Gender GP Helen Webberley interview in the Times

[SqueakyDinosaur]

I respect the Times for printing this, because I genuinely think it's right to get both sides. It doesn't change my opinion of HW or her husband. It looks like they have an extremely swanky house to me. There's gold in them there pills.

archive.ph/uCpBm

What a sucking moral vacuum.

That's an amazingly chilling piece of journalism to read.

Webberley claims Gender GP has 'seen' potentially 30,000 patients since the inception in 2015, and by way of comparison the figures say that NHS Tavistock GIDS saw only 9,000 since 2009. I mean, if she's telling the truth isn't that figure mind blowingly high? How can a private service give safe and effective treatment to such a high number?

Also, if she's seen so many people and they're all fee-paying, why doesn't she have the money to keep healthcare advisors employed? She says she fired them because having them on staff wasn't sustainable and now she's moved to AI self-service instead.

I just don't know how people like this sleep at night.

This is seriously, seriously concerning.

So purely to access the "service", users must pay an upfront £260, and then £360 per year. That's before you even look at the drugs. PBs are £1180 a year for the basic package. No wonder that her house looks so opulent!

I've used LLMs (AI) where it can't even tell you the information you've just fed into it.

Afaik, there is not a chatbot that is not at risk of making fairly fundamental mistakes.

If the algorithm is simply "if x is between range 5-10 then suggest y" that's a bit different. If any context or interpretation is required though, who is liable for errors? I'm sure they will have countless disclaimers for people to click through.

And given that their client base is distressed people, many with likely comorbidities and a flexible definition of truth, it's very unlikely any AI currently in use is capable of interacting safely and coming to the right conclusion, even in the Warped World of Webberley.

Well she didn't come off well did she? Claims to be uninvolved in treatment/prescribing, now in managerial role but can’t and won’t sort out Employment Tribunal decision as she’s not the employer and knows nothing about it? Aye right. In both upto her neck.

Can sue the doctor who made assertion she over prescribed testosterone but hasn’t! Hmm.
Incoherent bullshit about Cass and still trumpeting WPATH “best practice” 🤔

As already said a naked grift.

Just how was her suspension overturned in High Court?

Oh, and still using the suicide narrative to scare parents (but in a slightly more coy fashion now).

Article by Victoria Smith analysing the Webberley interview:

https://unherd.com/newsroom/gender-clinic-director-dismisses-critics-as-anti-progress/

‘Read in context, Webberley’s “not everyone likes change” is not a wry comment on the human condition. It’s the words of the neoliberal boss justifying the shaving away of “inefficiencies” in favour of a “streamlined” service that brings in more money. It’s not about helping people to adapt to change, grow and thrive. It’s about repackaging rampant individualism as indicative of a more forward-thinking sensibility.

It’s one of many highly revealing moments in which Webberley lays bare the overlap between a worldview in which the only thing that matters is personal wealth, and one in which a child’s fear of puberty can, apparently, be cured with pills and patches. In both cases, actual human bodies — actual people, with their complex emotions, their identities formed and reformed in relation to others — are an inconvenience. Deny them. Get rid of them. If you can outsource the treatment of a gender-distressed child to a robot, removing what Webberley calls the “human interpretation of protocol”, you should do it. If people object, simply tell them that they hate progress.’