Can anyone help me complain about this?

[sunflowersandtomatoes]

This is my first post on the Feminism board, but I've been reading you all for years, and have so much respect for you, and now I'm hoping you can help me deal with my first example of gender craziness in the wild. I've NCed for this, sorry about that, I just don't want any of this to be traced back to me.

So I'm doing a course - the first step towards training to be a counsellor. I'm not sure if I will do the subsequent levels. It's a course where you have to do a lot of soul searching, and a lot of it is about getting to know yourself, and talking about your own motivations and barriers and stuff. Interesting, although I find it a bit much sometimes.

A small part of last week's big assignment was to think about whether there was anyone we would find it difficult to listen to or help. I thought, and wrote, carefully, and I came up with this:

"I see gender as a social construct and I don’t believe that someone can change sex, so I don’t believe that transwomen are women. I espouse and defend people’s right to identify however they like, and I would always be respectful of chosen names and pronouns. However, I would find it difficult to listen to a transwoman talking about their struggles with their gender identity, and I don’t agree that affirmation is the best way of helping a young person who experiences gender dysphoria. Ultimately, I just don’t think I could be hugely helpful to someone with those kinds of issues, and I wonder whether that will be a problem in the future."

I think it's respectful and honest, but my tutor chose, in her feedback, to focus exclusively on this paragraph, to the exclusion of the other 1900 words I wrote, and sent me this:

"I acknowledge that you have identified a specific area that you would find it difficult to work with – gender identity. It is good and ethical to identify this so that when you work with clients you have the relevant experience and skill set and are giving them what they need. There is some interesting material on different websites around this subject: Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids and Stonewall, to name a few, which may broaden your understanding and research around this. It is worth mentioning here that gender identity is one of the nine protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010 and as such it is unlawful to discriminate against someone on the grounds of their gender identity just as it would be to discriminate against race, religion or disability to name three others on the list."

I am so angered by this, which is why I'm finding it difficult to respond! I am very well read on the subject (although not as well read as some of you), and I find her suggestion that I should read those bullshit websites (again) to "broaden my understanding" very fucking insulting. It's also not her place to lecture me. If she wants to recommend literature about counselling, I'll be happy to hear it, but anything else (gender issues, the war in Ukraine, what colours suit me best, how to raise my children) just isn't in her remit. And thirdly, what, is she suggesting I might also be a racist, because I've said that men can't be women? It feels like another example of unthinking people talking shit about something they haven't really thought about, and it's SO damaging.

Honestly, I know a lot of you have faced much bigger injustices around this issue, and I salute you. Any advice you can give me about how to respond (complain, if we're honest) would help me to take the heat out of it. Or maybe you think I should just leave it - happy to hear that too.

Thanks for reading.

The landmark case is Taylor v Jaguar Landrover Limited if you Google it should bring up various summaries and commentary on the case and what it means for future application of Equity Act 2010

My thoughts were do Mermaids and Stonewall offer peer reviewed research? If not which peer reviewed sources does she recommend.

I don’t agree that affirmation is the best way of helping a young person who experiences gender dysphoria.

You have support for this view in the interim report from the Cass review which describes social transition as an active intervention affecting the psychological functioning of a young person. The review is also critical of an unquestioning affirmative approach amongst health professionals.

cass.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Cass-Review-Interim-Report-Final-Web-Accessible.pdf

This is another document which it might be useful to send to your tutor to give her a more rounded understanding than that offered by the activist groups.

A counsellor should discriminate between those clients who come to them whom they know they can assist and those they can't. No one is totally neutral and anyone who thinks they are is potentially dangerous and deluded.

That's what the OP's exercise is about: getting people to examine where their boundaries and biasses are. I wouldn't be able to work usefully with, say, a deeply religious male misogynist who regarded women as second-class citizens. I would also, like the OP, not be able to work usefully with people self-riding as trans.

One of the big issues feminists face when seeking a counsellor is finding one who is actually feminist and not faux feminist. I hear from other lesbians that they struggle to find counsellors who really understand what it's like to be a lesbian. The one local older lesbian, feminist psychotherapist I know has a waiting list of lesbians and feminists who have been let down by other therapists.

