Anonymous Youth Counsellor

Almost a year after the Cass Review was published, it is shocking to me that the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) has failed to address the report’s key findings, and issue revised guidelines for working with gender-confused children and young people.  The report is clear that exploring a young client’s distress in a holistic manner, and looking at other emotional and mental health issues, should be our initial response. 

 

Far from embracing this vital role for therapists, however, the BACP has avoided taking any responsibility for what is a clear remit for their members.  Instead, replies to questions about why the BACP has not responded to the Review state that “our members have no role in these medical interventions”.  This is both disingenuous and inaccurate.  The role of counsellors and other mental health professionals is key in addressing gender distress, and may actually avoid the need for ‘medical interventions’ – something which most ordinary people would regard as a good thing.

 

It is, however, unsurprising, as the BACP remains a signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy. This document makes no distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity, which are two very different things – sexual orientation clearly rests on sexual attraction and behaviour, while gender identity involves the highly-contested belief that a person can be ‘born in the wrong body’ and ‘identify’ as something other than their biological sex.  Secondly, it does not differentiate between working with adults and children, which is a grave safeguarding oversight – and one which led to the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) withdrawing from the Memorandum, despite protests from some members.

 

The BACP has continued to publish articles supporting an unthinking ‘affirmative’ approach to gender distress in young people, regardless of Dr Cass’s warning that social transition is not ‘a neutral act’ and despite the known dangers of puberty blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones on young healthy bodies.  At the same time, submissions advocating a cautious, curious and exploratory approach to these issues have not been accepted.

 

Many counsellors and psychotherapists are required to be a member of the BACP.  However, all of this is indicative of a supposedly professional organisation being captured by an ideology which has no basis in science or reality, and attempting to shut down dissenting voices.  This is entirely unacceptable – but it becomes extraordinarily dangerous when the wellbeing of children and young people is at stake.  This should never be sacrificed to support the delusions of a few misguided adults

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Trainee Student

I’m training at a university where the priority is equality, diversity and inclusion, with a focus on ‘anti-oppressive practice’. There is greater emphasis, however, on some ‘protected characteristics’ rather than others. Most of my counselling tutors focus on neurodiversity and gender identity. Gender ideology is taught as fact.  There is no acknowledgement that other views are available and there is no reference to them in the reading lists.

 

Training regularly uses the language of critical social justice. We learn about the myriad ways in which we may accidentally commit ‘micro-aggressions’ and the world is defined by various forms of oppression. The result has a chilling effect on people’s ability to speak freely. Tutors talk about ‘conversion therapy’ as if it is a feature of practice in the UK (it isn’t) and appear oblivious to the fact that a majority of young people identifying as trans are same-sex attracted, and it is therefore reasonable to argue that affirmation of gender identity is in itself a form of conversion therapy.  Which tutor you have determines the extent to which you can speak freely about doubts or critiques of these topics. Two of the tutors signed an open letter against a statement by the UKCP which explained that gender critical views are legal.

 

Being sceptical of gender identity, I routinely feel very anxious in lectures and discussions when gender identity is mentioned. It’s like being subjected to gaslighting. Some students who know my thoughts on this subject have become increasingly frosty. I have been subject to a verbal attack for my views, and although tutors are supportive on a personal level, there is a strange incongruence around the topic.

 

Two things trouble me. Firstly, that universities can be so ideologically driven in their pursuit of inclusivity that they actually alienate any student who does not fall into line, and they are not interested in viewpoint diversity – the core of any pursuit of truth. Secondly, I am disturbed by the idea that the therapy space should become politicised in such a way that therapists are called on to promote social justice.  I see this position as unethical and anti-therapeutic.

 

I see gender affirmation therapy and the medicalisation of gender-related distress as yet another scandal perpetrated by psychotherapy, akin the lobotomies of the past.  We will look back on this period of history with the same incredulity and shame. Meanwhile, those of us who see the problem now are made to feel like we are hateful bigots. 

