Tag: lgbtq

SCoPed and trans (and other marginalised) people

This is a post that got started some time ago but was neglected until now. The arguments still stand and so we are posting it with ‘better late, than never’ in mind. 

The 2023 BACP announcement that ‘all partners’ had decided to adopt SCoPEd is going to reframe what training means for qualified counsellors, along with who gets what, when, and how. What it will eventually mean is that according to your training you will enter at one of three points A, B or C (originally these columns were called ‘counsellor’ ‘psychotherapeutic counsellor’ and ‘psychotherapist’, but this was changed after an outcry- as if labelling the column differently is going to make a significant difference to the stratification of our profession). Jobs will likely be stratified according to at least the competences listed in the columns, if not clearly by the columns themselves.

We’d like to concentrate here on both the EDI assessment, and the impact that SCoPed will have on LGBTQIA+ practitioners and trainees as we move forward.

We will use the term ‘therapist’ here to cover anything that we would consider either ‘counselling’ or ‘psychotherapy’ in that whatever you call it, we are all aiming to be of some kind of therapeutic benefit when working with our clients.

Your TL;DR is: Without Membership Body (MB) data, we do not know if those in ‘protected characteristics’ will be discriminated against, and there is no MB data (and currently no suggestion that this will change). Whilst there will be the ability to move between (up through) columns post-training, it is likely to more significantly impact those with less privilege. A ‘column A’ therapist is expected to have less competences (and will be seen as less competent) than a column B therapist. It follows then that a column B therapist will likely be a higher paid role. 

So, those with less financial privilege (uniformly those who are more marginalised in society) will be most likely to participate in a ‘column A’ ranked training, ending them in a lower-paid job, which will render undertaking further training to get into column B (and C) more difficult (and it is likely that people will be unable to find out definitively from BACP BEFORE they pay for an additional training, whether that would qualify them to apply for the ‘next column’), and once that has happened, the individual will then have to pay to move into that next column.

For this EDI assessment, six therapists, a miniscule fraction of the 50,000+ therapists currently registered with BACP, were consulted, and the qualifications of the consultees is not disclosed. Despite there being very little actual EDI work in this EDI impact assessment, and the results suggesting that there will be at least some impact on those more marginalised, the EDI assessment suggests we make a start on SCoPEd as it is and trust that the rest is worked out along the way.

The EDI impact assessment

We believe that as a process, this EDI impact was flawed. There are six member organisations that have signed up to SCoPEd. Whilst there will be a percentage of people who are in multiple organisations, the membership for NCPS sits at over 9000, the membership for BACP sits at over 50,000, UKCP sits at over 11,000. That’s half the memberships listed, and although we expect BACP to be the largest, if we assume even 5000 for the others, that’s about 85,000 therapists (the SCoPEd announcement says 75,000), and more joining every year.

An ‘EDI impact assessment’ was commissioned to (one presumes) look at the impact of SCoPEd across all demographics.

This impact assessment was conducted by a company called Eastside Primetimers, who state: “The strategic objectives that the Partners set for SCoPEd draw our attention to the dependency of its success on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations”. Before they started on this project, Eastside Primers were calling SCoPEd a ‘groundbreaking project’ and a ‘pioneering project’. We wonder how easy that would be to turn back on if you were to find significant issues with the project.

The report states that it has struggled to get any information about those who might be in protected characteristics from the membership bodies (MBs) and they state at the start of the document that they cannot say (yet) what the impact on those people who might experience less privilege will be. None of the data collected is cited as being race/ethnicity, cis/trans status or sexuality, or disability (pg 13). In those where gender was collected, the average number of men in the profession is 16%. The report suggests (pg 11) that should SCoPEd NOT go ahead, that this will disadvantage people who have less privilege. It does not seem clear on why this is so.

The EDI report acknowledges that the framework is not a public-facing document so it asks ‘a small number’ of the public (12 people who’d had experience of counselling) to consult with it about SCoPEd. They approached six counsellors, 3 of whom were men (meaning that men proportionally have more of a voice as a reflection of the profession here), five were white, five didn’t identity as disabled, and none stated any LGBTQIA+ identity. There is no suggestion of their socio-economic status either. Four people interviewed were in private practice. Again an interesting choice, as those in private practice are potentially least likely to be impacted by SCoPEd. 

They gathered six people for interview. There is no suggestion that, in this ‘equality and diversity impact’ consultation, they interviewed six people who might be qualified to speak about these topics. In fact, their report states “Some communities (such as those identifying beyond the gender binary) are not represented due to factors, such as not responding to the invitation to interview or not meeting the survey criteria in some way, such as not being a member of a registered professional body” (pg15).  Dominic Davies from Pink Therapy, “the UK’s largest independent therapy organisation working with gender, sex and relationship diverse clients” has stated that he was not contacted for any help, and that had he been so, he would have facilitated the reaching out. There are over 200 people listed on the Pink Therapy directory who have a specialism in LGBTQIA+ topics, and at the time of the consultation, 45 of these have ticked the ‘trans’ box as part of their own identity, suggesting that at a minimum there were 45 people listed with an MB who might have been open to being contacted. Several of those people are TACTT members and were not asked

We do not know for certain that The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN) or Black therapy matters had a similar experience, but we’re willing to take a guess. This EDI ‘consultation’ didn’t try very hard to find a trans person (or any LGBTQIA+ person), interviews ONE disabled person, and ONE person from a minority racialised background, and gives no real impact on what SCoPEd might mean for therapists with marginalised identities.

We do not really see any EDI impact in this 27 page document until pg 19 when we find  “There is a risk that Partners’ membership data systems do not facilitate EDI-relevant analysis of progress in widening access to and progression within the profession, and so in turn ensuring that the framework does not exacerbate barriers to access and progression”. This says to us that there is no way that we can know if SCoPEd will have an impact on the most marginalised counsellors because MBs don’t collect that data.

Page 20 of the EDI assessment suggests that without the ability to move between columns with further training (rather than only ‘core training’, which would require a qualified counsellor to start again as if untrained), that this will compound the difficulties those therapists with ‘protected characteristics’ hold, and make higher columns inaccessible.

