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Original poster

Gender GP: Inside the world of private trans healthcare

57 replies

Signalbox · 20/06/2023 20:07

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-slow-newscast/id1487320403?i=1000617431129

Just giving this podcast (which includes an interview with Helen Webberley) a thread of its own because it is frankly astounding and well worth a listen…

“Last year journalist Polly Curtis spent months trying to understand what went wrong at the Tavistock’s Gender Identity Development Service for young people. You can hear her Tortoise podcast series: Inside the Tavistock here. In the reporting of that series one thing kept coming up: some young people who couldn’t - for whatever reason - access the Tavistock - the only NHS service in England for young people with gender dysphoria, were going down the private healthcare route. So what happens if a young person follows that path? This is the story of Gender GP and its founder, Helen Webberley, an entrepreneurial doctor from south Wales.”

The Slow Newscast: Gender GP: inside the world of private trans healthcare on Apple Podcasts

‎The Slow Newscast: Gender GP: inside the world of private trans healthcare on Apple Podcasts

‎Show The Slow Newscast, Ep Gender GP: inside the world of private trans healthcare - 19 Jun 2023

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-slow-newscast/id1487320403?i=1000617431129

OP posts:
BoreOfWhabylon · 25/06/2023 21:25

Oh sorry, got the wrong thread! Blush

There's a programme about the Tavistock on ITV at 1025 tonight
https://www.radiotimes.com/programme/b-q94sbc/the-clinic/

QuickWash · 25/06/2023 20:48

Hope that works!

QuickWash · 25/06/2023 20:46

Signalbox · 22/06/2023 22:14

Please could you link...

Sorry, I missed this! Hang on....

HowardKirksConscience · 25/06/2023 20:36

Thanks for the link

Original poster
Signalbox · 25/06/2023 20:25

BoreOfWhabylon · 25/06/2023 20:08

Bumping this for tonight

What’s happening tonight? 👀

OP posts:
BoreOfWhabylon · 25/06/2023 20:08

Bumping this for tonight

Original poster
Signalbox · 22/06/2023 22:14

Please could you link...

OP posts:
Original poster
Signalbox · 22/06/2023 22:13

@QuickWash Please could link the other episodes? I can't seem to find them.

OP posts:
QuickWash · 22/06/2023 22:02

These episodes are absolutely mind blowing.

Lots of individual testimonies that are just so sad.

Polly Curtis seems to have got a lot more interview time with Polly Carmichael etc than Hannah Barnes did.

QuickWash · 21/06/2023 23:26

I've just found the rest of the series.

It's very similar ground to Hannah Barnes' work but it is still horrifying to listen to the decision making and how it was made without a firm evidence base. And how on earth it was so influenced by outside agencies and activist groups.

Polly Curtis asks a lot of the right questions.

BoreOfWhabylon · 21/06/2023 20:24

I hadn't heard of Polly Curtis, the journalist who presented the podcast, before. What an excellent job she did.

She got the measure of Webberley all right.

QuickWash · 21/06/2023 19:17

I've just listened to this. Absolutely horrifying.

Helen Webberley comes across as dangerous.

How can she not follow the line of questioning when asked why she only sees the young people for whom drugs are the right option? That everyone she sees is going to be better off taking life long medication?

She also seems to have an unhealthy reaction to patient's 'relief and gratitude.'

The whole thing is terrifying.

OldCrone · 21/06/2023 15:30

There's quite a lot about the Webberleys and their various business ventures on this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3588654-dr-mike-webberley-suspended

BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted · 21/06/2023 15:15

I believe the ownership of said Hong Kong-based company is purposely obscure. Who pays the Webberlys fees as consultants, either on a freelance basis or through another of their companies based overseas, like Panama for instance. Who knows? We are unlikely to be able to discover. I need to train up as a forensic accountant, I reckon

mycoffeecup · 21/06/2023 14:08

The Webberleys have sold Gender GP, I think to a company based in Hong Kong. some years ago.

Original poster
Signalbox · 21/06/2023 14:06

Hopelesslydevotedtoshrews · 21/06/2023 12:47

Again forgive my naivety, I know Dr Webberly is a GP, is she a GP with a specialism in endocrinology? She surely isn't prescribing hormones like they were antibiotics? No other background exploration?

No she is not an endocrinologist. But she can legitimately prescribe any medicine as a GP.

She appears to rely on patients telling her they are trans in lieu of a diagnosis. I don’t know if she is currently prescribing hormones to children. I’d be amazed if she could get indemnity to cover her it’s obvious an increasingly risky area of healthcare.

OP posts:
OhWhatMerryHellIsThis · 21/06/2023 12:56

You'd think so.

But according to what she says, she prescribes hormones on demand. I've had more scrutiny form my gp before getting antibiotics for a sore throat.

Hopelesslydevotedtoshrews · 21/06/2023 12:47

Again forgive my naivety, I know Dr Webberly is a GP, is she a GP with a specialism in endocrinology? She surely isn't prescribing hormones like they were antibiotics? No other background exploration?

OhWhatMerryHellIsThis · 21/06/2023 12:41

I also noticed the "most boy thing I've ever seen".

She means, of course, a girl with short hair wearing jeans and a t-shirt that isn't pink. Which, until about 1990, was every girl in the world.

It would be difficult to pick me out as a girl in my childhood photos, or any of my friends. We were all just children, we all wore roughly the same hand-me-downs, we all had short hair (nits, I presume Grin), or at least as short as the boys who all had "long" hair in the 70s. Every one of my class aged 11 would have been the "most boy thing" anyone had ever seen.

Original poster
Signalbox · 21/06/2023 10:02

Littlesprouts · 21/06/2023 09:53

'Peddling' seemed such a strange word to use, as well. It did jump out. It just made me think of the wicked witch trying to get Snow White to take a poisoned apple.

Wait a minute. Might be on to something there..!

Yes it also brings to mind the Victorian quack doctors. No regulation. No evidence base. Just blind faith that’s something will work and a complete lack of concern that you may be doing more harm than good.

OP posts:
Littlesprouts · 21/06/2023 09:53

'Peddling' seemed such a strange word to use, as well. It did jump out. It just made me think of the wicked witch trying to get Snow White to take a poisoned apple.

Wait a minute. Might be on to something there..!

Original poster
Signalbox · 21/06/2023 09:49

The twin Patient A she states was "the most boy thing I've ever seen".

Yes part of her diagnostic criteria appeared to be assessing the male or female “attributes” of the person. So for the 1st adult patient she saw it was that they were wearing a bra and nail polish and for the child it was “the most boy thing I’ve ever seen”. Honestly I think even trans activists must cringe at such overt stereotyping.

OP posts:
Friths · 21/06/2023 09:40

She set up a medical website on the basis of having seen one 12 year old patient. WTF??

Xoxoxoxoxoxox · 21/06/2023 09:37

The way she describes herself as 'a doctor peddling in business' shows that she knows that the fact she's a doctor gives patients the impression that she's trustworthy and credible, not just an online drug pusher which is the reality.

I doubt some parents would dare buy off label drugs on the internet for their children but they buy from he because of the credibility that she brings, yet when you listen to how she is diagnosing kids it is done on a purely superficial level.

The twin Patient A she states was "the most boy thing I've ever seen". They are fast tracked by Webberley to presumably be on puberty blockers and testosterone at the same time. She says the mum of patient a said that they would commit suicide if not given testosterone "and I believed her". Any respectable doctor would not prescribe drugs because the patient's mother said that if they did not their child would commit suicide. She's just prescribing to anyone who turns up and asks, while pretending it's health care.