Can anyone help me complain about this?

So as well as compelled speech (you will call me my chosen pronouns or I'll make a complaint and get you fired), and compelled inclusion (if you don't allow me to participate in your women-only/ lesbian-only event I'll get your funding cancelled) we now have compelled therapy (you will talk to me for an hour a week, focussing on my issues and offering me unconditional positive regard and if you let your own feelings show I'll report you to for legal discrimination BACP).

I wonder who's there to protect the therapist?

Discovereads posts don't come across as prejudiced.
Especially where they say trans people can need help just like other people do, and nothing to do with them being trans.
Posters on the other hand saying they wouldn't take trans women at all '' because trans'' - now that's prejudice

Nope. It is not.

How do I know? I also had to find the funding for legal advice. About 4 years ago our single sex services lost 40% of their funding directly because of the influence of gender ideology. We spent a lot of money checking, double checking and re-writing our policies. So much money wasted to add a single sentence, or word in some cases, to justify the bleeding obvious.

So now I will laugh at such wilful daftness. You are wrong.

I doubt we would take you. You seem not to be able to think without your own bias and prejudice being paramount.

Neither could I.
That's blatant discrimination.

Its not discrimination. Its acknowledging that some issues require specialist knowledge, and you can't specialise in everything. So people you cant help are referred elsewhere.

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist
I couldn’t volunteer for a charity that is blatantly discriminating against transpeople in such a way.

Suggest you read the full thread. The tutor wasn’t wholly inaccurate.

Let me see, why would I think that?

Mmmm! Oh yes, work! Transwomen present themselves to one of the charitable organisations I volunteer for for many things, suicide ideation, sexual assault, harassment, depression, domestic abuse etc. ALL of which are linked to them being trans. All of which also require any external support offered, signposting to ther services, to be made with their being trans in mind.

Just as the rape crisis centre refuses entry to any and all transwomen, but refers them onto a different centre, some of our counsellors do not take of transwomen as clients, but refer them onto a different counsellor. I know this because I get anonymised data that measures the breadth and depth of the client base and issues presented.

I spend a good proportion of my daily round finding funding for all sorts of support for all kinds of people, even those I find personally abhorrent (like the counselling and housing support for male sex offenders on release). I do it because I don't have to meet them. I couldn't work with them I choose not to.

You may have chosen the wrong person to argue that point with!

Why do you need to respond back to your tutor.

The fact that the tutor only referenced widely discredited sources for further information, add to that the misinformation the tutor is displaying about what are protected characteristics.

Not all the students will have the resources or knowledge to understand that they can and should challenge poorly prepared and inaccurate statements from tutors.

Why? Precisely why have you dismissed that? Why is it a strawman argument?

If transwoman wants to discuss issues relating to how she is perceived in the world, how to cope, whatver, how is she best served by a therapist whose own beliefs say "Well you can't because you are male"?

The best advice that therapist can give as a referral to another therapist whose own internal beliefs are not so incongruent.

Why would a female therapist who finds herself feeling uncomfortable with a prospective male client be forced to take them on as a client. They should refer them on. As should any male therapist with a female client who he feels uncomfortable with. As should any therapist with any client who causes any misgivings.

Therapy requires truth from both therapist and client. Truth and trust. It is a very intimate, human thing to undertake. Nobody, therapist or client, should undertake it with a person they do not feel safe and comfortable with, That's why referrals exist. That's why therapists undergo supervisory therapy. They need that autonomy and to feel safe using it.

Think about it from a human perspective rather than a legislative one!

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist
No, no I am not suggesting anything of the sort. It’s odd you think trans people only need counselling regarding gender reassignment issues. They are people you know and suffer from all the same life events that give rise to a need for counselling: depression, bereavement, stress, harassment, sexual assault, domestic abuse, etc. The OP would have no legal basis to withhold counselling to a trans person suffering from any of these issues as her GC beliefs would be irrelevant and no barrier to her offering help and guidance.

@Pluvia
This above is a perfect example of a straw man argument. Felt you needed an example of one as you misused the term earlier.

A counsellor might be unable to usefully work with someone undergoing a process of gender reassignment because the process of gender reassignment assumes a belief in gender?

I suppose it's equivalent to a counsellor not being able to work with someone who is Catholic and wanting to discuss a decision to take up the cloth if said counsellor was an atheist?