 

Wake up, therapists. You are not ‘just being kind’: you are actively doing harm

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Anonymous School Counsellor

Alfie* is convinced that he is, in fact, a girl. Alfie will happily tell anyone who will listen that he is no different from any other 17-year-old girl, and it is transphobic to suggest otherwise.  There can be no discussion, because Alfie actually feels that he needs to be a girl; that it is the only way he can survive what has happened to him and move forward.

 

Alfie was left alone to be raised by his dad, aged ten, when his alcoholic mum left.  Alfie’s dad was an angry and violent man, who took his frustrations out on the son he should have been caring for.  One day, Alfie hit him back.  Unaware of his own strength as, by then, a fully developed teenage boy, he knocked his father to the ground.  Appalled by what he had done – and fearing both for his own safety and also that he was turning into his father – he fled to his aunt’s house.  On the spur of the moment, hiding in her bedroom, he tried on one of her dresses – it felt nice, it smelt nice. Best of all, suddenly he wasn’t Alfie anymore.

 

He had found a way to blot Alfie out, to leave him behind. The relief was extraordinary. He came out as ‘trans’ in school that week, and his new name and pronouns were accepted without question. Some girls lent him items of uniform, and his aunt supported him – she always wanted a daughter.  His dad disowned him, and said he never wanted to see him again – which he regarded as a huge win.

 

So Alfie needs to be girl – and as long as he can be girl, everything will be alright. Except it isn’t – there’s something wrong, which he can’t quite put his finger on.  Apart from anything else, he feels girls “shouldn’t like football” as much as he does – and he still fancies girls, which “makes life difficult”.  Now he has come to therapy.  Without the ability to explore all aspects of Alfie’s experience, something which a conversion therapy ban may limit, how will this young man ever be able to make sense of his feelings and come to terms with his story?

 

(*Alfie’s name has been changed).

 

 

Anonymous Youth Counsellor

I recently had a discussion with a teenage client which illustrates the complexity of the debate on gender, the current state of society and the sensitivity needed in working with gender-confused children – even when they appear certain that they wish to transition.

 

A teenage girl, identifying as male for the last eight months, told me that she can’t wait to be able to start taking testosterone, so her voice will be lowered and a she can grow a beard – and then she will feel ‘safe’ to explore her femininity.  She went on to explain that she loves ‘her feminine side’, wearing dresses and make-up, but will feel more secure doing this as ‘an effeminate man’. There will then be no threat of being a sex object for straight boys, or being harassed by men – she can just enjoy being a girl for herself. 

 

I enquired about plans for surgery. She shuddered and said she had none. She just wants a boy’s appearance superficially – with a facial hair and a deep voice – so that she can play at being a girl, rather than be ‘an actual girl’.  That way she can do so in peace.

 

 

Anonymous Counsellor

I really became aware of the wider issues around gender ideology during debates about reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA).  I was struck first by how angry people were when discussing it – including qualified therapists – and then I was shocked to realise, as I dug deeper, that safeguarding, and everything we’ve understood about child development and the needs of women, had become forbidden topics for some mental health experts, particularly those working with children and young people.

 

The outrage over a very reasonable letter which Stephanie Davis Arai had published in the BACP’s journal, Therapy Today, really shocked me.  I’ve been shocked ever since at the lack of curiosity around this subject – and the cowardice.  It really feels like a strange time to be a mental health professional, when some of your peers literally can’t tolerate any dissent from their deeply held yet extraordinary beliefs. It seems particularly cruel to me that there are people who believe babies and young children can be ‘trans’ and should be encouraged to think that they can change sex.  It is also homophobic, as many gender non-conforming children will later grow up to be gay.  These claims of an ‘inner identity’, divorced from reality, would have seemed extraordinary just five years ago, which says something about the climate we’re living in.