That was a first-level employment tribunal case, as low down the order of importance as it's possible to get, and certainly not challenging statute or setting a serious precedent. Like the first-level Forstater decision it might well have been overthrown at appeal.

Then it's not ethical for the BBC to only offer a pro-vaccine stance.

It's not ethical to only discuss BLM without Mein Kampf.

Etc.

Point being, one side is considered "good" and one "bad"

I agree with you but the fact is the "other side" of the trans debate is considered so awful, so Nazi-esque and hateful and violent even, that it does not deserve equal weight.

@Pluvia
A counsellor should discriminate between those clients who come to them whom they know they can assist and those they can't

Thats not the type of discrimination I was referring to and you know it. I was referring to illegal discrimination as defined in the Equality Act. The process of assessing who you can and cannot help as a counsellor is not discrimination in the legal sense.

Even if the PC of Gender Reassignment were to cover non-binary, people who have made no external changes etc, that would not make it synonymous with the invented PC of Gender Identity as interpreted under Stonewall Law.

Gender Reassignment PC = an employer can't decide they don't want to employ a well-qualified trans candidate purely because the employer is uncomfortable with their presentation or thinks they will be a troublemaker. It doesn't mean an employer has to throw open the ladies loos to any employee who asks.

Or, in this example, it may be that a counsellor cannot take on a trans client on less favourable terms than other clients. However, they are not compelled to treat a gender-questioning client with an affirmation-only approach. (This is interesting, actually - midway through writing this bit I started to wonder on what grounds therapists can turn down clients. Presumably they can do so according to their area of specialism or their professional interests? So a counsellor could say she could say she doesn't do gender identity cases at all, but perhaps a marriage counsellor would be on shaky ground turning away a trans couple who didn't consider their issues to be gender-related? Apologies for using the terms counsellor and therapist interchangeably, not sure if it makes a difference)

OP - definitely reply back to correct her on the Equality Act, and politely explain to her that there are other sources of info that give a different perspective and that the jury is very much still out, and as a curious and conscientious person you wouldn't want to leap into affirmation-only as directed by the lobbying charities she has mentioned. It is good she has been civil and not gone into a witch-hunting panic as happened with those teaching James Esses.

Yes, annoyingly, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (quoted below from their website) seems to support her, although she's got her terminology wrong. So that's not the unassailable fact I'd like it to be.

To be protected from gender reassignment discrimination, you do not need to have undergone any specific treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to your preferred gender. This is because changing your physiological or other gender attributes is a personal process rather than a medical one.
You can be at any stage in the transition process – from proposing to reassign your gender, to undergoing a process to reassign your gender, or having completed it.

Thanks, Pluvia.

Yes, I can see that is creating a very dangerous situation. I suppose this is how we end up with gender-questioning people getting care like that of Dr Michael Webberley, recently found to be substandard and unsatisfactory.

Any therapist/HCP questioning the Stonewall orthodoxy is risking their job. Despite the fact that cautious investigation is, as far as I can see, supported by both the Cass interim report and NHS recommendations.

It's an odd situation - I suppose this is 'preference falsification' or in Stonewall's view, 'getting ahead of the law'. Where a false representation of legislation has taken precedence and it's actually personally risky to try to uphold the law/guidelines. Bizarre.

Sorry I've not read the rest of the thread but have you seen the case of James Esses OP? He was thrown off his counselling course for holding GC views so tread with care. He has a court case pending. You can find him on twitter @JamesEsses

Is she a tutor in your group work? It might be more useful to you and your relationship if you hold a response until you're in person and work through what it meant to each of you then. It would be an interesting topic for the group anyway probably?

I have heard of him, but I've never read the beginnings of what happened to him. Thanks, I will take a look.

