Gender Agenda: The British Psychological Society

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I have previously written an investigative article into the racism being spewed by the highly influential British Psychological Society (BPS) in the name of ‘anti-racism’.

For this follow-up piece, I examine the second ideology – gender ideology – that is being spouted by the BPS and shoved down the throats of members and patients alike. This is particularly concerning, given the fact that gender dysphoria is a mental health condition and the BPS exists to treat such conditions.

In 2020, the BPS published an article by Canadian researcher, Reubs J Walsh, entitled: ‘A blow to the rights of transgender children’. Crucially, the article remains live even after the final Cass Review Report, which clearly set out the risks of medically transitioning children and the harm caused by gender clinics in the preceding years.

Walsh begins with a patronising demand of readers: “I always refer to girls and boys based on their identities, not assigned sex; please do the same!”.

He goes on to tell psychologists that to prevent children from accessing puberty blockers is a “blow” to their rights. Especially abhorrent is when Walsh tells readers: “puberty blockers are completely reversible”. We know, particularly in light of Cass, that this is a complete and utter lie. Yet, the BPS do not pull this article on the grounds of misinformation. Nor do they print a correction. They simply include a note from the Editor, reading: “[Editor's note: Although note the NHS guidance on this, and the final report from the Cass Review]”. For such a false, dangerous assertion, this is simply not good enough.

Walsh then attempts to undermine the research which proves that most children will desist or grow out of their dysphoric feelings as they get older. He does this by referring to the researchers as “a small number of extremely cisgenderist authors”; hardly proper academic rebuttal.

Walsh goes on to make a troubling assertion that: “as diagnostic tests go, the test for assumed-cis youth to be permitted to undergo a gender-congruent (i.e. congruent with their stated or assumed identity) puberty seriously lacks specificity”. He appears to be suggesting that there is some issue with allowing children to simply go through natural puberty, without question. He goes on to claim that “interrupting a cisgender identity with a voluntary, self-initiated period of self-exploration” is preferable to not allowing children to explore gender freely. This is chilling. Should we be placing every child on puberty blockers on the basis that they might be ‘trans’?

He then conjures up the image of a young, vulnerable child: “Imagine at age 12 your body starts changing in ways you find terrifying, knowing that these changes aren't reversible…Now imagine you can pause it – fantastic news!” We know that children going through puberty often struggle with these seismic changes to their bodies and their own self-image. This is part of the human condition. The answer to this is to re-assure these children that things will be okay. It is not to offer them a pill so that they can stop their puberty altogether. That this is being published by the body responsible for psychology in the United Kingdom is unbelievable.

He concludes by celebrating the idea that children should be allowed to go through “multiple transitions” before comparing banning puberty blockers to “withholding contraception from unmarried women” or “legislation against interracial marriage”. This is not ethical psychology. It is dangerous dogma.

The BPS do not stop there. In October 2023, they published another article, entitled: ‘A human rights-based approach to transgender and gender expansive health’.

This is meant to be an academic article, impartial and evidence based. However, its introduction features a large image of a protestor holding a placard that reads: ‘Trans Rights Are Human Rights’.

The article, troublingly, goes on to encourage clinicians to take a “practitioner-activist position” as regards their work, in order to push back against a “white-cisgender-heterosexual hegemony”. They are literally encouraging mental health professionals to bring activism into their clinic.

The article claims that mandating explorative therapy before irreversible medical or surgical transition is “coercive” and that those with concerns are guilty of “moral panic”.

According to the authors, providing same-sex spaces for women, such as bathrooms or hospital wards, “can be actively harmful”. Those who suffer irreversible regret and harm and decide to ‘detransition’ are simply swept to the side, on the basis that this is “often the result of encountering transphobia”.

Finally, clinical psychologists are advised to “normalise sharing pronouns”.

This could be directly out of a Stonewall playbook.

The BPS appear willing to potentially discriminate against those who believe in biological reality. In 2019, the BPS platformed a job advertisement for a psychologist to join the (now disgraced) Tavistock Clinic. The advert, crafted by Associate Fellow, Dr Christina Richards, read: “The details of Gender Diversity can be learned, but an open and inquiring mind cannot. Bigots and exploitative theoreticians need not apply!”

For the BPS to prop up a narrative that believing sex is binary and immutable is bigotry is truly shocking. Though, given that the BPS have been content to signpost vulnerable children and parents to Mermaids, it is hardly surprising (Mermaids are a UK-based charity for ‘trans children’, found to have engaged in significant mismanagement following an investigation by the Charity Commission into safeguarding concerns, including supplying breast binders to vulnerable young girls behind their parents’ backs).

