Criminal gender GP Helen Webberley fined £12k

[QuietContraryMary]

Criminal record, struck off, £12k fine, £2k fine for her company, £11.3k costs.
www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-46400184

Not sure it will stop her criminal activity seems to be a relatively mild deterrent . Future convictions could hopefully lead to prison ?

dailym.ai/2QtNH1i

Mail coverage

Ah the old 'I didn't know' defence.

"(A) complaint was made to the General Medical Council (GMC) after she prescribed cross-gender hormones to a 12-year-old child - meaning a child assigned female at birth was able to go through male puberty."

This is untrue and misleading. A natal female - who is observed to be female at birth, not assigned female - cannot, ever, go through "male puberty". It absolutely does not happen.

Since puberty is the time during which the body grows and reaches sexual maturity and becomes capable of reproduction - no that is never going to happen. You just cannot become the opposite sex by switching some of the hormones. You can develop a few of the secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex and scupper your chances of reproduction. You need the bits there to mature.

"(A) complaint was made to the General Medical Council (GMC) after she prescribed cross-gender hormones to a 12-year-old child - meaning a child assigned female at birth was able to go through male puberty."

I was just going to make a complaint about this, but had another look at the BBC story, and it now just says:

But a complaint was made to the General Medical Council (GMC) after she prescribed cross-gender hormones to a 12-year-old child.

Well done everyone who complained.

Just re-reading the article, it seems absurdly sympathetic towards someone who has just received a criminal conviction.

I thought I read somewhere that Dr Mike was also under investigation. I'll see what I can find.

Here is patient update he posted on reddit www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/a0b9rb/patient_update_message_from_dr_mike_webberley_not/

Gay conversion therapy in the USA also had many men who credited it with saving their lives and who at the time wrote letters of glowing gratitude to one of the most prolific conversion therapists, John Smid. Smid is gay himself, and now an out gay man and regrets what he did. By the by, in the decades long process of coming out, Smid abandoned two women he married under false pretenses, and multiple children he fathered. There was a recent podcast about it from Radiolab.

Of course, ultimately many gay men actually took their own lives as a result of this therapy, because sexual orientation can't actually be changed (any more than sex can) and they fell into despair as a result of believing this meant they were broken and could never be happy, whole human beings. The parallels are truly striking.

The scary thing is she wasn’t even being prosecuted for treating underage children, just for operating her business without the correct licence

There was an extraordinary report on the Radio 5 news just now about this. The doctor was interviewed, extremely sympathetically, and allowed to give her sob story about how she was worried about her patients. They went into detail about her attempts to escape censure by moving location and her husband taking over, but spun to describe it as her battle to continue treating vulnerable patients. It was baffling how positive a light she was being shown in.

Should be serving a prison sentence for child abuse.

The Mail have picked up on it now, with a marginally less sympathetic article and the same misleading headline. I've emailed a complaint about the headline, stating that it's inaccurate and misleading as there are no circumstances under which a female child can undergo a male puberty.

I notice the comments are not sympathetic at all though, and there's a lot of "should have jailed her" in there. Several people seem to be saying very bluntly that they think that she was in it for the cash rather than the welfare of her patients.

Assassinated That doesn't sound right, do you think it's worth complaining?

BBC Editorial Guidelines:
Interviews
Any proposal to interview a criminal active in, or wanted in, the UK must be referred to Director Editorial Policy and Standards. Interviews should only proceed if they are clearly editorially justified, for example by eliciting important information or insight.
8.4.16
When interviewing criminals, care must be taken to minimise the potential distress this may cause to victims of the crime or their relatives.
(See Section 8 Reporting Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour: 8.4.9 and Section 7 Privacy: 7.4.38 - 7.4.40)
8.4.17
Interviews with active or convicted criminals must not glamorise wrongdoing, celebrate the flouting of the judicial process or reveal the detail that would enable a crime to be copied.
(See Section 8 Reporting Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour: 8.4.3 - 8.4.4)

They just had an interview with Helen Webberley on the BBC Wales news. She was given plenty of time to say how terrible it was that she now had a criminal record when she was only trying to help people.

That sounds like the same interview, OldCrone. I couldn't believe what she was allowed to be saying.

I'm swinging today between amused, baffled, and concerned with this whole set-up.

Particularly with the switch on their website that now makes Dr Mike the TransGender specialist (capitals courtesy of GenderGP, not mine).

And Dr Mike in his film telling people essentially 'I'm not a transgender specialist but hey I've seen lots of things in my career' with lots of 'althoughs' and 'however's' weaved into his language.

Saying at one point that he's had lots of experience including treating mental illness, but in the next section decrying the fact that any psychiatric assessment should be applied before treatment. Really, Dr Mike?

And his statement that they treat people between the ages of 13 and 80 (interesting linguistic stress on the first age stated).

To be honest, if I was a parent of a 13 year old, or even a 79 year old 'seeking peace in my final years', and I was looking for suitably qualified people to help, I'd at the one gender-specific certificate that Dr Helen has decided to include under her profile.

That certifies that she has completed a course in 'Gender Variance.

On a Wednesday.

In July.

Well, at least that's encouraging, isn't it?

Course description:
This resource is designed to help GPs respond to the needs of adults and young people experiencing gender dysphoria. The numbers of trans people presenting for medical help are rising rapidly; accordingly, the waiting lists for access to specialist providers grow longer. The mental health of those unable to access treatment is likely to deteriorate and self-medication with products bought via the internet is common. The risk of self-harm and suicide in people unable to access treatments may be as much as twenty times greater than in the general population. However, with the appropriate medical care, outcomes can be very positive.

Course length:
Time to complete this course: 1 hour

Amendment to my previous post - typo. Helen completed the hour-long Gender Variance course in 2015!

AIR Helen has been the doctor for a couple of different online pharmacy efforts, before moving into the lucrative field of castrating children.

It does look like 'business opportunity' rather than anything else.

I see Webberley is still listed on the Mermaids website though it does say she is under investigation

Pombear I am stunned and gobsmacked at a one hour " course" and people are fawning over these fakes?

I am disappointed at the result. They all need locking up for child abuse.

I made the complaint to the GMC and the Ethics Committee about this practice - maybe I should complain more?

From his post on reddit:

transgender care to patients of all ages should be provided on a case by case basis in a compassionate way

More hormones for kids! And the 'compassionate way' seems to be a case of saying you want something and being given it.

In defence of the BBC comment (as much as it pains me) about "male puberty" I read it as the child in question stopped developing female secondary sexual characteristics and started to develop male secondary sexual characteristics.

(Sorry for the tortured syntax.)

She HAS now been struck off.

twitter.com/mragilligan/status/1069855661238964224

Good.