trans – Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia

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.

When is a person not a person?

Answer: when you’re under 16.

That is, at least, according to the ex-chair of UKCP in an October 2025 Telegraph article. He claims to have been unaware that the use of the word ‘person’ in the Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy included those under the age of 16.

So, how are children and people different, and what is being set up by and in us as therapists that lets one of the ‘top therapists in the UK’ (as posited by the Telegraph, at least) walk around for potentially their entire life, believing that children are somehow not people?

Dictionary.com gives its first definition of ‘child’ as “a person between birth and puberty or full growth” and we would be the first to acknowledge that the legal definition of ‘child’ has differed across ages and cultures, and situations. A 16-17 year old can get married or join the forces with parental permission, may have sex and procreate without parental permission, but may not smoke or vape, even with parental permission. A 16-17 can’t vote, but can have a job and pay taxes. These numbers have changed across time, and have not always had parity between genders (two people of different sexes could have sex legally at 16 since 1885. Before that it was 12, then 13. There was no consideration of an age of consent for sex between those identifying as men until 1967, when it was set at 21, and then lowered in 1994 to 18, and again to 16 in 2000. There was no equivalent for those identifying as women). None of this takes away from that child being a person, however. A person (also as defined by dictionary.com) is “a human being, whether an adult or child”, which also also suggests that the legal definition of person is “Law., a human being natural person or a group of human beings, a corporation, a partnership, an estate, or other legal entity artificial person, or juristic person recognized [sic] by law as having rights and duties”. Yep – even not actual people are legally people in some instances.

The main psychological theories in existence posit that there is a linear and progressive route to achieving stable and enduring gender certainty, and that children and adolescents are naturally in a state of flux. It is this state of flux that seems to create a line between children and adults (or children and people, depending on who you’re talking to). Once you’re an adult (or a ‘person’), you’re assumed to have ‘achieved’ a stable identity. There is a huge amount of double-think going on here. “Everyone changes”, but children don’t know who they are and might change (and therefore can’t be known as trans whilst they are in this place – however long it lasts). At the same time, “adults have a stable identity”, and that’s what makes an identity more trustworthy, but they come to therapy to explore (and potentially stay with) some hitherto un(der)explored aspect of their identity. That is what the jobs of so many therapists is; to work with adults with a stable identity, as they seek to change. That is our livelihood.

Which is it? Are adults and children both capable of fluidity of self? And if it’s not the notion of fluidity that creates the issue with children being seen as people with agency, what is it?

The difference that seems to be held in popular areas of discussion is this: adults know, and children might think they know, but they do not (and cannot). And therefore by extension, until they know who they are, they cannot be a person. Adults however, may change as much as they wish, because we (who is this ‘we’?) know that they/we have a stable identity.

When working with children and young people, as when working with adults, we would do well to remember that we are not inside the heads of the person in front of us and therefore can not presume to know better than them what their experience is. Our methods of communication are partial at best. Sitting in a room with a counsellor and talking involves multiple steps. As a client, I have a thought/emotion process, and try to translate this into the 2D experience that is words that capture some of my experience. My therapist then receives my interpretation of my experience and interprets that through their own lens (even as some of us attempt to stay within the frame of reference of the other). The therapist then has their own internal process about my words, and then they offer me back their own 2D experience as it relates to my 2D experience of what is at least a 3D experience. As much as we try to be empathic, and sometimes we can do this much better than others, there are too many layers of interpretation happening here, to be right all the time. Whilst we have all been children, a crystal clear understanding of the processes we were going through at any moment in that childhood simply isn’t available to us in the present moment.

We are all human beings in flux, whatever age we are. Most of us who go to therapy go to explore some aspect of ourselves that we’d like to at least understand more fully, so that our deeper understanding might change something in our environment. No children know fully who they are yet. However, no adult does either. We allow adults not to know this, as long as their wondering about themselves don’t fall too far from an acceptable norm, or start from a marginalised place. Those who are marginalised know only too well what it is to have their personhood and agency stripped from them over and over again throughout history. We have a long history of ableism, racism and misogyny, in the same way that we have a long history of not allowing children agency. We are at risk of treating anyone who is not a white, cisgender heterosexual, able-bodied adult as someone incapable of agency, as somehow a ‘thing’, not a person, capable of wonder. And that results in their dehumanisation.

There is an argument that we should not affirm the right of children to be themselves because this somehow leads them down an ‘irreversible changes’ route – that by affirming them, we somehow cause children to become trans (read: delusional), which somehow forces them to get blockers, then hormones, then surgery. The first problem with this is that very little of this treatment is available for under 16 year olds, and so medical treatment such as hormone blockers (let alone what is often called ‘cross-sex hormones, or surgery) is simply not accessible to under 16s (and with NHS waiting lists in place, once a child moves on to the adult wait list it’s still going to be a significant time – the TransActual website shows that the longest wait time for hormones from referral is 8-10 years and in England and Wales the shortest waiting times for adult services are 2 years). Secondly, any therapist who tried to persuade a client to a cause of action would likely be working outside of their code of ethics (should they be registered with a membership body), because attempting to force anyone into anything in therapy is unethical.

We believe the recent article statement from the ex-chair of the UKCP makes clear that either there is a level of deliberate obtuseness, with the argument that he did not know that ‘children’ were included in the category of people (or, to put it another way, ‘didn’t know that children were human beings’), or that somehow, he does not see children as people, with agency, with the right to explore who they are. To suggest (or believe) that children are not people, is to exercise control over them without their consent. We are not ok with this.

