What's going on with Genspect?

Hey man I'm just repeating what I have been seeing other people say, by convincingly, and I am disappointed with the divisive interview that she gave about feminists and I agree that Jen Specht seems all over the place, I don't have an opinion one way or another but I'm just interested that's why I'm on the thread there's no need to be rude

I think he clearly has made a number of women feel uneasy — possibly not because he's right.

When all those people are unfollowing or blocking you maybe you need to take a moment to reflect on why that is? Maybe Julie Bindel was rude to him for a reason.

May be because you are right and that makes others who have compromised in one way or another uneasy?

You're correct about what he said and I think a lot of GC women have felt concern about the way DH has been feted, particularly by WPUK and Julie Bindel. I'm also with him on the Genspect issue. He's clearly no fan of Stella, and neither am I.

He's clearly also pissed off a number of other reasonable female commentators (I couldn't catch how or why) and also Benjamin Boyce of Calmversation fame. When all those people are unfollowing or blocking you maybe you need to take a moment to reflect on why that is? Maybe Julie Bindel was rude to him for a reason. I'm not saying that he's not allowed to be pissed off with people, but the way he expresses himself is raw and unfiltered and I'd prefer my experts to have processed their stuff and show better judgment.

He may be absolutely right on the clinical analysis stuff, but for me the rawness, the lack of clarity of thought, the 'I'm the only expert' chest-beating and the absolute certainty that he is right and everyone else is wrong is distracting from the good stuff he says. He's coming across as a loose cannon, and that's a pity because if he could damp the ego down and focus better he could be a fantastic advocate.

He does have moments of ‘Where are the feminists on this?' But I see him as being no different to any other man who doesn’t take the time to educate himself on the different schools of Feminism.

In fact, society erroneously equates Liberal Feminism with Feminism as a whole and, while it infuriates me, I can see why this is the case: Liberal Feminism is the least threatening strand of feminist thought in terms of challenging patriarchal structures in our society and so it’s been promoted by the media and the establishment as almost a form of social inoculation against other more challenging schools of feminist thought.

I agree with his critique of Bindel for her promotion/acceptance of Hayton. And I think that after Hayton’s recent article criticising JK Rowling that Bindel herself regrets their association.

I didn’t watch the whole thing, but his complaint about JB was that she was extremely rude and hostile towards him - which I think she wouldn’t lose sleep over, but also her hypocrisy and male deviance enabling - as the co-/founder of projects to help vulnerable women, that she would be photographed with her arm around DH - the signal this sends out.

He's good on the clinical side of things, but he's dissed Julie Bindel, Bari Weiss and other reasonable women commentators and complained about all the women who've blocked or unfollowed him. Red flags galore. I have no doubt he's right about many things but he's not the calm, thoughtful, informed authority I was hoping for.

His explanation of deviancy is really good, that there is a slippery slope from sociopathy to psychopathy, that a lack of conscience starts to slide towards the enjoyment of causing harm. Also that an incidence of #bekind enabling, where public deviance around vulnerable people isn’t managed appropriately, sends out a beacon to predators to flock.

I'm about an hour into listening to Uhler. I'm troubled by how inarticulate and all over the place he is: minutes go by and I have no idea what he's talking about. I would have hoped that someone in his position would have refined his argument by this stage. Not everyone can be as crisp and thought-through as Helen Joyce, but most are more coherent.

I'm also concerned about the 100% and his absolute certainty about several things. I'm sure that a lot of what he says is accurate and very concerning, but I have real concerns with anyone in any walk of life who is so sure they are right and everyone else is wrong. Even though I'd like to believe him, I know life isn't like that.

Years ago, handing out WRN GC leaflets in a town centre somewhere, a man stopped, read the leaflet and then talked to me for about 20 minutes. He had been a psychologist working in a men's prison and he wanted to be sure that I knew just how predatory and devious male sex offenders were. He said that women had absolutely no idea how far sex offenders would go, and how much time and thought and energy they will invest, in achieving their aims. He talked about how many men disappear into an underworld of fantasy in a way women don't. He shared a lot of Ulher's opinions.

I found Uhler unsettling when I first encountered his advocacy but, in retrospect, it was only because he’s so extremely blunt and doesn’t couch things in polite terms. His experience of working with sex offenders is both valuable and worrying for those working to protect women, children and the vulnerable because he is very frank about the intentions of predatory men and how much effort they will put into finding and exploiting the chinks in every system’s armour. And he’s also very frank about how little can be done to change the behaviour of predatory men.

Although this is 3 hours long, I watched the first hour and he does start ramping up and talking about Stella O’Malley and Genspect after about half an hour. It’s disturbing how he is so clear and unequivocal about his “100%” claims - which amounts to there being no acceptable cases.

There's a difference between being well-known and respected for something specific, and being a 'celebrity.'

I was using your description ”People outside Ireland may not be aware that as well as being a practising psychotherapist, Stella O'Malley was already a well-known broadcaster and author of bestselling books”

Nothing in your description of her suggests a heavyweight in the field of evidence based medicine. Or even psychotherapy.

Who is this 'celebrity author' with 'thin credentials'?
If you think Stella O'Malley is a celebrity author, you don't know much about her, do you? Or do you think that only 'celebrities' write bestsellers in the area they specialise in?

I am a bit surprised that an organisation supposing to offer a sane alternative to WPATH is headed up by a celebrity author with rather thin credentials.