 

I’d like the Government to define what they mean when they say ‘gender identity’ and what is meant by ‘affirmation therapy’.  I believe my job is to support clients along in their personal journey, whatever that is.  It is not to foreclose on their options for them, or decide what is best for them.  I listen to the stories of the de-transitioners and the disempowered parents of young people who are just exploring their identity and my heart breaks.  I think we are on the verge of a major medical scandal and I fear our profession will be partly at fault.

 

 

University Counsellor

When James Esses started the petition to safeguard exploratory therapy for gender dysphoric children, I shared it on a professional email group that I’ve been in for 25 years. It’s a national group for university counsellors, with over a hundred members. There was a bit of pushback, but it died down and I thought no more of it until three months later, when I received an email from a law firm on behalf of my regulatory body. They were carrying out a disciplinary investigation, under an article in the disciplinary procedure, equivalent to gross misconduct in a work setting.

 

My blood ran cold and I went into panic mode.  They had received a complaint about my professional conduct.  The complainant was anonymous.  The complainant, a fellow university counsellor, had gone into my social media, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and sent them screenshots of tweets and posts.  I had nine allegations to answer, and if they were not satisfied, I would have my membership terminated.  There is no middle ground under this article, no temporary sanctions, just termination.

 

The tweets in question all expressed concern for the impact of gender identity ideology on young people, especially lesbian and gay people.  At this point I’d been an accredited registered member for 26 years, without a single complaint.  I reached out to colleagues who suggested I contact the Free Speech Union (FSU), which I did.  I also spoke to my professional liability insurance company, who appointed a solicitor to help me with my response to the complaint.  It had to be good, I only had one chance or my career would be over.  The solicitor was not knowledgeable about these issues and I had to educate her out of the ‘be kind’ position that she started from.  After a couple of weeks she said she felt she needed to involve a more specialist barrister and agreed to my suggestion of Naomi Cunningham.  We had a two-hour Zoom meeting and she drafted a response.  In the meantime the FSU was great – they also got their legal team to write a report summarising the legal position, which was used by Naomi in her response.

 

I was then asked to provide a few character witnesses to write a character reference for me.  This was tricky, several colleagues I’ve known for many years were more than happy to do this, but one in particular surprised me by writing what I can only describe as ‘evidence for the prosecution’.  I was shocked, as I thought we were friends, I thought we were singing from the same hymn sheet, I thought she had my back, but alas these things reveal the truth about people.  

 

After several weeks we finalised the response and submitted it.  A long wait ensued, but finally I was vindicated and the case was dropped.  However, for that to happen I had to accept the legal advice I was given; to agree that my language was inappropriate and I wouldn’t do it again.  My social media does not identify me as a counsellor, and wasn’t in my real name but that didn’t seem to matter – apparently we are still meant to imagine a client reading whatever we write in a public space.  So, while gender ideologues can run continuing professional development (CPD) events, have numerous articles published and be lorded as champions of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), we are shamed, punished and threatened for expressing alternative, gender critical views.

 

 

Anonymous Therapist/Counsellor

A 15 year-old lesbian got into a relationship with a 15-year-old trans girl (born male, but identifying as female). Despite both being under the age of consent, they mutually agreed to the relationship becoming sexual. The girl was expecting ‘a lesbian encounter’. Instead, she experienced full heterosexual intercourse.

 

The girl came to counselling in distress as she was not sure whether or not she had been raped.  She had given her consent to sex, but did not expect what happened next, although she said that she knew that her sexual partner had a “girl dick”.  She also understood that in law, a female cannot be charged with rape. They had not used any form of contraception because she believed that ‘a trans girl is a girl’ and that two girls cannot become pregnant.

 

Currently, a counsellor could face criticism for pointing out the obvious – that biologically, there is no such thing as ‘a girl dick’, and that this lesbian girl had in fact experienced heterosexual sex.  Secondly, by alerting the girl to the possibility of pregnancy, a counsellor faces a linguistic minefield in any attempt to impart the information that a young person with male biology and a young person with female biology in a sexual relationship can produce a child, regardless of how they ‘identify’ at that moment.  The confusion sown in the minds of adolescents by trans ideology is enormous. I regularly feel helpless in a situation where clearly there are safeguarding issues, but where speaking the truth is seen as an act of bigotry, and where the law and the language remain unclear.