Despite the information given above, this consultation sees no reason why SCoPEd can’t go ahead as it stands and we can iron out the details later. A profession based on expertise especially in one’s own process should never be mediated by privilege. It is an impoverishment of the profession as well as injustice to practitioners with marginalised identities.

There is an interesting point in the data, which is that single women are less likely to support SCoPEd than partnered women, and we cannot help but wonder if this is part of the reason that SCoPEd votes are going through – that if you think it doesn’t affect YOU, PERSONALLY, you don’t necessarily consider the impact on other people. Those who are in a relationship will generally (we know, not always) have a second income coming into the family. Those who only have one income coming in have to be much more aware of SCoPEd and how this might impact. This ‘awareness of how all counsellors might be impacted is, in our opinion, what an EDI assessment would do.

This EDI assessment says: as SCoPEd stands, you can’t move across columns without investing in more training; those who are more marginalised can’t afford more training; some organisations have already said they will start to stratify therapists according to columns, thus ensuring that column A therapists can only do ‘lesser’ qualified roles (which presumably one then gets paid less for, or the thing that we CURRENTLY see, which is that someone is ‘good enough’ to volunteer, but not good enough to be paid), thus meaning that they earn less money and therefore have less income to be able to afford more training that might push them across columns. But please, feel free to get started and iron out these ‘small’ details later.

Trans folk, queer folk, disabled folk, folk with racialised identities, folk who are working class, will all find it difficult to move into the top two categories and are at risk of being pushed into lower paid jobs as a result, and kept there. For those people who are multiply marginalised this will be even more more likely and this ‘EDI impact assessment’ does not recognise intersecting axes of oppression in its report whatsoever.

Response to Telegraph article

The Telegraph newspaper recently published an article claiming that leaders of membership bodies including the UKCP have been “ousted” for raising safeguarding concerns relating to gender-affirming therapy for children. We have written a response to this in the form of a letter to the editor which you can read in full below:

We are a group of over 400 therapists, including members of the UKCP, BACP and NCPS, writing in response to the article ‘Top therapist ‘ousted’ after trans activist row’ (26 October 2025). We were disappointed to once again see a news story about trans lives and care that did not speak to or consider the perspectives of trans people. We believe that people should be free to be themselves and live within a true understanding of themselves, and that the way to “protect children from harm” in therapy is to allow them a safe place to explore who they are.

The article reports claims from former UKCP Chair Christian Buckland that activist pressure from within the therapeutic profession has created a coercive environment regarding the treatment of gender-questioning children, and describes allegations of intimidation, governance failures, and the marginalisation of voices calling for exploratory rather than affirmative approaches. In particular, the article focuses on claims that Buckland, and leaders of other therapist membership bodies, have been “ousted” for raising safeguarding concerns relating to gender-affirming therapy for children. These centre around Dr Buckland’s decision to withdraw the UKCP from the UK’s Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy (the MoU). Dr Buckland claims this was done because he “became aware” that the MoU (which states that conversion therapy in relation to sexual orientation or gender identity is unethical, harmful, and not supported by evidence) applied to children as well as adults.


We deplore the threats of violence that Buckland says he has been subjected to as we deplore hate and violence against any individual, trans or cis. We also object strongly to the implication that threats and violence are tactics consistently and deliberately used by some hypothetical ‘pro-trans’ lobby.

Dr Buckland’s claim that he was unaware the MoU applied to children as well as adults seems disingenuous; there is a paper trail relating to the MoU, including a press release back in 2019 showing that it was discussed that the guidance should apply to all ages. There has never been an explicit exclusion from conversion therapy practices for children, because there has never needed to be one. There is no evidence that conversion therapy works for any age, and plenty of evidence that it harms, as made clear in a Government report of 2021. 

Buckland and Martin Pollecoff both had ample time in the 7+ years of discussion around the MoU (and the revised edition) to ask for clarification on whether the word “people” as used in the document included “people under the age of 16”. It would appear that this did not happen, until Buckland decided in a meeting in 2023 that he was unaware that those under 16 were in fact “people”. Rather than discuss those concerns, his statement (according to someone present in that meeting) was that he would need to speak with those linked in UKCP to working with minors. No further communication followed that we are aware of, as UKCP was withdrawn as a signatory before the next meeting.

It should be noted that, despite UKCP citing concerns around work with children as their reason for withdrawing from the Memorandum of Understanding on the prevention of conversion therapy, UKCP’s own website ‘clarifying’ this decision makes a very clear statement that: “We want to be clear that we are against conversion therapy for any age, adults or children.” It is unclear, then, why the UKCP is withdrawing from an understanding that conversion therapy is bad for all ages, whilst unequivocally stating on its website that conversion therapy is bad for all ages.

The article stipulates that Buckland received backlash for “trying to protect gender-questioning children from policies that would encourage them to be trans and go on to receive life-altering drugs and surgery” and says that gender affirmative approaches pose “significant harm”. The article does not elaborate on the nature of this alleged harm, only implying that it is inherently harmful to allow for the possibility that a child or young person is transgender. We do not believe that acknowledging that a person – of any age – who is wondering if they are trans may in fact be trans is harmful. In fact we believe that acknowledging that transness exists as a valid, non-pathological identity protects people from harm, particularly in a world where transphobia is so prevalent. 

Also published was the claim that the MoU is “encouraging 100 per cent of children [with gender dysphoria] to go down the medical gender reassignment route”, concluding that “The crux of the split is around how children who are confused about their gender or believe it does not match their sex should be treated.”

This misrepresents what is meant by ‘affirmative therapy’. “Affirmative” (the term borrowed from, and endorsed by, Dominic Davies who wrote about “gay affirmative therapy” in the 1990s) refers to a framework which affirms the client “in their right to explore and to use words that are right for their identity”, and within which the therapist has no preference for the client to hold any particular identity.  Affirming therapists do not seek to convert, persuade, or coerce, and do not seek any particular outcome other than the growth and flourishing of our clients, whatever their age.  Affirmative therapy simply means that we do not think it is a worse outcome if a client decides, for themself, that they are or are not cisgender (TACTT, 2024). 

