The Great Betrayal

With each day that passes, the great betrayal of children and young people by the psychological establishment becomes clearer.  Distressed and vulnerable young people have been sacrificed, by so-called professionals, on the altar of all-pervasive gender ideology, in a way that would have been unthinkable only a short time ago. 

In the psychological professions, we are supposed to be self-aware and offer a neutral space for exploration and reflection.  We are supposed to be curious about how and why a person’s thinking has become distorted, their peace-of-mind disturbed and their heart and soul unsettled.

We are supposed to be rational, compassionate and seek to alleviate distress, not ‘normalise’ it.  We should be able to weigh up evidence, understand ethics and seek truth.  We need to be prepared to challenge and to call out delusion, not collude with it. 

This is no longer what is happening.

Ideology Trumps Independence of Thought

In the UK, the professional membership bodies – representing counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists – instead choose unthinking adherence to a pernicious luxury belief, which is entirely unmoored from either science or reality.  The way in which universal acceptance of gender ideology is both expected and enforced would leave the architects of the communist purges proud.  As a colleague said recently, therapy has now been ‘repurposed’ into a form of indoctrination, rather than an open and honest exploration of individual issues, to move towards healing. 

Research has clearly highlighted the flimsy foundations of so-called ‘gender medicine’, including the dangers of ‘social transition’.  We have the ground-breaking Cass Review into the care of gender-confused children, which warns against the ‘affirmative’ approach to gender issues and advocates curiosity, caution and a thorough psycho-social evaluation of each young person. The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) has been exposed as more activist than accurate – partisan rather than professional – in its standards of care for distressed young people; and the Supreme Court has clarified the law on biological sex in a way which should never have been necessary.

These developments appear to have been ignored by our profession’s leaders. 

Childhood Matters

Decades of understanding of child development have been overlooked.  Young children need to play imaginatively, to create their own worlds, and can switch seamlessly between fantasy and reality; many adolescents feel ‘different’ in some way from their peers and desperately wish they could be someone else.  This is now exploited, as those “fluent in the new vocabulary while sidelining others”[1] tell children that some people’s “innate and self-defined identity” does not match their body.  At the same time, they offer a menu of off-the-shelf options for ‘gender’ and sexuality to those whose minds and bodies have yet to fully mature. This is a professionally endorsed form of child abuse. 

Guidance documents for practice and statements of belief issued by these professional bodies dangerously – and seemingly deliberately – also blur the boundaries between working with adults and children. The widely adopted but highly controversial Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy is a case in point. Under its provisions, exploration of how a child of any age has come to ‘identify’ out of their body, could be construed as conversion therapy, if that child firmly believes that they are ‘trans’. Anyone with any experience of working with young people knows that often they are absolutely certain – until suddenly they aren’t anymore.

Generally, the law distinguishes between children and adults.  In failing to do so in this context, professionals undermine the very necessary protection of minors from both themselves and others. It has become increasingly clear that the safety and wellbeing of children is the collateral damage in a race towards an ethical wasteland, which is ill-concealed by the fig-leaf of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) behind which so many ‘progressives’ seek to hide. Adults’ moral responsibility for the wellbeing of children has effectively evaporated.

Calling Time 

The extent of the rot within these organisations was laid bare in a whistle-blowing exposé in The DailyTelegraph on 26th October 2025.  It is still far from clear exactly who has been responsible for the catastrophic direction of policy.  We can only hope that those responsible face full scrutiny, both externally and internally, especially by those members whose subscriptions sustain these bodies.

I was a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), until my resignation in June this year.  After years of drawing attention to the Association’s safeguarding oversights, the final straw for me was their public declaration of support for those upset by a welcome return to reality, presaged by the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on biological sex.  Their statement demonstrated a total disregard for the wellbeing of children, women and gay people whose rights and security are completely undermined without a clear understanding of sex, based in reality.