 

 

Anonymous Youth Counsellor

After watching the movie, Barbie, I was left wondering about the audience at whom the film was aimed.  Plastic cars, boats and bikes; fold-away houses; and lots of dolls, with lashings of pink, suggested that the target audience was children – and yet elements of the film struck me as rather disturbing for younger children, even if accompanied by an adult.  As an adult, my head was left spinning by what is surely one of the strangest films I have ever seen.

 

However, I have since discovered one demographic left deeply moved and emotionally distressed by Barbie – some of the trans-identifying young people with whom I work.  “I cried almost from start to finish”, one young trans-boy told me.  “That was my childhood – playing with dolls… I loved Barbie till I knew I could never be a girl like that”.  Now identifying as male, sexually attracted to girls and using they/them pronouns, this young person went on to explain that the character they most identified with in the film was Allan, Ken’s rather uncool and characterless friend. The young person reminded me that Allan was originally sold with the reassurance that although he wasn’t Ken, he could “fit into all Ken’s clothes”.  My young client quietly added, “That’s what life feels like for me”. This is heart-breaking.

 

In the film, Allan definitely isn’t one of the Kens – the chiselled, beach loving companions for the Barbies.  He’s seen as a bit of a misfit, who seems to prefer hanging out with the Barbies rather than with the other boys, but is largely ignored by both groups. In fact, he doesn’t really fit in anywhere.  “I can wear the clothes, but I’m not a Ken”, echoed another young person.  “I’m not Barbie either – I prefer being with the Barbies, but the Barbies I know don’t want me. I’m different from them”.

 

As a counsellor working with adolescents, these conversations emphasised to me the vital importance of an open-minded, sensitive and in-depth exploration of each young person’s individual world.  We need to understand the meaning that young people have drawn from their experiences, their environments and their relationships.  Identity politics provides a world full of arbitrary boxes to tick and choices to make. The choices are inevitably ‘either/or’, rather than ‘both/and’.  Nuance is lost and the lines between ‘normal’ and ‘not normal’ grow more rigid and oppressive by the day. The pain and peril of being excluded is excruciating, and young people understandably look for a way out.

 

It strikes me as negligent in these circumstances that a child – yes, we are talking about children here – who insists that they are the opposite sex and longs to take testosterone ‘to fit in’ could be taken at face value, without these safeguards. Think for a minute – do we affirm an anorexic child’s desire to starve themselves, and their belief that they are fat?  Of course we do not.  For trans-identifying children to be immediately affirmed as something they are not, and put on the road towards medical and surgical intervention to their healthy young bodies shows an incomprehensible lack of care, curiosity or compassion – and yet that is what is seemingly expected of those of us working with young people, despite the findings of the Cass Review, if we wish to avoid censure. 

 

Instead, we should be shouting from the roof tops that there is no one way to be woman or a man, and that being different from what is fleetingly and narrowly perceived as ‘normal’ in one small corner of the world is not cause to question your entire identity. In the end, even Barbie tries to acknowledge that.

 

 

Anonymous School Counsellor

I have been a school counsellor for some years now, and have been working with an increasing number of girls who identify as boys. Two common themes have emerged from their stories: experience of male violence in childhood, either directed at the girl, or at her mother, which has left the girl feeling that to be female is to be weak; and exposure to violent and degrading pornography, together with the expectation that this is what sex with boys inevitably involves. Instead of questioning the dominant narrative, many seek an escape by presenting as the opposite sex.

 

Where once a girl might have adopted a feminist position and determined never to be dependent on a man, or never to marry or become trapped in an abusive relationship, trans ideology has opened the door to the idea of a different – and entirely false –

choice: ‘perhaps I could avoid all this by growing up as a man instead?’.  Likewise, where once a girl felt she could say ‘no’ to an unwanted sexual encounter, the ‘sex positive’ narrative has normalised all kinds of minority (and in some cases, damaging) practices, which can leave girls wondering whether or not they really are a girl, if they find these acts frightening or repulsive.