We do not actively wish for children to be trans anymore than we wish them to have any other particular identity. We worry for our trans clients – of any age – because we understand the difficulties inherent in being a trans person in 2025; with significant, almost uniformly negative media representation, constant public debate, and steady erosion of rights. We firmly believe that people should have the space to work out if they are trans, and if they are, we will affirm that position. If someone comes to the decision that they are not trans, we will affirm that identity also. “Affirming” does not mean “coercive”. It means accepting someone’s view of themselves as valid. 

Those of us who disagree with Dr Buckland’s decision are denigrated as “activists”, as if being an activist is something one should avoid being, when in fact, we are activists merely because we care about the lives of all people (and this includes trans people). This denigration also undermines our collective wealth of experience in the fields of psychotherapy and clinical research. 

Yours, 

Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia

Inspiration for inclusive practice and creating safe(r) spaces

This book review comes from another of our members.

Supporting Trans People of Colour: How to Make Your Practice Inclusive. By Sabah Choudrey

London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2022

Paperback, 208 pages, £16.99. ISBN: 978-1787750593

I begin by acknowledging the lens through which I read this book and am writing now: I am a trans/non-binary psychotherapist; I am white, in my 50s, middle-class and neurodivergent.

On beginning to read Supporting Trans People of Colour: How to Make Your Practice Inclusive, I was struck by the author’s approach: Choudrey combines their own lived experience with voices from the community (via an anonymous survey) and with the voices, frameworks and tools of elders, researchers, leaders and organisations (for example, BARC Collective, adrienne maree brown, Brené Brown, Justice Founders and many more). This was a very powerful thread throughout the book and I experienced the writing as though it was flowing from a broad collection of lived experience and wisdom.

My second impression was of the holding and educating that is done by Choudrey. While the first section (Identity and Intersectionality) provides an extremely helpful resource on terminology, language, white privilege, cis privilege and the experience of trans people of colour in the UK in various areas (criminal justice, healthcare, faith, etc.), I wish that such education did not fall on the shoulders of those within the community and I acknowledge the effort it must have taken to put this book together.

The chapter Creating a Safe(r) Space was illuminating to me. Safety is such an important theme for the trans community and the encouragement to think about not being able to guarantee safe spaces but to “be accountable to harmdoing and transparent to risk taking” (p.67) in order to create safe(r) spaces, was very helpful for my own thinking about safety and the spaces I offer as a therapist, raising my awareness of my own responsibility. Equally, asking the question: “safer for whom?” (p.67) has already proven helpful to me in group and institutional settings to think more deeply about privilege and how I inhabit spaces. 

Similarly, the chapter Holding a Safe(r) Space outlines the need for us to be active in this endeavour, especially given the fact that trans people are often not allowed by society to take up space. Choudrey continually encourages us to think about intersectionality and overlapping areas of oppression, and this chapter offers helpful sections to understand not just race and gender, but also sexuality, dis/ability, language, access, and class. I admit that class is not an area that I have given a lot of thought to, and this section highlighted my hesitation to think about class privilege, providing me with a great starting point for doing some personal work in this area. The recommendations and discussion in this section have helped me to begin my reflections on how class and classism might impact my work.

Any topic around oppression can feel overwhelming to tackle, but this book offers many practical and manageable starting points for professionals and organisations (therapists, healthcare professionals, charities, educators, and others). The range of subjects covered is broad but always comes back to lived experience and meaningful actions. For example, there were some small actions I could immediately take in my therapy practice, even as I was reading the section on Agreements, contracts and policies. I reviewed my contract and added more detail to provide greater transparency. I also added a task to my calendar to review it regularly because, as Choudrey reminds us, inclusion is an ongoing process. In the chapter Celebrate and Commemorate, I found the calendar of cultural, historical, and social events useful – I know how isolating it can feel if a significant day is not acknowledged by those around us, and educating myself about events important to other communities feels like an easy, supportive step to take.

The book contains moments to pause: breaks in the text in the form of boxes with points to reflect on. I found these challenging, inspiring, interesting… There were parts that raised questions requiring deeper self-examination and ongoing work, such as: Where do I hold influence in my life? How can I take responsibility for widening my circle and experience? Where is my collusion? What do I not see in my much-valued trans spaces?

The other chapters in the book include one entitled Practice (especially helpful for organisations, covering tokenism, visibility, and accessibility – whether your spaces are online or in-person – advertising and recruitment, and partnerships and funding) and one called Exclusion and Inclusion, which includes a 10-point summary for making your practice inclusive.

The care I have experienced in the trans community is something that is very precious and supportive to me, it helps me thrive in life. This book brought into sharp focus the whiteness of my trans spaces, and I realised with sadness that I do not think enough about how these spaces could be safer for trans people of colour. I want our community to be accessible and welcoming to all. Supporting Trans People of Colour provided me with practical ways to think about transforming my community spaces, as well as a wealth of information and points for further reflection. I ended the book feeling empowered.

A book review: The Queer Mental Health Workbook

We asked some of our members if they would care to read various books around working with LGBTQ+ topics, and write book reviews. Here is a review from one of our members, who has approached the reading of this book from the point of view of being a therapist who might want to explore this book as a way to work with clients.

The Queer Mental Health Workbook
A creative self help guide using CBT, CFT and DBT
Dr. Brendan J. Dunlop

Dr. Dunlop’s book definitely fits the criteria of self-help, and shares some of the positive and negative features of this genre. On the positive side, it does offer practical (rather than creative, if I’m being picky) exercises that are easy to complete and buying the book gives you access to downloadable versions of resources too including some colouring sheets which, while not being exactly creative, does encourage the reader to get their felt tip pens out.


Dr. Dunlop puts his ideas in a broader context which helps get perspective and adds meaning to what we are reading or being encouraged to try. He often writes as if he is speaking directly to the reader which gives it a pleasant immediacy and directness and moments of honesty and familiarity would definitely, in my opinion, make a reader feel less alone (for example the list, in the chapter on identity, of very recognisable comments that queer people might find themselves exposed to).


Other useful aspects included in the chapter on self-acceptance and self-compassion, a table on what might be behind things such as self-harm, substance misuse, disordered eating and self-neglect, and Dr Dunlop offers a deep dive in side boxes in the test (for example, giving some background to Section 28 [the prohibition on teaching about ‘homosexuality’ in high schools that was in place 1988-2000/2003 depending on whether you lived in Scotland or England and Wales] and how it could have impacted queer people’s mental health).