Abdicating Adult Responsibility

In the last few years, the BACP’s Children,Young People and Families divisional journal should have led the charge against this ideological assault on childhood.  However, Jeanine Connor, who since 2019, has edited the publication, has made no secret of her plans to push gender ideology in the magazine.  In a recent podcast, Good Enough Counsellors,[2] with fellow therapist Josephine Hughes, Ms Connor said,  “I can make sure that articles either written by transgender and gender-questioning people are included and that these conversations are always ongoing and always alive on the pages of the journal”. Apparently, confining these to Pride month is insufficient.

These ‘conversations’, while certainly ongoing, seem to be peculiarly one-sided, with little room for alternative points-of-view.  It is also worth noting that the articles to which she refers include contributions from adults ‘with lived experience’ in the ‘queer community’ who wish to discuss gender identity and sexuality with children in primary school.

Addressing the Supreme Court judgement, Ms Connor declared that “she was horrified and shocked and saddened that that would happen in 2025, in the UK, under a Labour Government”. However, she appeared to view the violent protest in London on the following weekend – which mainly involved aggressive men dressed as porn stars – as a reason for hope. Setting aside her lack of understanding that the role of the courts is simply to interpret the law, it demonstrates an extraordinarily cavalier attitude to honesty.

In the podcast, Ms Connor describes safeguarding concerns around gender-confused children simply as ‘a flag' being waved. She wants to ‘call it out’. Ms Connor has evidently never had to explain to a young woman why her sexual relationship with a ‘trans girl’ is not a lesbian relationship but poses the risk of pregnancy – there is no such thing as a ‘girl dick’.  Neither has she apparently had to dissuade two young teenage girls from joining a gay men’s chat room, because they believe they are homosexual boys. Hopefully, she would feel differently if the child’s bodily discomfort manifested as anorexia – but this casual dismissal of the dangers of delusion leaves me far from certain.

In fact, very real red flags for safeguarding are being ignored.  For example, in my experience, most children identifying as ‘trans’ or ‘non-binary’ have experienced some form of childhood trauma or abuse.  Many have been exposed to violent and degrading pornography, leading them to want to opt out of growing up.  A majority have struggled with issues related to same-sex attraction or ‘neurodiversity’.  It is, however, easier to invalidate their back stories and burnish the lie of being ‘born in the wrong body’. It is less challenging to sprinkle everything with a little rainbow glitter – and to speak of ‘authenticity’ while encouraging the opposite – than to listen, learn and work towards a healthy long-term synthesis of body, mind and spirit.

Moving Swiftly On

Early in their conversation, both Hughes and Connor baulk at the idea that trans-identification might be ‘a phase’, even as they discuss how adolescence is a period of profound change. Later, and seemingly without a hint of insight, both admit that a majority of gender-confused young people may end up identifying with their biological sex.  As another colleague remarked to me, “this does not apparently stop these two therapists from doing their level best to muddy the waters for their own vacuous ends”.

Neither does it prevent Ms Connor attempting to normalise a young person’s rejection of their sexed body. Astonishingly, she mused, “when I was pubescent, and having my sexual awakenings as a heterosexual woman, nobody told me I would grow out of it.  They accepted it”.  She demonstrates no understanding of why that might be.  This should, however, come as no surprise. The BACP has long challenged ‘heteronormativity’ – or the attitude which correctly assumes heterosexuality is the ‘norm’ for a majority of people – despite every single human being resulting from the sexual union of gametes from a man and a woman, whether by accident, design or with the helping hand of science.

With Friends Like These

Support for gender-confused young people is seen only in terms of thoughtless ‘allyship’.  Ms Connor believes that the real safeguarding issue lies in denying young people the opportunity to talk to someone about how they are feeling. This is, in fact, what traditional, exploratory therapy offers.  The ‘affirmative’ approach favoured by ‘allies’ has a tendency to blame any ongoing distress on societal factors and the prejudice of others, rather than looking beneath the surface.  Children are instead encouraged to find ‘trans joy’ and fight the ‘hate’.

In fact, Ms Connor’s own therapy space, apparently bedecked with LGBT ephemera, is the antithesis of the neutral environment which is necessary for honest conversations to happen.  As she says, she has ‘nailed her colours to the mast’.  This leaves little room for the uncertain or unsure.  The best way to support a distressed young person is to offer them freedom to speak – to listen and lean into their story – with curiosity and compassion.