 

The counselling and psychotherapy membership bodies’ Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK permits only the exploration of “uncertain feelings around sexuality and gender identity”, but without exception, the young people I have worked with are certain that they are trans – until suddenly they are not.

 

One teenage girl, having identified as a trans boy for over a year, arrived in a counselling session and announced, “I’ve decided I’m not trans. I’m so done with that. Most trans kids adopt that identity in place of a personality. It’s boring”. Only a few weeks beforehand, this child had been adamant that she was in fact a young man.  She had now realised that she could be a same-sex-attracted, baggy-jeans-wearing, bass-guitar-playing female. She described the experience as “like coming home”. This clearly illustrates the dangers of going down a solely affirmative route, even with young people who claim to be “certain”, as well as a profound lack of understanding of child and adolescent psychology and the long-term effects of adverse childhood experience.

 

Another girl described as the most painful time of her life, “my mother standing by and watching her boyfriend hit me”.  As she reached puberty, and her breasts developed, she was overcome with horror that she was growing into her mother.  She came out as a transgender boy shortly afterwards, and decided that she was a gay boy. In fact, her ‘boyfriend’ was another transgender boy, biologically female but apparently fleeing pornographic exploitation at the hands of a variety of young men by ‘becoming male’.

 

A third girl identifying as male came to me with a complaint: the PE teacher at school had separated girls and boys into two teams. My young client had then asked which team trans people should join. The PE teacher offered a free choice.  “So which team did you join?”, I enquired.  This young person looked at me with barely concealed contempt, “The girls’ team, of course.  I hate boys – they’re big, they’re rough, they’re unkind. I was never going to join their team”.  Over the following weeks, we explored this further, and by the end of therapy, this girl had chosen to identify instead as ‘feminine non-binary’. 

 

Finally, a client with a violent father and an emotionally absent mother, decided in the course of a couple of sessions that she was also ‘feminine non-binary’, rather than a trans boy.  Her firm belief initially that she was male was entirely predicated on her understanding that girls like certain things and behave in one way, particularly sexually, and boys like different things and behave in a different way.  She had come to counselling because she still wanted to dress like a girl, but didn’t feel she could be a girl because she wasn’t stereotypically ‘girly’.  

 

Far from being progressive, the proliferation of trans ideology has led to some very regressive beliefs about gender stereotypes which I thought had been dismantled at least a generation ago.  It concerns me that, repeatedly, I have witnessed the relative speed with which apparently firm conviction about being trans becomes doubt, when young people have a chance to talk freely and openly about their lives.  With traumatic back stories and suffering acute unhappiness, many have latched on to the seemingly easy option of leaving their distress behind by becoming someone else – and someone who, in their eyes, can’t experience those terrible things. 

 

This convinces me of the vital importance of exploring all aspects of incongruence with one’s biological sex in a respectful and patient manner, without an agenda. This is what open-minded, person-centred therapy looks like.  Given the pathway down which affirmation can lead, and the irreversible procedures involved in transitioning, it would be a gross abdication of the safeguarding duties of adults to outlaw these exploratory conversations just because a young girl appears ‘certain’ that she is a boy, and vice versa.

 

 

Anonymous Psychologist

During a long career, I first worked with a gender dysphoric pupil in around 2006-8. I advised the secondary school about how to be a welcoming and supportive environment for this young person (a girl who from early years stated she felt like a boy). I met with the pupil a few times just for reassurance and to support the pupil’s move into secondary school.  There was little doubt, for me, that this was a classic case of dysphoria.

 

Over the years, I continued to discuss the growing numbers of ‘trans’ children with psychologist colleagues, but I started to self-censor – not because of disapproval, but in case colleagues thought I was going on too much about this issue. I raised it in school, too, with teaching colleagues. I found that the teachers I spoke to were more interested than my fellow psychologist colleagues, which I thought was odd.

