Gender GP Helen Webberley interview in the Times

Article by Victoria Smith analysing the Webberley interview:

https://unherd.com/newsroom/gender-clinic-director-dismisses-critics-as-anti-progress/

‘Read in context, Webberley’s “not everyone likes change” is not a wry comment on the human condition. It’s the words of the neoliberal boss justifying the shaving away of “inefficiencies” in favour of a “streamlined” service that brings in more money. It’s not about helping people to adapt to change, grow and thrive. It’s about repackaging rampant individualism as indicative of a more forward-thinking sensibility.

It’s one of many highly revealing moments in which Webberley lays bare the overlap between a worldview in which the only thing that matters is personal wealth, and one in which a child’s fear of puberty can, apparently, be cured with pills and patches. In both cases, actual human bodies — actual people, with their complex emotions, their identities formed and reformed in relation to others — are an inconvenience. Deny them. Get rid of them. If you can outsource the treatment of a gender-distressed child to a robot, removing what Webberley calls the “human interpretation of protocol”, you should do it. If people object, simply tell them that they hate progress.’

Oh, and still using the suicide narrative to scare parents (but in a slightly more coy fashion now).

Well she didn't come off well did she? Claims to be uninvolved in treatment/prescribing, now in managerial role but can’t and won’t sort out Employment Tribunal decision as she’s not the employer and knows nothing about it? Aye right. In both upto her neck.

Can sue the doctor who made assertion she over prescribed testosterone but hasn’t! Hmm.
Incoherent bullshit about Cass and still trumpeting WPATH “best practice” 🤔

As already said a naked grift.

Just how was her suspension overturned in High Court?

I've used LLMs (AI) where it can't even tell you the information you've just fed into it.

Afaik, there is not a chatbot that is not at risk of making fairly fundamental mistakes.

If the algorithm is simply "if x is between range 5-10 then suggest y" that's a bit different. If any context or interpretation is required though, who is liable for errors? I'm sure they will have countless disclaimers for people to click through.

This is seriously, seriously concerning.

That's an amazingly chilling piece of journalism to read.

Webberley claims Gender GP has 'seen' potentially 30,000 patients since the inception in 2015, and by way of comparison the figures say that NHS Tavistock GIDS saw only 9,000 since 2009. I mean, if she's telling the truth isn't that figure mind blowingly high? How can a private service give safe and effective treatment to such a high number?

Also, if she's seen so many people and they're all fee-paying, why doesn't she have the money to keep healthcare advisors employed? She says she fired them because having them on staff wasn't sustainable and now she's moved to AI self-service instead.

I just don't know how people like this sleep at night.

What a sucking moral vacuum.

Speaking of money, near the middle of the article there's a little bit about what she charges.

"
To join GenderGP, customers must pay an upfront fee of £195 and £65 for an information-gathering session, followed by a monthly £30 subscription.

Drugs are charged separately, with a three-month supply of puberty blockers costing £265. Testosterone gel costs £135.

Now, as part of its “future-proofed” service, GenderGP has replaced a team of healthcare assistants answering questions with an AI-generated online “knowledge base”.

It means there is no phone number or email address and subscribers must pay £7.99 for a 15-minute “live chat”. ...

“It’s run like self-service now,” she added, saying: “When you’ve got 10 or 20,000 people emailing every day… you have to change your model.”

And how much is this model making GenderGP? Webberley dodged the question. “I don’t want to get into business and politics — it’s not my expertise”, she said.
"

Not bad going, charging 8 quid for an AI "chat". What a scam. And that she (and her husband before her) are using the desperation of kids to bleed money out makes it worse than revolting.

I'm going to assume the 'senior whistleblower' is probably one of the Webberleys.

Has Gender GP got any UK trained medics? Are they based in Eastern Europe? And what does Marianne Oakes do to manage Marianne’s bias when assessing new patients?

I've just read a very long post on the Reddit thread about "the realities with GP" it was a sad but frustrating read, the slow realisation that HW is only following the money and doesn't actually really care about their healthcare must be devastating. The frustration comes because anyone who warned that HW was a self-serving charlatan was just a transphobic bigot.

I do wonder where people were employed, the firing, if in the UK, doesn't sound like legal process has been followed.

The FGM legislation only covers female genitalia. So it wouldn't cover a mastectomy and it wouldn't cover surgery performed on a boy's penis. There's also an exemption for where the intervention is necessary for mental health reasons. So I suppose the only situation in which it could possibly apply is if a girl were taken abroad for a phalloplasty or similar. Even then the defendant would probably seek to use the mental health exemption but I suppose the question is whether it could ever be considered necessary to take a girl abroad for surgery which is not legal in the UK on psychological grounds.

Either way I think there should be legislation to prevent parents from taking their children abroad for "gender affirming surgery" and it should protect girls and boys equally. But there isn't. The FGM legislation is not it.

I very much hope that GP has raised their concerns formally.

It's interesting that they say she is 'deluded'. I've never been sure whether W is driven by venality or delusion. Perhaps both.

'A care provider commits an offence if—

(a)an individual who has the care of another individual by virtue of being part of the care provider's arrangements ill-treats or wilfully neglects that individual,

(b)the care provider's activities are managed or organised in a way which amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the care provider to the individual who is ill-treated or neglected, and'

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/2/part/1/crossheading/offences-involving-illtreatment-or-wilful-neglect

'It is an offence for an individual who has the care of another individual by virtue of being a care worker to ill-treat or wilfully to neglect that individual.'

What crimes has she committed?

Would these be medical malpractise, or something else?

Why, when so many doctors refuse to fill prescripitions made by GenderGP, when they are aware of how dangerous this company/the Webberleys are, has nobody submitted complaints, raised concerns? Cass herself raised concerns - why hasn't formal action been taken?

Was just thinking the very same. Well done that journalist 👏 #letthemspeak

Agree with a pp: this woman should be in prison.

I know it's not the point of this thread but that ex employee has proof that GenderGP has no intention of paying a court order. Can she take legal action based on that?

I can still see the comments because I left the page open this morning. There is one from a GP:
"Having received ‘paperwork’ from genderGP at work (GP) she’s a deluded as she is dangerous. Their assessments are hopeless and it’s nothing more than a drug dealing operation no different to buying cocaine etc"

Sadly, at least one of GenderGP's young patients has taken their own life following 'treatment' by the Webberleys.

A retired consultant physician has been stuck off for wrongly prescribing sex-change treatments to seven transgender patients - one who was aged just 9 and another a teenager who took their own life few months later.

Dr Michael Webberley, who spent 34 years working for the NHS, provided puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones via GenderGP, an online gender clinic which he ran with his GP wife Dr Helen Webberley.

https://www.medscape.co.uk/viewarticle/doctor-struck-wrongly-prescribing-sex-change-treatments-2022a1001cql