We are ashamed of the role psychology played in gender care - Letter from 16 senior psychologists

[IwantToRetire]

What happened at Gids was a multi-factorial systemic failure, but when the Observer rightly calls for “accountability for the managers and clinicians who pursued such unethical practice and caused avoidable harm to young people”, we believe the role of our own profession should be fully examined.

Full letter at https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/commentisfree/2024/apr/21/we-are-ashamed-of-role-psychology-played-gender-care-observer-letters

I hope they are actually ashamed, and it shadows them throughout the remainder of their careers. They colluded with gender ideologues and subsequently ensured children’s lives were ruined. They should have known better, they should have acted and they didn’t. Be it on their conscience for the rest of days.

I feel like this could be good for those of us living in places where the profession is still totally captured, and those individuals who aren't have to stay under the radar.

I live in one of those places. A friend has been a clinical psychologist specialising in children’s care for 30 years. Recently she stated that in the next couple of decades we will no longer ask new parents if they’ve had a boy or a girl because we will wait for children to determine their own gender identity when they are old enough. I really hope that the tide will turn here and people will feel able to speak out against that kind of madness but it feels like it’s a while away yet.

That’s madness @Remaker ! And a dreadful conflation of sex and gender too. I still don’t understand why anybody thinks we should all have an identity based on regressive stereotypes. Your, presumably female, friend should remember that many years ago she wouldn’t have been working anyway. She seems fine with ignoring that regressive idea, but thinks people should categorise themselves by others?

Can none of these people see what they’re saying?

It's a good letter. I hope it encourages other psychologists and their professional bodies to reflect and return to sanity.

That’s a good and welcome letter. I suspect that many people who work in the media (especially those who feel qualified to comment) are as hazy as many people are in general about the distinction between psychology/psychiatry/other medical specialities beginning with p and so on.

That letter is from a small group speaking out.

Most of the profession remains silent.

The educational psychology psychologists came out against the government draft guidance and have been silent on Cass.

The university training courses are run by ideologues in this area.

The bps is captured.
I'm not sure how this is weeded out of psychology.

Whilst I share a lot of sentiments I think everyone needs to be level headed here. Which is difficult considering the subject but equally this isn’t a surprise to us. We knew this would happen. So we have had time to process some of that emotion.

The reason I’m saying this is these professionals have got here because they listened to someone saying y. I don’t think lambasting them with ‘you should have known better, you should have done what YOU thought was right’ is the correct stance. These are professionals who whilst have a duty of care, also have a duty to follow NHS guidelines. Now that Cass and the NHS have changed those guidelines we want them to listen to x. So prosecuting people for listening to y might not incline those same people to now listen to x.

Im hoping that makes sense.

Are the names given anywhere please? I couldn't see them?

It says 'names supplied', so they must have asked the Guardian not to publish their names. They know what's happened to Hilary Cass.

Psychologists aside, the Royal College of Psychiatrists is on Stonewall's WEI 2023.

They actually thought it was worth their while to jump through all of SW's hoops to curry the approval of an ideologically compromised and controversial lobbying group.

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/top-100-employers

I wonder if those psychologists are having their Oedipus Trap realisation moment?

I assume you’re familiar with the story of Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother. I assume you also remember that this wasn’t really his fault; he didn’t know who they were. But that didn’t stop his mother from hanging herself when she found out, or Oedipus from gouging out his own eyes. There are some mistakes no one can live with, no matter how innocently they were made.
Thus the trap: If you have made such a mistake, it is obviously better not to know you have done so. And as Feynman said, you are the easiest person to fool. Which, of course, raises the disquieting question: What Oedipus traps might we have stumbled into unawares? And more importantly, if we have, how do we get out?

https://archive.ph/HjXYo

This is quite the archive thread from 2019.

(The Newsnight interview is on You Tube, easily searchable. It's Emily Maitlis interviewing a GIDS psychiatrist. Mermaids there too. The GIDS psychiatrists knew back then about the issues of harm and irreversible experimentation and were blinded by ideology.)

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3753152-Newsnight-now?page=1&reply=91859791

OK. Thanks OldCrone

Wow!!
I remember watching that (and finding it shocking) at the time- but had completely forgotten about it.
EM was really on it.
Thanks for digging this up.
Off to revisit that old thread.
I wonder if Dr Van Horn ws one of the 16 from the letter...

Well said.

I'm thinking unlikely as Dr Van Horn is a psychiatrist, not a psychologist.

Thanks for this post @Gymnoob. I feel a bit vulnerable posting this (which speaks to the sensitivity of the topic!) but here goes. I'm a clinical psychologist, not working in GIDS and can't say I've knowingly encountered anyone identifying as trans in my professional life. I would describe myself as gender critical perhaps, in that I support someone's right to identify as trans, but for me I don't see it as equating to biological sex, eg I feel quite strongly against the idea that TWAW.

I learnt very quickly that it wasn't safe to be openly gender critical at work. I've felt a conflict between staying true to my beliefs and values, whilst also if I'm honest not wanting to speak too loudly and risk losing the career that I love and it's effectively taken me ten years to train for.

I don't believe I'm alone in this profession but it's been a lonely and sometimes scary position to hold when the BPS line has felt very much not in line with my views.

Don’t worry I totally get it.

This might sound dramatic but I used to look at certain things which have happened in history in the past (I’m not going to name but you can probably guess) and just thought how could that happen. How could society allow that to happen and no one stand up. That could never happen today.

But watching all this play out has been sobering. It made me realise those kinds of things could easily happen again today. A slow silent creep. Distracted by daily life and you miss it. Turn around and all of a sudden where did this tide come from. But it’s already there. Stand up too early and all you’re doing is singling yourself out and risking the welfare of your family.

Some people have martyred their careers and reputation for this and to those thank you. Many are grateful. But it certainly shouldn’t be an expectation.

So Thankyou for your work. I am sure you do a brilliant job and have helped so many people 😊

Yes, that's right, as I noted above. I posted the Newsnight clip in response to @RethinkingLife saying, 'Psychologists aside, the Royal College of Psychiatrists is on Stonewall's WEI 2023'.

It's important we recognise that both professions - psychologists and psychiatrists - were/are represented at GIDS, and that many waded into the gender woo madness from the top down and potentially did harm to children. They certainly created a hostile environment for a lot of their own colleagues like @RossGellersCat, who has posted her experience above (and thank you for that).