 

Things came to the fore with the publication of the Scottish Government’s Supporting Trans Pupils in Schools Guidelines in August 2021.  At a team meeting, my psychologist colleagues and I went through the guidelines and commented on sections.  I waited to hear what everyone said before I spoke.  They were all very positive about the guidelines. I found it hard to contain myself as the guidelines are, in my view, shocking in their lack of research rigour and in the faulty claims about many things including breast binding, affirmation and social transitioning.

 

I gave a robust opinion about how poor and flawed the guidelines were and how we as psychologists and advisors to schools and to the council should be advising against using these guidelines. There was silence from my colleagues. We had a further meeting to conclude on the guidelines. Everyone knew what my critique was, but there was little comment from anyone else. They weren’t hostile, just not that bothered and couldn’t see what was harmful. I provided a written summary of the flaws in the guidelines. I also offered to provide a summary of key ‘Things to Know’ about gender ideology and the potential impacts and implications for pupils in schools, and for schools themselves, and why it was important for educational psychologists to be ahead of the game.

 

We had another session where I talked to the written summary I had created but again, no-one seemed very interested, so I refrained from further discussion. From time to time I made folk aware of key news items, for example regarding GIDS, but I kept this to a minimum.  During 2022, my secondary school invited me to run continuing professional development (CPD) session for support staff. This went very well and the teaching staff were amazed at some of the issues I raised, such as the harms of breast binders, puberty blockers, affirmation etc. I suggested possible points for action for the school but given the backdrop of Covid at the time, nothing much happened regarding the school’s internal planning processes.  Basically, the school continued as before, including the ongoing activities of the LGBT youth group.

 

In June 2022, not long before I retired for good, I was invited to present a session on ‘trans’ to the whole psychological service. This session went well with lots of comment and questions from colleagues. But I had a sense that I was largely being humoured because I was retiring. Since I’ve retired and things have really ‘hotted-up’ in Scotland, I see no progress in my colleagues’ behaviour; they have kept very quiet indeed.

 

 

Anonymous Psychotherapist

I originally trained as a social worker and pretty quickly started specialising in mental health.  I did a Masters at the Tavistock in Social Work, and then finished my psychotherapy training fourteen years’ ago.  My background is in psychodynamic and integrative therapy and I have worked a lot in the NHS as a clinician, mostly with adults but also, in the last five years, with adolescents.

 

We saw a rise, in the NHS, of people presenting with gender identity issues. I would ask a 14-year-old girl, who would say she thought she was a boy, “Tell me what you think a boy is? Or what a girl is?”.   And, often, they would say things such as, “My teacher says, because I like playing football or rugby and I don’t like a lot of things that girls like, that maybe I’m trans”.   We know a majority of girls or boys who are gender non-conforming will probably grow up to be lesbian or gay, and I certainly noticed a couple of teenagers whose parents preferred to transition their child rather than cope with them being gay.

 

I remember how nervous I was, even talking about this, and wondering whether we would be seen, as clinicians, as being transphobic.   I always took the view that we need to explore the person’s mind, their family, their situation, and their expectations of what changing their gender would do for them.

 

On one occasion I had a client, who was born a woman and was socially transitioning to be a man, and they wanted to go on cross-sex hormones. They had borderline personality disorder and a history of suicide attempts, and I remember saying that that person wasn’t stable enough, and their suicide risk may increase if they transition.  If their expectation of everything being better after transition is not met, they may be left very disappointed which, in turn, could increase the risk of suicide.  One of the clinical psychologists said, “You can’t say that”.  I replied that saying, “Yes, I can. The client’s pre-existing distress due to their personality disorder, won’t go away just by transitioning”.

 

Then, in a company where I was working and where therapists provided consultation to parents, we noticed a large increase in parents who were worried about their children wanting to transition.  Certainly in the last few years, we have had parents sometimes saying, “Mermaids (a charity set up to support trans and non-binary children) said if we don’t accept our child as trans, they will kill themselves. We will lose our child if we don’t accept this”.