The book is very broad, so there’s bound to be something in there for almost everyone and readers are encouraged to go directly to the chapters that will be most relevant to them. However, in this breadth comes some of the aspects of the book that I found less helpful. The exercises, because they are designed to be accessible and applicable to a wide range of people, can come across as quite simple and for me, did not have enough depth and the text was similarly general. 

Some concepts or ideas about concepts were presented as facts without acknowledging that they might not be true for all and a several concepts felt over-explained and overly simplified. I felt frustrated at what felt like ‘talking down to’ the reader.


As a therapist, I would recommend using exercises from this book in a personalised way in sessions with clients, tweaking them to suit the needs of your clients and guiding clients through them rather than just handing it over to a client. I felt, in its current form, it would be best suited to teenagers but for them, the patronising (in my opinion) feel of much of the voice could alienate and annoy them, making them feel that things are being overexplained. Having said that, when the author does go deeper (for example the activity on ‘identity in context’ in chapter 4), it seemed to me to be a lot more useful and beneficial.


In summary, do selectively read this book and choose the exercises you would share carefully, personalising them to your clients and putting them in the context of your clients’ lives and experiences. To be fair to Dr. Dunlop, this is hard to do in a very generalised book, and he does make it clear that a reader should choose the parts that work for them. There are some useful parts here, and it is worth making the effort to find them by zooming in directly to the chapters that seem relevant to your clients and personalising what you offer so it is meaningful to them and presented with respect, with free choice and with acknowledgement that one size certainly doesn’t fit all and ‘facts’ are to be handled with caution.

Statement by TACTT on UKCP Board ‘no confidence’ vote (full version)

Context

The UKCP has announced a removal election of the Board of Trustees in response to a call from some of its membership through an open letter petition initiated by UKCP members who are also members of Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT). The petition was signed by the required threshold of at least 2% of the UKCP membership, and also garnered support from over 1500 professionals and trainees from across the sector. 

The open letter and petition came after the UKCP Board decided to withdraw the UKCP as a signatory of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MoU2) (and as a member of the Coalition) earlier this year, without consultation with the UKCP membership.

In this statement,TACTT want to take the opportunity to clarify the origins of the petition, and its rationale for calling a vote of no confidence.

Who Are TACTT?

TACTT is a collective of therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and other therapeutic practitioners, including trainees in these fields, who oppose conversion therapy and transphobia in the therapy profession. TACTT members belong to a number of professions, and those who are counsellors, psychotherapists, or psychotherapeutic counsellors are members of a number of different professional bodies, including the UKCP. TACTT holds members of all genders.

What is the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU2) on Conversion Therapy?

The MoU2’s main aim “is the protection of the public through a commitment to ending the practice of ‘conversion therapy’ in the UK” (MoU2, point 1), viewing conversion therapies as unethical and harmful. By signing they are committing to ending the practice and ensuring their members are working ethically, based on training, within that principle. 

Anyone seeking therapeutic support deserves a safe, trained professional who is truly acting in their best interests. This assurance has now been removed for LGBT+ people approaching UKCP members for such support.

What led to the petition? 

(i) No consultation of membership for major policy shift

While much of the TACTT membership was alarmed by the Board’s decision to withdraw from the MoU2, we were further shocked that this was done without any consultation with the membership or Articles-mandated Member’s Forum which “should be consulted on the future direction and strategy of the Charity and advise and collaborate with the Board of Trustees.”

(ii) Contravening UKCP’s Code of Ethics point 32

Furthermore, we are appalled by the contradictions and lack of clarity found in the UKCP’s Board statements:

The stated reason for the withdrawal given by the Board included concerns about how it specifically applied to children and young people. This contradicts the facts of the MoU2 (which states in point 10 that it does not provide these specifics to signatories and leaves each organisation within their own purview to determine the specifics of how that training, and working practice is managed to achieve the commitment of ending the practice of conversion therapy). The Board also stated the UKCP had not known, when signing, that this statement applied to children. This cannot be squared against their years of membership supporting the MoU and its re-signing of the Memorandum in its second version.

Unfortunately the statement put out by the UKCP Board thus contradicts itself as well as the facts of the MoU2. Especially when their withdrawal statement still speaks to the same end purpose of the MoU2 that they are now disavowing. 

This all stands to confuse the wider MoU2 membership, the UKCP membership, and the wider public about the expectations of therapy they can receive from counsellors and psychotherapists. 

Furthermore, the nature of the comments the Board makes in its withdrawal statement imply that the MoU2, and by extension every other signatory organisation, is failing to sufficiently safeguarding the interests of young people. In doing so the UKCP Board is calling the practice of the wider psychotherapeutic community into disrepute and contravenes the UKCP’s Code of Ethics point 32, which states that members must “act in a way which upholds the profession’s reputation and promotes public confidence in the profession and its members.”

In addition to this, the Chair of the Board of Trustees has in TACTT’s view, publicly contributed to this misrepresentation in the national press and on social media accusing the signatories of the petition and TACTT of “bullying” the Board, comparing UKCP’s members’ legitimate and constitutional call for a removal election with a ‘coup’, and further suggesting that those who support the petition are somehow not interested in the “safety of children”. 

We point out once more that in calling for a removal election, the UKCP’s Articles of Association have been adhered to and members are entitled to exercise their democratic right to vote on the continuation or removal of the Board of Trustees, without being defamed by the Chair of their Board. In TACTT’s response statement, TACTT reminds readers that being held accountable through a democratic election is not bullying.

(iii) Lack of response and dialogue

Following the UKCP’s withdrawal from the MoU2 and their statement, UKCP members of TACTT individually and TACTT as an organisation, have tried on numerous occasions to contact the UKCP to discuss their decision and try to talk to them about reconsidering. All attempted contact has been ignored. The open letter/petition is a response to this lack of engagement by the UKCP.

