part-perp. They repeat prepared lines about their life stories that somehow align perfectly with the demands of their politically-motivated patrons. All sense of actual personality gets wiped off their storyboard in favour of the same old manipulative script. They become walking-talking messaging machines for self-interested vultures who wheel them out whenever you’re considering having an original thought like I think women’s sports should be for women.

Go on, tell them you were suicidal because your library card had an M on it! you can hear the strategists whisper from somewhere offstage.

But much like penile-inversion “vaginoplasty” surgery, sometimes there’s just not enough penis to work with, and the propagandists have to instead source materials from the colon, the actual shitter, to create a passable-ish stapled-together Humanising Case Study.

Lydia Foy — the real one, not the shiny booklet version — is one such case.

He is an extremely unlikeable character, as is often the case with men who fall in love with porn versions of themselves. He’s a narcissistic, extremely spergy autogynephile who is completely immune to other people’s existence, and as such, he’s a very unlikely national avatar for The Most Marginalised Group To Have Ever Lived. But he was the best tissue the surgeons could find.

Foy’s elevation to shero was not entirely his own doing, to be fair. As you’ll hear in this recording, he could almost (almost) be considered a victim of the lawyers who scavenged his family’s tragedy to make names for themselves in the strategic litigation history books. His personal tale of woe was an absolute dud, the lawyers found, in that most of the woe emanated not from him, but from everyone around him — particularly his wife and young daughters. But those grabby f*****g b*****s get no glory. There are no awards for supporting the women and kids who fall victim to a man in the grip of an out-of-control sissy fetish.

As a result of Foy’s legal entreaties, which started in the 1990s, as well as other cases around Europe, Ireland got some stern tellings-off from the european court of human rights (not capitalising those b******s anymore). The Irish government was thus forced to introduce some type of gender law, but then spent years trying to figure out which type of law it should be. It was all happening during the heady apotheosis of the activist switch from demanding ye olde medico-surgical model of gender identity disorder, or whatever the DSM was calling it in by the early 2000s, to full sex self-identification with no conditions attached.

Mental cases, gorged on Chuck Feeney money, with the help of ILGA-Europe, decided to make a big push for the latter, and they got their way in the end. Foy’s case was a big part of that. Thus accelerated a global cascade: if backwards Oirish Catholic small-islanders can do it, so can we, thought lots of other governments, coming to the pre-defined conclusion that the NGOs had laid out at their feet.

Anyway, a filmmaker called Caleb J Roberts has just made a short film called “Lydia” that further murks up the waters about the real story behind Ireland’s path to legal sex falsification for sissy fetishists and sad, round, autistic girls.

You’ll be shocked to learn that this film got made, and distributed, thanks to state subsidies, particularly funds related to producing “diverse” fare. I’m not dissing the filmmaker him/herself at all. That’s how things get made these days, and I don’t know anything about films, but Lydia certainly looks quite beautiful, and there are some nice metaphors in there (I think?)

It would do the job of AgitSlop quite well on anyone who isn’t a raging contrarian, and it looks like that could be the intention: the film looks suspiciously like it could be a pilot. As it was screened on TV (like, the old-fashioned telly), it may be getting lined up for maximum normie-saturation.

I discussed the film and Foy with my favourite Resistance Gay, journalist Sean Atkinson, and Catherine, an anon Irish TERF who hates the faking of Foy’s sob story almost as much as I do.

Enjoy, and please take out a paid subscription if you feel like helping me make more like this. I’m clearly not getting any state subsidies anytime soon lol. To those who are already paying subscribers, a massive heart emoji to you utter bigots.

Episode overview (generated by AI):

* The life and legal case of Lydia Foy

* Irish High Court proceedings and European human rights attempts

* Role of FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres) in public interest litigation

* The European Commission of Human Rights (1997 application)

* Gender Recognition Act (Ireland and UK comparisons)

* Medical evidence and brain-based theories of gender identity

* Media narratives vs court-record facts

* Cultural references including Orange Is the New Black

* Activism, legal advocacy, and institutional influence

* Amnesty-related activism and legal disputes

* Historical analogies and media impact (Emmett Till case)

Irish High Court Judgment (Primary Source)

https://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2002/116.html

European Human Rights Attempt (1997)

Pre-1998, cases were submitted to the European Commission of Human Rights (not the Court directly).

This included:

* Application involving legal aid refusal

* Attempt to reopen domestic proceedings

* Procedural dismissal

FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres)

https://www.flac.ie/

FLAC played a central role by:

* Taking the case as public interest litigation (mid-1990s)

* Shifting focus to birth certificate recognition

* Supporting long-term legal strategy

Legislative Context

UK Gender Recognition Act (2004)

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/contents

* Introduced legal gender recognition framework

* Highly debated in Parliament

Parliamentary Debate (Norman Tebbit)

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/2004/jan/29/gender-recognition-bill-hl

Key themes:

* Legal vs biological sex

* Concerns about long-term implications

Medical & Scientific References

Brain Structure Research (BSTc Studies)

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/85/5/2034/2660626

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995Natur.378...68Z/abstract

These studies:

* Examined brain structures (BSTc region)

* Suggested differences aligned with gender identity

* Became influential in legal and medical discussions

Researcher: Louis Gooren

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Gooren

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Louis+Gooren

* Endocrinologist

* Specialist in hormone therapy and gender dysphoria

RTÉ Documentary

https://www.rte.ie/radio/doconone/646740-radio-documentary-my-name-is-lydia-foy-transgender-transsexual

“My Name is Lydia Foy” (2011)

* First-person narrative

* Covers childhood, marriage, transition, and legal struggle

ShoutOut Series

https://www.shoutout.ie/know-your-queer-history

Lydia Foy episode:

Cultural and media references

Orange Is the New Black

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Is_the_New_Black

Character reference:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Burset

* Used as a comparison for family dynamics and transition

Michael Farrell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Farrell_(activist)

Council of Europe involvement:https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-commission-against-racism-and-intolerance/ecri-bureau/-/asset_publisher/TlH7DYDQnFdQ/content/farrell-michael

* Human rights lawyer

* Connected to Strasbourg institutions

Bill Shipsey & Art for Amnesty

https://artforhumanrights.org/about-us/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Shipsey

Legal dispute:

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/09/18/group-founded-by-bill-shipsey-shocked-at-amnesty-legal-action/

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/amnesty-international-sues-ex-irish-chairman-in-trademark-row/41992774.html

* Trademark dispute over “Amnesty” name

* Lawsuit initiated in 2022, later halted

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/billshipsey_dr-lydia-foy-i-never-got-an-apology-actually-activity-7299369043466088448-6-HP

Host https://x.com/RoisinMichaux

🔗 Apple Podcasts — Peaked

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peaked.substack.com/subscribe