I can see how a counsellor would be unable to offer much in the way of theological or 'spiritual' advice.

It is an interesting question.

Bloody hell! Are you suggesting @Discovereads that a therapist who recognises their own bias, lack of training, understanding, past experiences etc, should be forced to work with clients who they don't want to work with, fear working with, have no expertise to work with?

Are you conflating legally held beliefs with illegal discrimination?

Are you saying that a transwoman would want to be seen by a therapist who fundamentally disagreed with the root cause of the issues being presented? What good would that do anyone?

The protected characteristic in the Act is being interpreted by tribunals to include people who identify as non-binary, gender fluid or transitioning.

It's been interpreted by one tribunal in that way, and the person very clearly met the definition of an MTF "transsexual" under the protected characteristic of "gender reassignment" as defined in the EA. The "non binary" part is a red herring.

When the OP is fully qualified and practicing, how will you know when she tells a transgender or gay or black client that she doesn't feel that she is the best counsellor for them whether she a) doesn't feel she's the best counsellor for them or b) is illegally discriminating against them?

You can’t tell in isolation, but only by joining up dots to show a pattern of rejection. As in, it will be pretty obvious over time to clinic management if she rejects every trans/gay/black patient that comes through her door. Her reasons will be rightly deduced to be tissue paper excuses to obscure illegal discrimination. The tutor was right to gently warn her about discrimination under the Equality Act because her comments are vaguely implying she might exclude any/all trans from practice merely because they are trans.

Isn't this a straw man argument?

No it’s the examples you asked for as to what discrimination under the Equality Act might consist of.

Are you aware of counsellors and therapists who openly and specifically refuse to work with certain clients because they're gay or Muslim or black or whatever?

No, I made no mention of the rate at which counsellors do break the law by illegally discriminating because again, you asked for hypothetical examples as to what would constitute discrimination under the Equality Act.

Isn't this a straw man argument?

Are you aware of counsellors and therapists who openly and specifically refuse to work with certain clients because they're gay or Muslim or black or whatever? We're talking about accredited, trained counsellors, not people who just advertise themselves as counsellors. How many counsellors and therapists are removed from their accreditation bodies each year for illegal discrimination?

I've read the latest bacp report I can find and they don't spell out what complaints led to 13 people being removed from their register.
www.bacp.co.uk/media/11019/bacp-ppc-annual-report-2020.pdf

When the OP is fully qualified and practicing, how will you know when she tells a transgender or gay or black client that she doesn't feel that she is the best counsellor for them whether she a) doesn't feel she's the best counsellor for them or b) is illegally discriminating against them?

illegal discrimination

Well that’s easy. If you refuse to treat anyone specifically due to a protected characteristic such as their sex, religion, race, nationality, sexual orientation etc per the Equality Act. As in, saying I don’t counsel black people. Or Muslims. Or trans people “because I’d find it difficult to empathise”. That’s discrimination.

legal care decisions:

Deciding you cannot help a patient with gender identity issues or gender dysphoria because that is not your area of expertise would not be illegal discrimination. Or deciding you cannot help a patient who needs sexual trauma counselling because your own history as a survivor of sexual assault makes it too triggering.

You’re not rejecting patients because of who they are, but because the counselling they need you genuinely cannot provide.

• A counsellor with a sexual abuse history who refuses to work with a sex offender.

So what are you talking about? Give me an example of a situation in which a counsellor refusing to work with a particular individual would be legal discrimination.

FFS @Pluvia I have already tried to clarify for you on this thread that not discriminating per the Equality Act as a therapist doesn’t mean there is an ethical duty to take on every client, even ones you cannot help. You are being deliberately obtuse to keep thinking of the therapist matching process as discrimination in the legal sense.

Pretty sure the person your complaint would go to is a TW.

I am pro children and women's safeguarding so I guess I'd be considered GC.

But no way would be telling a TW that I would find it difficult to listen to a transwoman talking about their struggles with their gender identity. You will be expected to say why that is. Tbh I'm not sure why you'd find that hard.

I find it perfectly possible to listen to someone's struggles with their gender identity whilst simultaneously knowing that human beings can't change sex.

Just like I can empathise with the struggles presented by someone's religious belief whilst also not sharing those religious beliefs myself.