What's going on with Genspect?

[MalagaNights]

I've seen Stella O'Malley tweet about being unfairly attacked.
I've seen a weird exchange from James Lindsay about feminists trying to take down Genspect.

But I can't work out what's happened or who is fighting with who.

Any ideas?

"it's concerning that I'm being deleted for saying it."

Yes, it is concerning. I wondered what you had said.

I also agree that "her failure to understand the points raised around safeguarding at the beginning is concerning".

It reminds me of her treatment of Jennifer, the transwidow. I wonder if SOM's behaviour is, at least partly, due to prioritising her friendships with men who she considers important over consideration for the feelings of a traumatised woman and her duty of care to children?

Maybe also the same reason she went out of her way to bare-faced lie about Hayton being "silenced" by GC women? For me, the motivation in that case is less significant than the fact that she is capable of such blatant dishonesty.

There seems to be a hard edge inside that fluffy, doe-eyed exterior. She is quite prepared to use it to go on the attack: against women and, in every case that I am aware of, in defence of men.

People with the best possible academic and vocational qualifications can still be rogues or fools. SOM's conduct that has led people to question her background and expertise. They might be exemplary, it is not clear. What is clear is that she cannot be trusted to respect boundaries, to prioritise safeguarding of women and children or to tell the truth.

She could be awarded a medal as Best Psychotherapist in Ireland but it would not change a thing.

SOM recently stated in a podcast interview (link below) that she, unlike gender critical feminists, cares about transwidows and their children. And that, unlike her, gender critical feminists are failing these women and children because we’re obsessed only with pointing out their husbands’ negative behaviour. I disagree with O’Malley’s account of this situation because her behaviour has never noticeably demonstrated much concern for transwidows in the past.

I’ve also noticed in recent interviews, that I’ve listened to, that O’Malley often takes GC criticisms of her and Genspect and claims them as things that she/Genspect have actually always been concerned about and that people saying otherwise are being mendacious. It makes her a frustrating person to evaluate because her position on events and on issues changes often and it makes it difficult to get a handle on what she really thinks.

And, given that she purports to want to help a vulnerable group of people, I want her to be clear, precise and accountable in her public statements because that will engender trust.

https://shows.podcastle.ai/the-jack-jewell-podcast-7CBF/stella-o-malley-when-kids-say-they-re-trans-012-YIjJYjaL

Blanchard said Illy is making the claim women have their version of autogenophelia but he does not believe it and he wishes that he would not go around saying that because he doesn't believe it to be true

O'Malley admitted to Boyce and KJK they are a LOBBY group

Feels like Stella is writing a lot on this thread lol

This is nonsense

@RoseKnows23 This is nonsense

Which part is nonsense, and why?

I'm sorry Stella, I can't be bothered. Ask someone else

I remember at a 'Womens Place' meeting asking 'whatever happened to safeguarding and risk assessments' and the panel responded telling me that these were just box ticking exercises.

I've never quite got my head around that.

What..?

With respect, I wrote a cogent and considered, and well argued post. To quote it all and brush it off, simply sayInc “this is nonsense” with no reasoning or evidenced critique is lazy and rude.

The panel were:
Jo Phoenix, Nicola Williams, Judith Green, Viv Pointon (Chair)

I think it was Nicola who said it was just a box ticking exercise.

Anyway I only posted that as a small demo of how ignoring safeguarding and assessing risk seems to be a theme somehow. And not just Genspect.

Wow. Given their positions in respective organisations, this is shocking. I’m not so shocked at academics hand waving it away as such but this is wrong.

SG assessments can become tick box. But that is wrong too. Then you must interrogate why they’ve become tick box and what the resultant harm is. It doesn’t sound like they even made it to this point.

They’re representing organisations trading hard on the notion they get it. What I’m getting more and more is that they don’t, and that we are losing those that do such as KPSS.

It was April 2019. I specifically wanted to ask this because I think I had spent 3 years asking myself what the hell was going on in terms of assessing risk and applying measures to mitigate it and was dumbfounded how it had seemed to completely disappear from the conversation. And why were safeguarding measures just being dropped left, right and centre.