Concerning views about gender and invalidation of trans identities

The open letter/petition was not TACTT’s first attempt to raise questions about the UKCP’s seeming policy direction and its lack of consultation around this. In late 2023, a previous open letter, raised major concerns about how the UKCP’s position was moving towards one that re-pathologised trans identities- in ways that seemed resonant of outdated, homophobic positions-, and how it seemed to promote so-called ‘exploratory therapy’ (a practice which typically ‘explores’ all possible meanings of a trans client’s gender identity experience other than that they are actually trans) for ‘gender-critical’ therapists (i.e. those who typically do not believe being trans is a valid state of being). Here again, the UKCP repeatedly refused to respond to invitations for dialogue about serious concerns raised by multiple UKCP members, Members’ Forum Representatives as well as over a thousand signatories of Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT)’s open letter (last updated in January 2024). 

From this lack of dialogue, engagement and reassurance, we do not have the confidence that the UKCP Board is supportive of trans voices, trans clients, trans students, trans therapists, as now embodied in its unconstitutional withdrawal from the MoU. Again, many other UKCP members outside of TACTT, along with professionals who are members of other therapeutic bodies, agree.

Conclusion

The public discourse around transgender people in the UK is currently toxic, with relentless political and media attempts to smear and misrepresent them. This has left the small UK trans community in deep distress. TACTT sees this in the lives of some of its members and in the anxiety it encounters from many trans and gender expansive clients. This said, TACTT wants to make clear that the grounds for this vote of no confidence lie in the UKCP’s own Code of Ethics, as the authors and signatories of the letter believed that the UKCP Board’s decision did not meet point 32 and they have not been “acting in a way which upholds the profession’s reputation and promotes public confidence in the profession and its members.”

We point out that the Board has made a major policy decision without consultation with individual, college or educational members and note that its communication of its decision to psychotherapy professionals, the wider public, LGBTQIA+ people as potential clients is at best confusing, at worst incoherent. In this confusion they are damaging the reputations of other MoU2 signatory bodies and their professional members by implication. 

Further, whilst the UKCP’s statements still claim its opposition to conversion therapy, this confusion stands to harm and reduce the safety of LGBTQIA+ clients and potential clients.

We cannot believe that these actions are in the interest of the fee-paying members or of our clients. Numerous LGBTQIA+ students and trainees from within and outside TACTT have shared their concerns, including students on UKCP accredited courses who are required to be members of the UKCP or to remain members after completing their courses for qualification until they can be able to even consider transfer to a different professional body. That they may be required to remain members of a professional body that leaves them feeling this unprotected and unvalued is unconscionable. 

The Board’s Chair has chosen to stand by his comments and the Board’s decision, even after TACTT raised its concerns, and how, in TACTT’s view, they risked casting many UKCP members, and/or members of the wider professional community, into disrepute. We remain puzzled about the Board’s claim to be in discussion with other organisations about the creation of alternatives to the MoU2, when the largest of these organisations, the NCPS, have just announced their intention to rejoin the MoU2, having confirmed that their previous withdrawal was solely on the grounds of being subject to potential legal action by hostile actors which would have been prohibitively expensive to defend. 

We ask all the UKCP members with voting rights to consider what, in TACCT’s view, has been done in your name and how, by the Board :

  • Ignoring the concerns of professionals
  • Making large policy changes without consultation of educational, college, or individual members
  • Implying that large swathes of our profession, including UKCP members are failing in safeguarding responsibilities for continuing to support a document, which continues to have the support of 23 other major mental health and related organisations (soon to be 24 once more), whilst claiming confusion over a core aspect of the agreement, eight years after having first signed and then later resigned it. 
  • Breaching the UKCP Code of Ethics 
  • Claiming to be in discussion with other organisations about a successor agreement to the MoU without providing evidence of this, and offering no response to recent NCPS actions which seem to clearly contradict this.
  • Betraying and abandoning LGBTQIA+ members, many of whom now feel unsafe within the UKCP, and LGBTQIA+ clients.

As a UKCP member, we believe that you deserve better than this. If you agree, then you have the right to vote to remove the members of the Board who enacted this in your name. If you are happy with these actions then you too must vote with your conscience.

Statement by TACTT on UKCP Board ‘no confidence’ vote (Summary Version)

Context

Last month, the UKCP announced a removal election of the Board of Trustees in response to a call from some of its membership through an open letter petition initiated by UKCP members who are also members of Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT). The petition was signed by the required threshold of at least 2% of the UKCP membership, and also garnered support from over 1500 professionals and trainees from across the sector. The petition followed UKCP’s decision to withdraw from the Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy.

UKCP’s decision to withdraw from the MoU2 on conversion therapy

On 5th April 2024 the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) advised its members and the public that it had withdrawn its signature from the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK v2 (MoU2). The major decision to withdraw from the MoU2 was made by the UKCP Board of Trustees, without consultation nor notice with its wider membership.

In the statement, UKCP asserts itself as “fully committed in its belief that conversion therapy is harmful and must not be practised” and later confirmed that to do so would also breach of the organisation’s Code of Ethics, while at the same time advising its members to “discount the MoU as a published policy of UKCP”. In effect, UKCP asks its membership to discount as policy a document of which its entire purpose is ensuring conversion therapy is understood as harmful, unethical, and should not be practised.

These actions and statements are contradictory and potentially confusing, especially for a Board who is informing their membership and the public about major changes they have enacted without consultation. 

Who are TACTT?

TACTT is a grassroots collective of therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and other therapeutic practitioners, including trainees in these fields, who oppose conversion therapy and transphobia in the therapy profession. TACTT members belong to a number of professions, and those who are counsellors, psychotherapists, or psychotherapeutic counsellors are members of a number of different professional bodies, including the UKCP.

Why is the MoU2 important for LGBT+ people?

The MoU2’s main aim “is the protection of the public through a commitment to ending the practice of ‘conversion therapy’ in the UK” (MoU2, point 1), viewing conversion therapies as unethical and harmful. By signing they are committing to ending the practice and ensuring their members are working ethically, based on training, within that principle.

Anyone seeking therapeutic support deserves a safe, trained professional who is truly acting in their best interests. This assurance has now been removed for LGBT+ people approaching UKCP members for such support.

Responses to UKCP’s decision to withdraw

While much of our membership was alarmed by the Board’s decision to withdraw from the MoU2, we were further shocked that this was done without consultation with its members. 

