Support for Transgender Trend / Stephanie Davies-Arai

[neverfallingforitontwitter]

You may have seen that a letter written by Stephanie to magazine BACP magazine Therapy Today has been 'apologised' for after transactivists complained. Attached is the letter - and the apology. TT is getting accused of being a hate group - and is effectively being censored. LETTERS to editors no longer allowed..If you agree with Stephanie's letter, or oppose the closing down of debate, please get behind her. This is not a settled science. The Tavistock Clinic are proposing further research due to lack of clinical evidence to inform outcomes re: puberty blockers, social transition or co-occurring Autism Spectrum Disorder.

[JustHooking]

The editor is clearly lacking any critical thinking and lacking professional integrity
She should be out of a job. No therapist should accept this belief system. I thought they should be evidence based
#nodebate does not support research

[Fishfingersandwichnocheese]

It does make me reflect on what horrors people will do when a group think occurs and no one is brave enough to speak up.

This. It’s actually quite frightening in this day and age. And most who do object don’t dare speak up.

[Fekko]

I used to work as a therapist years ago.

One therapist I knew was very strong in his belief of (over)diagnosis, which I tend to view as (maybe I'm being unkind) inflating problems to book in extra sessions?

Anyway, I got into a right barney with him over him taking one symptom in a child (which is generally content free - so not much more than a bad habit) and conflating this into indicative of some sort of underlying trauma in a child - thus labelling the child without any evidence. He had not yet seen this child but had a session booked with her purely to help her stop this particular habit (think bed wetting/nail biting - not chopping the heads of small creatures).

This was on our professional association website for therapists to discuss any issues or ask for advice.

I am against labelling children, and believe that you do need to work carefully gently with them (and never make assumptions) so that you don't 'push them into they system' - you will find that sometimes parents do worry and over-focus on 'normal' childhood behaviour, that is nothing to be concerned about but if you keep picking at the spot could become A Big Thing.

I basically told him this (and pointed out that her presenting symptoms were generally purely habit based - we studied together so he should have know this anyway) and he got very (male) nasty, aggressive and shouty at me.

It was a long time ago (can't remember if it was me or someone else who complained to our professional society) but got a back-pedalling apology from him.

Had this been now and he had decided that this habit was due to an underlying gender issue god knows how this would have played out. I'd be drummed out of the Bownies I think!

[KatherinaMinola]

The editor is clearly lacking any critical thinking and lacking professional integrity
She should be out of a job.

I imagine that is exactly her fear - that if she doesn't comply, she'll be out. Not excusing her retraction but I can imagine the pressure she's under.

Agree with PP who said that the conflation of LGB and T is dangerous here - if you question the T then you're (it's implied) against the LGB and therefore an oldfashioned homophobe.

[Judder]

I felt sick when I followed the link (above) to the transactivist letter full of lies and biased sources. Stephanie (if you are reading) - if you write a letter back, I will happily sign it. Or if you need any specific support or suggest a course of action then please make it known.

[Smamfa99]

Hi there Neverfallingforitontwitter

I see you have hopped over from twitter - we might even be twitter sisters!

We are supporting Stephanie too ... do you mind if we post the link to this thread over there? Are we allowed?

Thank you
S

[athingthateveryoneneeds]

I Stand With Stephanie

[ArcheryAnnie]

I've just (politely and briefly) emailed Therapy Today. What utter bollocks. How can they claim to be professional if they do this sort of thing?

[neverfallingforitontwitter]

Yes, of course, it's fine by me to link to this thread on twitter. Don't know what the mumsnet etiquette is - only been here few days- but it would be good for more people to see how much support there is for SDA.

[hipsterfun]

I showed it to someone who knows about these things and she said that it’s usually to cover backsides against some sort of backlash.

Yes.

If I was a GC editor in the current climate, one strategy I might consider would be to publish the letter, with the apology pre-written and ready to go in the next issue.

This has the dual benefit of covering one’s backside and also having every reasonable person going ‘WTF is going on here?’.