 

We were sufficiently concerned to suspend signposting to Mermaids last summer, pending  the company doing some due diligence of Mermaids’ quality assurance processes – but Mermaids was reinstated.  My company didn’t like it when I enquired what their due diligence entailed and whether Mermaids had sought parent feedback following receiving a service. I learned that due diligence involved having a chat with Mermaids’ senior managers who reassured my company.

 

I then wrote a paper incorporating some of the findings from the then-interim Cass Review, setting out the guidelines that we should be thinking about when advising parents about their gender distressed young people.  I stated that being trans does not trump the rights of other people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act, such as women, girls, gay men and lesbians etc. I highlighted the presence of co-morbid mental health problems and neurodiversity, and stated that a lot of gender distress was, in fact, a result of sexism and homophobia.  Some of the senior managers were really quite appreciative of that but one of them, who ended up occupying a senior role, didn’t respond and it turned out she didn’t like what I said.

 

When the Charity Commission launched its investigation into Mermaids, following allegations of safeguarding breaches, the company carried on signposting to Mermaids and emailed us to say they were going to continue doing that. They had telephoned and spoken to Mermaids and they felt reassured.  When I was a social worker, I had worked with abusive fathers who reassured us they weren’t being abusive, so I wrote to my immediate bosses, outlining the prevent principle of safeguarding. The normal procedure should be to suspend work with the organisation under investigation until, in this instance, the findings of the Charity Commission’s investigations are made known.

 

I then escalated that to the acting CEO who is not a clinician.  I wrote to him, he emailed me, thanked me and invited me to meet with him.  A few weeks later, we met, and I told him what my concerns were about safeguarding.  I explained that it’s very difficult, as a therapist, to be talking to a parent and appearing to be neutral, if they can see on the website we are still signposting to Mermaids when we had agreed to take a neutral, non-ideological position.

 

The CEO asked me where we would we refer people if not to Mermaids.  I said that that was irrelevant. He didn’t fully know what allegations the Charity Commission was investigating. He also said “Isn’t the harm minimisation measure giving girls breast binders just the same as giving teenagers who self-harm a clean-blade?”.  I replied that in the NHS, as a therapist, I would always involve parents in giving bandages and clean blades to teenagers, together with a programme worked out.  He didn’t know that breast binders can cause damage to the growing bones. It really shocked me that they had made a decision about Mermaids, without really knowing the seriousness of the safeguarding concerns, and were continuing to signpost to them.

 

About a week later when the Charity Commission escalated their investigation, only then did the company stop signposting to Mermaids. The acting CEO then wrote to me and thanked me for the perspective that I bought but the other (less experienced) managers weren’t happy with me going above their heads.  They thought I was undermining them and they called me into a meeting to tell me this. I explained that safeguarding, in any organisation, is everyone’s business and you should be able to go to anyone because it is more important than everything else.  After that meeting, I wrote to the managers to inform them I had not broken any of their own safeguarding policies by escalating my concerns.

 

Then, at a second meeting, just before Christmas my contract was terminated with immediate effect. The company had finally stopped signposting to Mermaids. They claimed this was because of the Charity Commission investigation, but they sacked me anyway because they considered my actions undermining.  In the termination letter they actually said, “You have justified your relation into Mermaids”.  I think what they meant was my input, but it was a really poorly constructed sentence. I had earlier advised them to signpost to the Bayswater Support Group which was referred to in this letter, as “unwarranted commentary”.

 

In summary, I am a psychotherapist, previously a social worker, with experience of working with young trans people. but my views are considered “unwarranted commentary” – and they put that in writing.   I am currently taking a case against the company.  My lawyer is arguing direct discrimination due to my gender critical beliefs, victimisation, harassment, protected disclosure detriment (raising and escalating safeguarding concerns) and breach of contract.