Following the UKCP’s withdrawal from the MoU2 and their statement, UKCP members of TACTT individually and TACTT as a collective tried on numerous occasions to contact the UKCP to discuss their decision and try to talk to them about reconsidering. All attempted contact was ignored.

UKCP members from TACTT then decided to try and bring our concerns to the Board’s awareness, as well as other UKCP members, through public conversation via an open letter: Open letter to UKCP on their recent withdrawal from the MoU2 on conversion therapy

Why has a ‘vote of no confidence’ in the Board been called within UKCP?

UKCP members of TACTT created the above letter, and were joined by UKCP members within and outside of our group as signatories, to trigger the call for a removal election. Together we reached the 2% of the UKCP membership who are eligible to vote on matters within the professional body, that is sufficient to trigger an election for a vote of no confidence in the Board.

These authors and signatories believe that the current Board’s actions around the MoU2 membership have not been in keeping with UKCP policies that seek to “[act] in a way which upholds the profession’s reputation and promotes public confidence in the profession and its members.” (point 32 of the Code of Ethics).

The way UKCP’s Board have made this decision and communicated about it will be confusing to psychotherapy professionals, the wider public, LGBTQIA+ people as current and potential clients.

In that confusion they are damaging the reputations of other MoU2 signatory bodies and their professional members by implication. They are misleading the public and the professional community about the MoU2 either on purpose or by misunderstanding.

In addition to this, the Chair of the Board of Trustees has in TACTT’s view, publicly contributed to this misrepresentation in the national press and on social media comparing the UKCP’s members’ legitimate and constitutional call for a removal election with “a coup” and “bullying” of the Board.

Whilst TACTT’s opinions on conversion therapy are clear from our name as well as our work, any breach of UKCP’s Code of Ethics and its policies (regardless of the subject matter and related opinions) must be taken seriously. 

Next steps

We ask all UKCP members with voting rights to consider what has been done in your name and in making use of your membership fees. Is this what you expect from a Board who represents you?

·      Vote for what you believe is correct conduct for your membership group’s Board members: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/about-ukcp/elections/

17th June, 6:30pm (online): Hear from the Board.

20th June – 3rd July (5pm): Voting opens.

All eligible UKCP members will receive an e-mail to vote.

Response from and to NCPS

NCPS responded to our letter. The text is below, along with our response back.

Text from NCPS reads:

“Thank you for your communication regarding the Society and conversion therapy.

 

The Society, alongside other MOU signatories, was forced to withdraw from the MOU in 2022 after receiving formal threats of legal action against MOU and naming us as potential co-defendants.

 

Our professional indemnity insurers confirmed they would not be able to cover us should legal action commence against the Society and so we had no choice but to withdraw on financial grounds.  Our withdrawal from MOU does not change our position of opposing conversion therapy and has not changed any Society policies. It was agreed at the time that publishing our forced exit as a signatory of the MOU would have had a detrimental effect on the coalition.

 

We have agreed to enter into exploratory discussions with UKCP and other professional bodies which does not signal policy agreement.  Should the Society consider any policy changes in the future these would first be put to member consultation and ratification.


We are aware of the significance and complexities of this issue and will keep members fully informed of any developments.

 

Kind regards

 

Jyles Robillard-Day

Chief Executive Officer”

We have now sent the following response to NCPS:

Dear Jyles,

 

Thank you for your email and the additional information. However, it leaves us with more questions than answers. I have emphasised the questions to which the members who have supported the development of this response ask of the Society, and a request arising from the emergence of NCPS’s withdrawal from the MOU without informing its members.

 

Breach of trust and ethical duty of care to clients

NCPS members of TACTT are shocked and disappointed by the Society’s misrepresentation of its support of the MOU since 2022. Several TACTT members joined NCPS within the past 12 months under the impression that the organisation was a signatory to the MOU. The website states that the organisation is “a proud signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy, making it very clear that counsellors can help clients who present with conflicting feelings about themselves concerning sexuality or gender identity.” The GSRD page in the Members area of the NCPS website states that “the NCPS supports the work of the MOU.” Given the context of your email, these statements are false and misleading to members and prospective members.

 

The Society has placed members in the position of harming our clients. Informed consent cannot be given by clients when they believe they are safe because their counsellor or psychotherapist’s membership body supports the MOU when it has not done so since 2022. 

 

The Society has not conducted itself with the transparency that its own code of ethics demands of its members. The code demands that members “ensure that all advertising, no matter in what form or medium it is placed, represents a truthful, honest and accurate picture.” NCPS has recruited paid members using misinformation stating on public-facing parts of its website that the Society is a signatory to the MOU and reinforcing that in member-only information. 

 

Although NCPS members involved with TACTT appreciate statements from the Society on conversion practices, this is an individualised response to a systemic problem. TACTT Members who chose to join NCPS did so on the understanding that their membership body was part of a broad coalition that was using its collective power to bring about systemic change in the UK. 

 

NCPS has let down and misled its membership. This is not only a breach of trust between the Society and its membership, who could not freely choose a different membership organisation that was still an MOU signatory; the vitiation of the therapist/client relationship cannot be undone. The Society has placed its members in the position of deceiving clients, and now we are left with the burden of working out the steps we can take to repair this rupture of trust with our clients. 

 

As members, we require immediate guidance on how we can rectify the position of maleficence that this has placed us in with our clients.

 

Legal action and MOU alternatives

We are aware of legal action that was brought against a number of co-defendants. However, the legal filings we have seen do not show NCPS as a co-defendant in that case. 

 

We would be grateful if you could confirm the case to which you are referring.

 

If the Society’s objective for withdrawing from the MOU was to avoid legal costs, it is unclear how entering into a different coalition to produce an alternative statement on ending conversion practices will protect it from future legal action. If the Society intends to withdraw from any coalition or consensus statement openly supporting ending conversion practices, it is difficult to see how the Society’s involvement in any future coalitions will make any meaningful change. A coalition is only as strong as its members, and whilst we appreciate that the executive team has a responsibility to protect NCPS as a legal entity, it also has a responsibility to be accountable to its members for how its funding, which is generated largely from membership subscription income, is used to support ending oppressive practices in counselling and psychotherapy. 

 

We request a statement on how NCPS makes decisions about which of its principles it will stand by and which it will recant when challenged.