[MacaroonMama]

#IStandWithStephanie

There is no end to this craziness. They are so far past crazy, they can't even see crazy. Crazy is a dot to them. (To paraphrase Chandler (?) from Friends!) Off to the TGT website now to email support (I am not in Twitter).

[Datun]

The bad news is the TRA lobby is well funded, highly organised and strategic.

The good news is they are getting really rattled by women speaking out.

Yes, it means they up the ante, but they have no-where to go.

The more publicity this gets, the more questions are asked.

What is happening to SDA is a disgraceful display of male bullying and intimidation.

The peope calling her reputation into question must be held to account.

It's the only way.

MRAs laugh at feminists' constant demand of 'citation please'.

But it's the one and only way to set records straight.

Let's have their citation then.

Bring it on.

[Freshlylaidterf]

Have emailed BACP to express dismay

[MyVisionsComeFromSoup]

was that ridiculous "memorandum of understanding" (ie don't talk abut it, as you'll stop them being trans) just psychiatrists, or was it clinical psychologists as well? That might why the backtracking and apology?

[hackmum]

Yippee: "Who'd have thought so many professionals would go along with something so obviously illogical and permamanently damagaing? It does make me reflect on what horrors people will do when a group think occurs and no one is brave enough to speak up."

It really makes you think about episodes in history where you've asked, how on earth did people go along with such an obviously terrible thing? Well, now we have our answer. Group think, the pressure to conform, is incredibly powerful.

And yet I'm convinced that in 10 or 15 years when we have a generation of infertile young adults angry at what was done to them when they weren't old enough to know any better, the cry will go up, how on earth did people go along with this? The only satisfaction I take from this is that it will be very difficult to hide. It's all out there, on social media, recorded in perpetuity.

[32bakedbeans]

I have emailed the BACP too.

I know the set-up, and the editor will have had no control/choice over that apology, regardless of her views. Which is even more frightening in a way, as it means a board of 'others', who are all mental health professionals will have insisted upon the apology.

They need to acknowledge their error, and issue a further apology to its readers. They clearly know nothing about the issues at hand, and have done no research.

With idiocy like this, James Caspian and Heather B-W, I can't help thinking the profession is doomed . . .
.

[sausagepastapot]

Behind her 100%. Fucking TRA's!!!

[colouringinagain]

Signed.

Hugely disappointed and concerned about response from BCAP. Think.

[OrderOnline]

Hackmum yes we now have insight.

[thetallesttree]

Aargh! I got confused and thought that petition was AGAINST the apology too. You might want to ask Mumsnet to edit that post to make that clear!

[Somethingweird]

The signatories to the 2017 Memorandum of understanding on Conversion Therapy did not include the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

www.psychotherapy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/UKCP-Memorandum-of-Understanding-on-Conversion-Therapy-in-the-UK.pdf

The 2015version, which only dealt with sexual orientation, they did sign up to:
www.psychotherapy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Memorandum-of-understanding-on-conversion-therapy.pdf

[mamaryllis]

Yes. For goodness sake report the petition link and get it deleted. They must be pissing themselves that they are getting signatures off the back of this thread...

[XXHelenaXX]

FencingFightingTorture35

Lily Madigan repeatedly tweets that he is against conversion therapy when he means conversation.

What the hell are we going to do, ladies?

I mean, serious, just tweeting shit isn't going to do ANYTHING.

Maybe what we need is a massive petition to Parliament about ALL this trans shite.

I feel utterly bombarded with madness and lunacy every day in the press and it's ALL about trans stuff.

What can we do?

[Lefthanddown]

A year ago if I'd read the original article, I wouldn't have given the contents a second thought and probably wouldnt have looked at it as critically as I did just now.
Presumably that is what the author of the article is hoping for from its readership.

Stephanie Davies-Arai put forward a well reasoned argument raising aspects that were completely overlooked in the original article.

So how the fuck can the editor say on one hand they want a range of views while while at the same time apologising for a letter raising a different view point. It's madness