If you google "James Esses Crowdjustice" it'll take you to the details of the case :)

This is in the news today.

inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/trans-conversion-therapy-patient-speaks-out-psychiatrist-reported-1641330

Dr Az Hakeem has been reported by a transgender patient for asking questions and not agreeing or affirming immediately. I think this case will backfire and end up providing evidence to support the government's position on conversion therapy for trans people. Dr Hakeem's been open about his concerns about gender ideology and has spoken at at least one LGBA event, so I'm not hugely surprised he's been targeted for this.

Yes, that's the case that was in my mind.

Reported for asking questions, indeed.

I can only find that news item on 'i' and Pink News.

Yes, annoyingly, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (quoted below from their website) seems to support her, although she's got her terminology wrong. So that's not the unassailable fact I'd like it to be.
To be protected from gender reassignment discrimination, you do not need to have undergone any specific treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to your preferred gender. This is because changing your physiological or other gender attributes is a personal process rather than a medical one.
You can be at any stage in the transition process – from proposing to reassign your gender, to undergoing a process to reassign your gender, or having completed it.

No it really doesn't. You can reply that, as per the EHRC you fully understand that a person need not to have undergone any specific treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to your preferred gender. This is because changing your physiological or other gender attributes is a personal process rather than a medical one.
You can be at any stage in the transition process – from proposing to reassign your gender, to undergoing a process to reassign your gender, or having completed it.

However the protected characteristic remains Gender Reassignment not Identity. A fine line to draw but given the importance of the issue clarity and correct terminology are paramount. Thank her for her input and move on.

I don't see what is to be gained, for you, by challenging your tutor out of anger. You, the student, are indignant that it isn't her job to lecture you; still less is it your job to lecture her. Your anger may be dictating your reaction rather than looking at this coolly.

As I see it, you are both wrong in different ways - she about the Act, (and I find it striking that she did not mention sex as one of her examples of the nine protected characteristics, which is disturbing, especially given the topic but not only for that reason) and there is something for you to consider seriously about your ability to counsel a trans person, given your stated view about gender, and that you would find it difficult to listen to their struggle, while going on to state you espouse the right to identify and that you respect names and pronouns. That paragraph you wrote was commendably honest and in good faith but it contains and exposes inherent contradictions, notwithstanding the tutor's own mistakes and failings re understanding the topic and the law.

That paragraph you wrote was commendably honest and in good faith but it contains and exposes inherent contradictions, notwithstanding the tutor's own mistakes and failings re understanding the topic and the law.

And having explored her feelings OP would be within her rights, as a therapist or otherwise, to recognise that she would never be a good fit for a transwoman and to reject them from her client base on those grounds - that she would not be effective! Some may choose to call that discrimination, but, given the context, you'd have to seriously consider their motives for doing so!

Maybe the OP wants to challenge because challenging this is the only way of ensuring that the tutor understands that she hasn't properly understood the Equality Act. And because the OP is well-informed on this issue and the tutor has recommended reading material from lobby groups that have no credible evidence to back up their claims?

It might be interesting, OP, if you could talk this over with other students and compare what they listed as their potential areas of bias and what feedback the tutor gave them. I might have mentioned being uncomfortable with the idea of counselling someone with fundamentalist religious ideas. I wonder what she'd have recommended I read to redress the balance.

Talking to other students is an excellent idea, because I also wondered what might have been said if I had said, for example, I find abortion triggering, so I don't want to talk to clients about that. And yes, is there recommended reading and re-education for all elements of bias?

@Pluvia
I thought gender is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act given that one only has to express the intent to transition.

Gender reassignment

(1)A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

Yes, it is the act of reassignment, no matter how superficial, that is protected. Not the inumerable names for 'gender' that are lost to / currently undefined in law.

So you can have stated your decision to be trans (and maybe non binary, depending on the outcome of a HOC discussion in a short while) and that is something that is protected.

But if you choose to be a Zebra/Zero then that identity is not. It can be laughed at called into question

Saying you think you would have a problem helping trans people, I can see why she has given you feedback on that as that does sound discriminatory.
You can't discriminate against someone (ie, not wanting to help someone) just because they're trans and you "don't believe that they can change sex."