 

Consultation with the membership

It is unclear from your email who you refer to when you say that “we” have agreed to enter into exploratory discussions with UKCP and other professional bodies. The email says that “should the Society consider any policy changes in the future, these would first be put to member consultation and ratification,” but a policy change has already been made. Withdrawal from the MOU coalition is a significant policy change about which the membership was not consulted. As such, we remain sceptical about the trustworthiness of the Society to consult and engage with its membership. 

 

How do you intend to consult and engage with the membership on future changes in policy? 

 

Would rejoining the MOU coalition constitute a change in policy, since the membership was entirely unaware of the policy change to leave the coalition in the first place?

 

Please feel free to contact me if you require any clarification on the above queries. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. 

 

Kind regards, 

TACTT

Final response to UKCP

On 2nd November 2023, UKCP published “guidance regarding gender critical views” for their members. We were very concerned by this guidance and wrote an open letter detailing our concerns which has been signed by over 1,000 therapists, trainees and other professionals. There followed an exchange of statements with UKCP, which you can read on our blog and as updates to the open letter. We are now publishing this as our final update, inviting UKCP into dialogue in the hope that the Council may yet find understanding, compassion and empathy for trans life, and that we can work together to protect and support trans clients. At the end, we also address all psychotherapists and counsellors; trans and gender-expansive therapists and trainees; and our current and future trans and gender-expansive clients.

Dear UKCP,

Thank you for your response, published on 15th December 2023, to our open letter about your guidance regarding so-called ‘gender-critical’ views. This will be our final written response in this series of communications, although we otherwise remain open to dialogue with UKCP on this matter. We are using this written response to expand upon points made in our holding statement published in early December, as they were not adequately addressed in your response to us.

We do not wish to volley written statements back-and-forth with UKCP; our concern is making  therapy safe for our trans and gender-expansive clients. We would welcome an opportunity to meet with UKCP and discuss how the Council too can support this work.

At this stage, we would  like to highlight our continuing concerns with the statements published by UKCP, both in your original statement and in your response to our open letter, before addressing other therapists and any clients who may be reading:

  1. Once again, this latest response from UKCP entirely fails to explain how it will protect trans and queer therapists, trainees and clients. Indeed, any mention of what trans clients might want from therapy is entirely absent. UKCP is speaking over the people who are most impacted by their statements and creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. There appears to have been no consultation with trans and queer therapists or clients. This is regrettable given UKCP has shown some effort in the past to include and listen to marginalised groups.
  1. TACTT is concerned that this statement either doesn’t understand or misrepresents what affirmative therapy actually is. Affirmative therapy means the therapist supports the client’s right to define themselves. The splitting of ‘exploratory therapy’ from affirmative therapy is now being used to justify a form of therapy based on so-called ‘gender-critical’ beliefs. We cannot stress enough that all good therapy should be exploratory in nature, but weaponising affirmative therapy to make way for so-called ‘gender-critical’ praxis is blatantly unethical and, we believe, amounts to discriminatory practice. The play on language does not hide the unethical attempt at trans-erasure.

We note UKCP’s imperative to remind us that so-called ‘gender-critical’ beliefs are protected under the Equality Act 2010; we remind UKCP that trans people are also protected under the same legislation. We are not seeking to discriminate against people who hold so-called ‘gender-critical’ beliefs. However, if a practising member of UKCP does not believe in the legitimacy of trans life then, according to UKCP’s own Code of Ethics and Professional Practice and the MOU on conversion therapy in the UK, said practitioner would be ethically bound to refer on to competent colleagues.

As practitioners committed to trans-affirmative therapy, we now find ourselves in an uncertain and increasingly unsafe professional environment, where anti-trans activism is emboldened. Those of us who are trans and queer professionals and trainees find ourselves isolated and left to advocate for ourselves against institutions with far more power. The available pool of truly competent and safe therapists for trans and non-binary clients is already small. UKCP’s guidance does nothing to help this.

  1. We are dismayed that much of our effort to communicate with UKCP has involved having to remind the Council of its own core values, pointing to the Code of Ethics and Professional Practice and its position as a signatory of the MOU on conversion therapy. UKCP still has not acknowledged that its position on so-called ‘gender-critical’ beliefs, which may cause harm to transgender clients, contravenes its position as a signatory to MOU. We fear that, at best, this will cause significant confusion for members and, at worst, harm to clients.

As stated, we do not want to get into an interminable correspondence with UKCP.  Rather, we would like to invite UKCP to a roundtable discussion with members of TACTT to address our concerns. We seek dialogue, not to call out our colleagues, but to invite you to join us in finding understanding, compassion and empathy for an extremely vulnerable client group.

Alongside this, we will continue to work to improve therapy for trans and gender-expansive people through advocacy, education and campaigning. We ended our open letter by stating that those of us who are UKCP members or training in UKCP-accredited organisations are starting to question our place within the Council. If UKCP is unwilling to engage on these questions, you are likely to continue losing the trust of your members who work in a trans-affirmative way, as well as the trust of clients.

Yours sincerely,

TACTT 

We now turn our attention to the different audiences reading this letter.

To all psychotherapists and counsellors: 

We urge you to expand your knowledge and learning on trans-affirmative therapy, and specifically, seek training and education from trans and non-binary practitioners.

We encourage self-reflection on your own process around gender, transness and affirmative therapy. We further encourage you to seek out appropriate supervisory guidance if you are unsure about any aspect of your work. If you do not feel comfortable or equipped to work supportively and openly with trans and non-binary clients, it is ethical to refer them on to competent colleagues. We suggest a search on the Pink Therapy and Gendered Intelligence therapist directories for such practitioners.

We encourage you to examine your culturally inculcated reactions and responses to this topic and invite you to begin to challenge and work on them, in just the same way you may work on unconscious bias across all the other axes of oppression. 

We also remind you that trans and gender-expansive clients seek therapy for all the reasons anyone of any gender might come to therapy. By engaging in these processes of reflection, you will be better placed to support these clients with matters such as depression, anxiety, bereavement, relationship issues etc. without bringing an unwanted and unnecessary pathologising focus to their gender.

For those who are allies and who have already spoken out on behalf of trans clients, thank you. Any therapist who would like to use their voice for change is welcome to join TACTT.