Also I was running a quite large DfE funded project and we ran a risk log where we documented every damn risk and looked to take action to address it on a full team meeting every bloody fortnight! And yet Girls Guides were just pretending men were not a risk if they said 3 little words.

Baffling. Utterly baffling.

Perhaps their position has shifted now.

Perhaps their position has shifted now

Given the noticeable lack of support for a public inquiry into the collapse of safeguarding from these kinds of organisations, I'd say no. No it hasn't.

I went back to the Genspect website to see if there is anything on there about how they're funded and there isn't.

Dated 2 June 2024 however, is this wretched word salad. To save you the bother, it tells you nothing apart from that anyone who dares to ask how an organisation (about which there is no financial information published) can possibly afford the upcoming 3-day jaunt to Lisbon is instantly labelled a "conspiracy theorist"

https://genspect.org/who-funds-genspect/

But I don't think Genspect is a child safeguarding organisation. I'm not entirely sure what they are, who funds them or what their real purpose is.

They're very clear about what they are. From their website:

Genspect is an international, non-partisan, interdisciplinary professional and educational organisation devoted to advancing a healthy approach to sex and gender. Our team and members strive to promote high-quality, evidence-based care for gender-nonconforming individuals all around the world.

It's not their responsibility that a bunch of people here somehow got it into their heads that they're something else, and then judged them for failing to live up to an agenda that was never theirs in the first place.

They're trying to be (a replacement) WPATH I think?

Can anyone think of other bodies equivalent to WPATH in other areas of healthcare?
It has always frustrated me that trans health always reinvents the wheel. We already have systems for making tricky ethical decisions in paediatric care, whereas the push in trans youth care has always been to do things differently now, use a completely different risk / benefit or care / autonomy framework (or whatever) to oncology, or plastics, or every other field of healthcare.
I'd say what needs to happen in trans healthcare and education is get rid of the lobbyists altogether. Just let medicine and psychology and other modalities proceed without agendas, the way they do with other diseases / forms of human suffering / .

But that's the safeguarding nightmare of WPATH; people without medical backgrounds organised themselves and in the absence of any real science, made it up.

(My post in response to They're trying to be (a replacement) WPATH I think?)

They're not. They don't say who funds them. Their approach to that is to say they happily take money from distressed parents (but not how much, or what it's used on) and to attack questions on this.

Their safeguarding approach (to us that loosely) divests them of any responsibility.

We don't know their structure, their funding, their responsibilities and who they talk to in the UK government, politics, or internationally.

Whatever they are and whoever funds them, they are not a child safeguarding organisation. I see struggle to see the benefit to the UK children in them.

They'll call you a conspiracy theorist...

They are challenging WPATH and I'm not going to take that away from them.

But Genspect is to an extent the same model as WPATH which is the issue.

There hasn't been any other area of healthcare that has a body like WPATH for good reason; it's based on ideas.

Other professional medical bodies are made up of medical professionals. From what I understand, you may have charities which work separately, under those bodies, who may lobby / raise awareness of the issues. They may have contact with families but they don't treat. They'll sign post but to the medical evidence set out by the professional body, who are trained to focus on what is the current evidence and best practice.

WPATH had some medical professionals who were very biased and some who weren't more than extremely ideologically driven parents of kids. You've now got some of those parents doing phds in order to generate papers for WPATH to refer to. (Eg Cal Horton.) WPATH clearly generates its own evidence base. (Cant remember the term.)

At the very least Genspect is drawing from the sparse but growing evidence that opposes WPATH but as said countless times on this thread, when dealing with children and health, safeguarding must be the priority. They're trying to do too many things.

Cass was significant as it was independent.

Safeguarding isn't ideologically driven. It's based on evidence of harm.

Dated 2 June 2024 however, is this wretched word salad. To save you the bother, it tells you nothing apart from that anyone who dares to ask how an organisation (about which there is no financial information published) can possibly afford the upcoming 3-day jaunt to Lisbon is instantly labelled a "conspiracy theorist"

Rather than how can they afford to run conferences, are the conferences funding Genspect? Its nearly €100 for an online ticket, and €500 in person.