The podcast unashamedly trots out the old trope that therapists who will not immediately ‘affirm’ a child’s chosen ‘gender’ are likely to be practitioners of ‘conversion therapy’, although – as they add generously – “they might not call it that”.  This entirely ignores the fact that the form of therapy which they advocate is the most radical form of conversion therapy which ultimately leads to life-long drug dependence; to surgery on healthy bodies; to sterility and sexual dysfunction; and entirely predictable difficulties in forming lasting intimate relationships in the future. 

‘Diversity’ but no Difference

The ‘diversity’ which Ms Connor believes ‘is something that is accepted’ now, appears to be very limited in scope.  There is little room for difference of opinion. She expresses regret over how recent developments have ‘validated those gender critical voices’ – in other words, the voices of sanity.  She neither finds space in the journal for sex realists, nor enables a voice for the gender non-conforming who are content in their bodies and need no special ‘label’. 

The podcast also revealed a conflation of disagreement with ‘hate’ – a common phenomenon in fashionable authoritarian circles.  This is a way to avoid engaging in very necessary debate.  In conversation with Ms Hughes, Connor says, “I do get a lot of…I don’t know what to call it…I’m going to call it ‘hate’, I suppose.  I do get a lot of criticism for the things I say in my articles and in my social media posts”.  Seemingly none of this prompts either reflection or real engagement – key skills in counselling and psychotherapy.

And the Walls Come Tumbling Down

It is now time to discredit gender ideology, in its entirety.  A bizarre fringe idea made it into the mainstream through a combination of luck, deceit and the poor judgement of those in powerful places. And yet, it seems, nobody in a position of responsibility within our professions has been prepared to speak this truth out loud, even to protect children, with the exception of Dr Christian Buckland, former Chair of the UKCP who was subsequently harassed, bullied and ultimately ousted from his position.

We all know, at a visceral level, that there are only two sexes, despite a tiny minority of people who suffer with differences in sexual development (DSD); we know that human beings cannot change sex; and we know that it is not possible to ‘born in the wrong body’, as our physicality is an integral part of who we are. However uncomfortable, we must all grow up.  There is no such being as a ‘transgender child’, only adults projecting their own blinkered beliefs on to young people.

The whole idea rests on an entirely subjective fantasy.  In a perversion of Descartes famous philosophical statement, gender ideology says, “I feel, therefore I am”.  Nobody stops to consider how anyone might know what it feels like to be someone they are not and never can be.  Nobody points out the obvious – that we cannot entirely escape our sexed bodies, whatever drugs and surgery may do.

There are as many ways of being a man or being a woman as there are men and women. However, gender ideology assumes that ‘being a woman’ or ‘being a man’ rests simply on a few regressive markers, experienced in the same way by everyone.  I am sure that very few men who act out their ‘internal sense’ of being female visualise themselves as a woman in Afghanistan or Iran or confined to a menstrual hut in Nepal for days on end. 

I am not convinced that many young women who long to take testosterone envisage manning offshore rigs in a winter gale, or mining copper hundreds of metres underground in the Andean desert.  In this, the movement clearly betrays its roots in the western liberal elite – and sees no irony in now trying to evangelise the rest of the world, just like the missionaries of old, whom they so despise.

The pillars on which gender ideology stands are so fragile, that the entire edifice should have collapsed while still under construction.  It should now be nothing more than an abandoned and derelict site, although it will take some considerable time to sift through the debris – and many of those harmed most profoundly by it will never be whole again. This will be an indelible stain on all those who stood by and let it happen, especially within the psychological professions.  We should have led the demolition effort.

References

[1] El-Nagashi F and Zobnina A, (2025), Beneath the surface: How gender identity is reshaping Europe, Athena Forum.

[2] Hughes J, Jeanine Connor on ‘Adolescence’ and Supporting Trans Youth, Good Enough Counsellors podcast, YouTube, 5 June 2025.