Senior figures with a lot of clout in the BPS have driven much of this ideological madness. One such figure is Dr Rob Agnew, former Chair of the BPS Section of Psychology of Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity. I first came across Agnew when I went undercover to a BPS training session. During the training session, he went on a lengthy rant against practitioners with gender critical beliefs. One particularly horrendous comment from Agnew was his call for a clamp down on therapists with gender critical beliefs: “in the way we wouldn’t expect a female client to accept therapy from an incel or a misogynist”. To compare clinicians who believe in biological reality with incels or misogynists is beyond disgraceful. Shockingly, not a single panellist challenged Agnew on this statement, even though they were purporting to speak on behalf of the entire BPS.

Agnew then engaged in the most unprofessional and unmerited attack on Dr Hilary Cass, the Chair of the Cass Review. He said that we should not have a “cisgender person deciding what trans youth services are going to look like” and instead “should have someone we can have faith in”. To attempt to raise doubt, suspicion and paranoia over the work of Dr Hilary Cass, solely on the basis that she is “cisgender”, is a disgrace.

Off the back of this webinar, I decided to delve deeper into comments made by Agnew on other social media platforms, including LinkedIn and X.

In one, Agnew referred to keeping men off women’s hospital wards and banning puberty blockers for children as “medical apartheid”.

He has repeatedly spouted misinformation, telling clinicians and patients that “exploratory therapy has less of an evidence base than puberty blockers”.

For a psychologist to talk down explorative therapy in favour of such experimental and irreversible medicalisation is beyond backwards.

However, Agnew is far from the only senior figure in the BPS intent on pushing gender ideology. Dr. Igi Moon is the ‘non-binary’ Chair of the Coalition Against Conversion Therapy. She has previously compared a two-sex model to “imperialism and colonialism” and has even told practitioners: “You can’t believe in a two sex model alone if you want to work with clients”. This is clearly discriminatory against psychologists and psychotherapists with gender critical beliefs. When myself and my group, Thoughtful Therapists, reached out to Moon with concerns regarding child safeguarding in the name of gender ideology, she blocked our email address and instructed others not to engage with us.

What of those within the BPS who dare to challenge the prevailing ideological narrative? Dr Kirsty Miller, a psychologist and former member of the BPS was one such individual. She had held concerns for some time about the racist and anti-scientific views being pushed by the BPS, particularly the accusations of “white fragility” detailed above. Having come to the realisation that nothing was going to change, she decided to leave the organisation altogether. However, before leaving, she asked the BPS to publish a letter she had written explaining the rationale behind her decision. It was entitled: ‘Why I no longer wish to be associated with the BPS’.

The letter was published in the BPS’ online magazine, The Psychologist. However, it contained bizarre ‘Editor’s Notes’, including: “It pains me to see that some have found the publication of the letter traumatising”. Again, note the use of language – a suggestion that adult mental health professionals can be ‘traumatised’ by reading a differing point of view.

It gets worse. The BPS Editor, Dr Jon Sutton, subsequently removed the letter altogether, writing: “The element of the feedback which troubled me the most was that ‘The Psychologist’ was providing a platform, the oxygen of publicity for racism and an author, who through her interactions on social media was adding to the pain that black and people of colour were already experiencing on a daily basis.”

To accuse a former member of ‘racism’ for what was a wholly measured and balanced push back against dangerous ideological narratives within the BPS is shocking. Sutton went on the claim that “Dr Miller has not been censored or silenced” – on the basis that the letter had been published at one point.

Particularly troubling and indicative of the BPS’ disdain towards open dialogue and debate was that, although they removed Dr Miller’s letter, they left up the comments from other members accusing her of being “racist” or “bigoted”.

Commenting on what happened to her, Dr Miller wrote: “I’m not surprised by the behaviour of the editor, or the organisation — or indeed the members who responded to me with name calling, character attacks and misrepresentations of my case. I was however, fairly horrified that so many of these came from clinical psychologists — those who are employed to be professional, compassionate, understanding and able to understand different perspectives.”

I could not put it any better myself.

The BPS have had their fair share of public scandals. They faced a Charity Commission investigation into concerns around poor governance and silencing of academic dissent. A number of Trustees have resigned over recent years, again citing governance issues. There was even a police investigation into suspected fraud within the organisation.

Yet, when it comes to its radical preaching on critical race theory and gender ideology, much of this has, unfortunately, flown under the radar. Until now.

Ideological capture is dangerous in any organisation. However, there is something particularly chilling about the capture of a profession that exists to support the mental wellbeing of the most vulnerable and that was built on the foundation stones of open dialogue and debate. We know that ideological bias has a detrimental impact on the credibility of psychology, as well as the mental health of patients.

For as long as the BPS continue to engage in ideological activism, its members and the patients it was set up to protect, are at risk.

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If you are looking for mental health support and want a principled therapist who believes in free speech and opposes dangerous ideologies and identity politics, look no further than Just Therapy – a new association I have established. I have also returned to private practice and still have a few slots remaining. If you are interested in seeing me for therapy, you can get in touch via my website here.