To be fair there are plenty of broadcasters, who have also written bestselling books, with little by way of scientific understanding. Dr Gillian McKeith comes to mind. And her qualifications don’t leap out as offering a robust training in assessing evidence based medicine.

I think anyone can judge for themselves by listening to O'Malley & Sasha Ayadh on their podcast/YouTube channel. I've listened since they began, and they speak a lot of sense. THey are both extremely perceptive but open-minded. They are highly knowledgeable - it's pretty easy to tell that from the way they approach their topics.

They speak as therapists who work with people everyday; they don't speak as political or newly-peaked feminists. I disagree with some things they say because of this difference.

I have no idea what @RoseKnows23 has against them - there's no sense of any evidence in their post (and it's hard to read a flow of consciousness with no paragraphs or punctuation).

RoseKnows23 'layman [sic] who have very little in the way of applicable credentials (in o'malley's case apparently none, or an internet degree)

Stella O'Malley has no 'applicable credentials', or 'an internet degree'??

Her biog lists:
B.A. in Counselling and Psychotherapy, an M.A. in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, diplomas in Youth Studies, Psychometric Testing, and Gender Identity Counselling and she is currently studying for a PhD in gender dysphoria among children and adolescents.

I don't know, she may have made these up, or bought them off a dodgy website - or even a reputable website - but I think it's unlikely.

People outside Ireland may not be aware that as well as being a practising psychotherapist, Stella O'Malley was already a well-known broadcaster and author of bestselling books for many years before the trans issue percolated to the surface, or Genspect was formed. I think her first book came out in the mid 2010s. You'd think that somebody would have spotted the skimpy credentials or internet degrees before, wouldn't you?

I can specify what makes me 'feel icky' about that: it’s a man engaging in a sexual fetish in public. I don’t care what the man wears to engage in the fetish, the part that I object to is the bringing his fetish out into public spaces. I reject the idea that women have to tolerate this behaviour in any way whatsoever.

It should also be noted that no figures were mentioned in that article.

So it would be interesting to know more about the “large donations” they receive, particularly from the few who have given large donations elsewhere before.

So in terms of funding, all she say in that article is:

The lion’s share of our income… parents donating to our organisation... few have given large donations to anyone prior to this.

We have run two conferences… charging a fee to cover the costs.

We have recently started offering Continuing Medical Education (CME) certificates to our content as another way to bring in funds... We also have an ongoing GoFundMe.

Stella O'Malley answering the question who funds Genspect:
https://genspect.org/who-funds-genspect/

Waves at Stella.

That's misrepresenting what she tweeted. She said "If someone's clothing makes you feel icky despite being perfectly standard for the other sex, cope."
Let's critique that. So she's obviously not talking about "bra and knickers", because that's not standard in polite company. Let's say a man attends a conference wearing a suit comprising a polo neck shift dress to just below the knees, a long jacket, with nylon tights and court shoes, long hair in a tidy bob, full makeup.
All perfectly professional- for a woman, but something you can't specify makes you feel "icky".
Now, should you disregard your own "sixth sense"? I would say no.
My personal belief is that it is polite to clearly signal whether you are male or female. It's about courtesy and having regard for the feelings of others.

Stella literally said in the KJK and Benjamin Boyce interview after much prodding that they are actually a lobby group. Also, they are not in any way interested in stopping transition, or the trans lobby, but rather say they want the age of consent raised. i've read a number of disturbing things about Stella in particular, her credentials are shady, and she blocks anyone asking where she got her degrees, as well as admitting to being a lobby group she has threatened to sue 'a slightly twisted female' on her youtube channel for being critical of what she sees with genspec as being a 'true trans' organization (trans is a thing, gender dysphoria is a thing and it must continue. so the pharmacutical companies can make money. its not like they're going to just give up after all this work capturing every instituion in the west) ie/ they are a damage control pro trans group, funded by the same people that funded wpath (they are incredibly opaque as to where their funding comes from , or at the very least incredibly vague). her idea is, and so is karen davis''s, that they are a trojan horse brought in by the same poeple who funded WPATH to relieve the public by attesting to protect children as it was apparent to the trans lobby that they were about to go down due to their child transition policies, so they got ahead of it, and put this group of basically layman who have very little in the way of applicable credentials (in o'malley's case apparently none, or an internet degree), to act as puppets for the same basic function as WPATH. it's also disturbing that they are involved with pedophiles, and open about the fact that they want to include pedophiles who don't want to offend anymore, (hello, if you don't want to then get chemically castrated and then we'll talk) so that is uber creepy. and finally, check out the interview with stella and travis brown i think his name is? inwhich she lambasts feminists to create divides in the movement, it is so obvious what she is doing. if anyone has more information on any of this please share.

I wish that Sasha & Stella would interview Emma Thomas on "Gender a Wider Lens". I heard Emma Thomas speak on Meghan Murphy's "Feminist Current" podcast. https://www.feministcurrent.com/2024/03/06/emma-thomas-father-came-out-as-trans-when-she-was-nine-now-she-fights-to-protect-kids-like-her/

Emma Thomas is very articulate about her father's behaviour and the way it affected her. She recently started a campaign writing to NHS health authorities about their polices on transwomen (and other males) "breast feeding" their babies. As young peoples' therapists themelves, Sasha and Stella would find what she has to say very interesting.

And what she says casts quite a light on some issues that Genspect have avoided or finessed so far.