UPDATE 22
5 November 2025
Dear Supporter
Welcome to the November update. In a departure from our usual format, we will be focusing on a story that broke last week in the Sunday Telegraph. It highlights the failures of the three main professional organisations for psychotherapy and psychology in the UK to protect gender-questioning children and young people. Lucy Beney comments on this story in her latest fiery piece The Great Betrayal. We conclude on a note of hope from Genspect who have issued a Policy Statement calling for the restoration of clinical clarity to gender distress.
'Are we putting children in danger?': "Yes"
"It has been 18 months since the Cass Review was published and nothing has happened". These are the words of Dr Christian Buckland, former Chair of the UK Council for Counselling and Psychotherapy (UKCP), in an interview with Talk TV last week. This followed revelations exposed in the Sunday Telegraph by Dr Buckland and three other former leaders: Martin Pollecoff, former Chair of the UKCP; Professor Nigel McLennan, former President-Elect of the British Psychological Society (BPS); and Natalie Bailey, former Chair of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Collectively they blew the whistle on their respective professional organisations for failing to "protect gender-questioning children from policies that would encourage them to be trans and go on to receive life-altering drugs and surgery".
These organisations are culpable because the Cass Review, published in April 2024, declared that: 'Professional bodies must come together to provide leadership and guidance on the clinical management of this population taking account of the findings of this report' (p.45). The Review also stated that: "Clinical staff need support and guidance from their professional bodies to apply the evidence-based approaches described in this report". Clinical staff are still waiting for that support and guidance.
It is not only a failure of leadership and guidance on the part of these organisations but, in some cases, their continued promotion of the 'gender-affirming' approach, criticised in the Cass Review, that is placing young people at risk of being put on a pathway to medical interventions and irreversible surgery. There is also a tension between the Cass Review recommendations and the current version of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK. The MoU is undoubtedly a factor influencing the judgement of professional organisations. While Dr Cass called for exploratory interventions, proponents of the MoU view such interventions as a form of 'conversion therapy'. As a result, clinical staff are concerned about using exploratory interventions due to fears of being accused of practising 'conversion therapy'.
As Peter Jenkins points out in his excellent two-part article, the MoU, in its current form, has a problematic role "as a trans activist political coalition, geared to advancing trans causes linked in various ways to banning conversion therapy". The MoU was originally created in 2015 as an inter-professional agreement designed to protect same-sex attracted adults and was signed by all the professional bodies. In 2017 it was revised to include gender identity. When it became clear that the revised version also included children, Dr Buckland and his Board of Trustees at the UKCP withdrew its signature from the Memorandum, citing concerns about the safeguarding and welfare of gender-questioning children. Michael Pollecoff, who was president of the UKCP prior to Dr Buckland, reports that "he had only discovered he was a signatory on a revised memorandum including children two years after he had left the organisation, despite never having agreed to it. He says he has "since told the UKCP chief executive to 'tear it up' because it is 'fraudulent'. This is surely something that should be brought to the attention of the Charity Commission.
There is no doubt that activists are playing a major role in disrupting the implementation of the Cass Review. The role of activism both within and without the professional bodies was discussed in detail in this articlepublished by Save Mental Health in July 2024. How prescient that article seems now. The Sunday Telegraph reports that Dr Buckland was subjected to death threats and bullying by activists, while Professor MacLennan and Natalie Bailey were both accused of wrong-doing by the BPS and BACP respectively for asking difficult questions and were dismissed. Both are contesting the allegations against them.
What a tangled web our professional bodies have woven and how tragic that they have trapped so many vulnerable children and their parents in that web. If this story has stirred you to act, please look out for further information arriving in your inbox. Save Mental Health is currently working with Dr Christian Buckland and others to mount a campaign encouraging practitioners, parents and members of the public, troubled by the revelations in the Sunday Telegraph, to write to the Professional Standards Authorityand the Charity Commission expressing their concerns. This story will not end here.
The Great Betrayal
Our child health correspondent, Lucy Beney has written an excoriating critique of the BACP, the largest professional body for counselling and psychotherapy in the UK, in relation to the report in the Telegraph. Lucy points out that not only has the BACP failed to acknowledge the existence of the Cass Review, but it also continues to promote gender identity ideology and to pursue an "ideological assault" on childhood. She criticises the BACP for its response to the UK Supreme Court judgement on biological sex, stating that it shows 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." Lucy also refers to a BACP podcast 'Good Enough Counsellors' in which two therapists express shock and sadness at the Supreme Court judgement and view the subsequent violent protest in London as a reason for hope. It's clear from Lucy's troubling account that there is no hope for the BACP under its current regime.
Genspect's Policy Statement on Restoring Clinical Clarity on Gender Distress
There is, though, one ray of hope on the horizon in the form of Genspect's Policy Statement on Restoring Clinical Clarity on Gender Distress by Stella O'Malley, Amanda Miller and Mia Hughes. Genspect calls for 'the restoration of mental health safeguards in the treatment of gender-related distress' through a campaign to 're-psychopathologize the drive to medically transition'. In effect, this represents a 'counter campaign' to that of WPATHwhich sought to de-pathologise the drive to medically transition and to 'demote mental health professionals to facilitators'.
Genspect are using the concept of the 'extreme overvalued belief' to provide a 'coherent clinical framework for understanding this phenomenon'. They explain that 'this should not be mistaken for stigmatization' but instead, as representing 'the restoration of clinical clarity.' The document concludes by calling on'governments, medical associations, and mental health authorities to take immediate and coordinated action to restore clinical integrity in the treatment of gender-related distress', listing a number of actions that should be taken. In Save Mental Health's opinion, Genspect have taken a bold step in the right direction and we applaud them for their courage, integrity, and determination.