To trans, non-binary and gender expansive therapists and trainees:

We see you. We know that the continued attacks on trans rights – both within and outside the therapy profession – create an emotional burden which you are shouldering while helping your clients to navigate the same environment. We oppose transphobia across the therapy profession and will continue to work to ensure the voices of trans, non-binary and gender expansive therapists and trainees are heard. 

To our current and future trans and gender-expansive clients:

We want you to know that you are welcome in the therapeutic space, that you belong here. We want you to feel safe accessing therapy, no matter what you come to therapy for – whether that is support through transition, gender questioning or indeed any other issue not related to your gender. We want you to have competent, supportive, knowledgeable and, above all, safe therapists to work with. 

We want you to feel empowered to question a prospective therapist about their stance on trans life to ascertain if they are safe for you to work with. 

Guidance such as the Pink Therapy guidance on how to choose a therapist is likely to be helpful. We also suggest asking a therapist if they have experience in working with trans and non-binary people and whether they have either lived experience or extra training in the subject. You can state you are looking for an explicitly trans-affirmative therapist and ask if they consider themselves to be so. 

Remember, exploration is an important part of any therapy. But the term ‘exploratory therapy’ is being increasingly weaponised by those who hold anti-trans beliefs, so ask your therapist what they mean by any terms they use.

Ask for word-of-mouth referrals from trans and non-binary communities. We also suggest searches on directories that are explicitly trans-inclusive, such as Pink Therapy and Gendered Intelligence, and to use trans-affirmative or inclusive search terms when seeking a therapist. 

When words matter

We start this with a caveat: the language and definitions of terms are correct as of Dec 2023. This may change in future.

As therapists we work with people from all types of backgrounds and may encounter those of a different race or ethnicity to us, those with a different class, sexuality, gender, those who are (differently) disabled, as well as those who are trans.

Although most UK counselling membership bodies (including BACP, NCPS, UKCP and ACC) have signed up to the memorandum of understanding on conversion therapy (that is – conversion therapy is bad and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that it has a risk of suicide, there is a current discussion around language and semantics that feels important to unpick.

In light of the UKCP’s statement around exploratory therapy and their response to TACTT’s open letter, this blog sets out a brief overview of key terms as used by gender critical (GC) therapists (which are often in direct opposition to the definitions used by non-GC therapists).

Gender critical: To be ‘gender critical’ (or ‘GC’) exclusively refers to those people who don’t believe that trans is a valid identity. A GC person believes that there are only two sexes, that people can’t change sex and that sex is the axis that matters. Gender critical people do not believe that “trans women are women” and “trans men are men” (and non-binary people exist), but that trans people are at best delusional, and at worst, predatory (‘men aiming to access women’s spaces’ for example). It is of note that the term ‘gender critical’ originally meant almost the opposite of what ‘gender critical’ now means, and therefore it is easy to understand why someone who is critical of gender norms and stereotypes, but who is accepting and welcoming of trans identities, might call themselves ‘gender critical’, not realising they are aligning themselves with a very different way of being.

Conversion therapy: Conversion therapy attempts to explain gender and sexuality divergence as a failure to be cisgender, heterosexual etc., and sees “success” as a client’s embracing of the preferred norms. Conversion therapy is “an umbrella term for a therapeutic approach, or any model or individual viewpoint that demonstrates an assumption that any sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently preferable to any other, and which attempts to bring about a change of sexual orientation or gender identity, or seeks to suppress an individual’s expression of sexual orientation or gender identity on that basis.” (MOU) It can include an attempt to ‘change’ a person’s gender identity by suggesting they were abused, or are actually autistic or gay (etc.), and are therefore this means they are not trans, and that other gender identities outside of the white binary don’t exist. Conversion therapy is at best, ineffective and at worst, actively dangerous.

Affirmative therapy: GC therapists will state that affirmative therapy is actually conversion therapy ( that affirming is ‘telling’ someone they are trans) and that exploratory therapy is the only way forward. A non GC-therapist would usually use the word affirmative to affirm the client in their right to explore and to use words that are right for their identity (with the therapist having no preference for the client to hold any particular identity). In the same way that we do with clients who discuss childhood abuse for example– we don’t presume to speak over a client and tell them they were or were not abused; we provide space to allow them to come to what labels (or none) and understandings of their experiences work for them. We affirm their right to do this exploration of self in a non-judgemental space. We do not seek to convert, or to act in accordance with our personal beliefs. The GC-therapists’ claim is that ‘affirmative therapy’ is “telling a client they are trans” and affirmative therapists are pushing those clients towards that identity. This would be tantamount to conversion therapy, were it happening. However, allowing an affirmative space for a client to explore all aspects of their identity, is not the same as trying to convince them of one aspect. Affirmative simply means that we do not think it is a worse outcome if a client decides, for themself, that they are not cisgender.

Exploratory therapy: Exploratory therapy is being cited in the UK as being contra to the (GC) definition of affirmative therapy. Florence Ashley writes a brilliant paper on a GC definition of exploratory therapy and why it is a terrible idea, and is essentially equivalent to conversion therapy. Proponents of exploratory therapy are reluctant to accept trans identities (particularly in young people) and instead look to find the reasons a person may be saying they are trans (such as childhood trauma etc.) to resolve these and ensure a person moves to a cisgender identity. This approach situates transness as pathology, meaning that it is in direct contravention of the MoU, which states that neither being trans nor being cis are inherently better than the other. Of course, if our clients have a trauma history they are looking to explore then we would look to do this. This is not the same as looking at trauma as ‘the reason’ someone is saying that they are trans.

A gender-critical therapist who believes that sex is immutable and more important than ‘gender identity’, will practise exploratory therapy in order to try to find (and fix) the reasons someone says they are trans – there is no therapeutic neutrality here as pathology is assumed. A therapist who believes that trans identities are valid may seek to practise in an affirmative way that does not aim to tell a client what their identity is, but provides space for the client to find their own language. Exploratory therapy (in the way the term is increasingly used) begins from a place of pathology, but although trans people are more likely to have suffered abuse/trauma, this is not the cause of our transness. To attempt to search this out and resolve something where no cause exists, is conversion therapy.