Either way, we would suggest that the statement is ridiculous, and it seems clear to us that the definition of ‘people’ should never have needed special explication of just who was included in the category of ‘human’. Nor should children be used as pawns in a fight to withdraw one of the country’s main PSA-registered bodies from the Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy. Furthermore, children (and adults!) should be affirmed in their right to explore who they are, whether they come to a cis, or trans identity. At TACTT, we want people to be who they are at every age, and support full and open exploration of self that allows freely for all possible responses.

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.

Responses to the UKCP meeting

UKCP – The Board Removal Vote.

As many of you know, The UKCP Board held an online meeting Monday to put its case to members on how to vote in its forthcoming removal election. Over 300 UKCP members are reported to have joined this meeting.

We are listing here the headlines, as we understood them, and below this (in the longer version), quotations from the meeting and links to relevant documents.

As the vote begins we remain extremely concerned about the actions of the UKCP Board and we do not believe that their actions in withdrawing from the MoU have been adequately explained. We believe that some very serious questions remain, and in the absence of receiving answers, despite trying for months, our UKCP cohort continues to call for the removal of the Board and their subsequent replacement with a new team which will restore the UKCP to the MoU (as the current Board restated that it would not do), unless a full and transparent consultative process involving members of all kinds indicates a different course of action.

The headlines from the meeting are:

1. The UKCP Board states that their figure for triggering the vote is 2% and that that’s low by comparison with other organisations. They stated that the petition achieved this level, just, and inferred that if a higher number had been required, it wouldn’t have been reached. We’d like to respond that TACTT’s open letter stopped being promoted at the point we reached the number of signatures required and a decision was made to submit to UKCP. TACTT is confident that it could have added more signatures, perhaps significantly more, had it continued to seek them.

2. The UKCP Board states that NCPS supports them in the aim of creating a new, alternative version of the MoU. NCPS has categorically denied this and has now asked UKCP to stop saying it’s true. (Please note that communication from the UKCP to TACTT after the publication of this blog asks us to update. The UKCP is not planning to create a new version of the MoU. We are not sure what they are planning to create, except a regulatory document of some kind that involves conversion therapy. In the meeting they discussed the MoU ‘not going far enough’ and wanting to strengthen this, but it seems that what they are planning to create is not something like the MoU).

3. The UKCP Board states they had no choice but to withdraw at speed from the MoU and although they knew that this may be seen as a transphobic action, they a) didn’t have time to mitigate the process around this, and b) although they knew it could be perceived as transphobic, they didn’t consider how their action would impact members. They also feel that they are “ethically sensitive” and the right people to remain on the board. However, the Board has also said it discussed this in advance of making the decision with colleagues and some of the member colleges. Which is it? That there was time to engage with several colleges and colleagues, or that this had to be done so fast that there wasn’t time to consider the impact the decision would have?

WHY did the decision have to be so fast? Can the UKCP categorically state that they have signed no legal settlement that has compelled them to withdraw from the MoU?

4. The UKCP Board’s original stated reason for withdrawal was about ‘children’. At the meeting the main message seemed to be about ‘insurance premiums’. The Board now states that it had to withdraw the UKCP because of insurance policy premiums (and that their responsibility is to UKCP, with no mention of clients or their members). With respect to stated concerns about the care of children, the UKCP board has claimed that the MoU Secretariat refused to engage on this. There is nothing in the minutes of any UKCP trustee meeting from the last 18 months that suggests this and it has been stated in the meeting on June 17th by an attendee (presumably on the secretariat) via the Q&A panel that the minutes of the MoU meetings do not support this. Whichever way, the MoU was a guideline, rather than a legal document.

5. The UKCP Board has repeatedly said that they want to hear from LGBTQ+ (and other) voices. TACTT has been trying to engage with UKCP on this matter since November 2023, with no results whatsoever. The UKCP Board also states that it supports the Cass review, which has been widely criticised since its publication, not least by trans people whose voices were systematically excluded from it.

6. The UKCP Board stated that the removal of the trustees would destabilise the organisation and that many new developments would have to be ‘put on ice’, yet also claiming that the current Board is new. Irrespective of this seemingly contradictory rhetoric, it must be pointed out that the Board wouldn’t be replaced until new members of a trustee board (also potentially members with experience of being trustees) were in place.

In short: the narrative we have heard seems to be as follows.

They couldn’t tell members the truth, but they’ve also been transparent from the start.

They are against conversion therapy, but they support the Cass Review. This has been widely discredited by leading academics, and was created and managed by a government that explicitly and energetically attempted to destroy the rights of trans people in the UK. This government has refused to bring forward a ban of Conversion Therapy (the Minister who commissioned it celebrated the release of the final Cass report with excited claims of the defeat of the “militant gender lobby”) and the Cass report has been weaponised extensively within the political and media discourse since its release.

They believe in ‘healthy exploratory therapy’ but will not commit to a starting point of stating that trans identities are valid and are as legitimate as cisgender identities. Without this, so-called ‘exploratory therapy’ effectively becomes conversion therapy.

They want to create a new regulatory version of the MoU, but again, will not commit to the standpoint of the original MoU. They didn’t know that the MoU covered children (we ask, why would it not, and why did it take 8 years and having signed the document twice to bring this question – which could have been answered easily and quickly at any stage?) and state that children have age-specific needs. Our response to this? Of course they do, but why does this mean that a well-practised approach of supporting a child to explore their identity – trans, cisgender or anything else – is invalid?. And we point out again that the MoU does not state any particular way of working for either adults or children and young people.

Long version

1: In the interests of expediency, TACTT sent the list of signatures when we knew we had reached the number required. If the number had been higher, we would have continued to share the letter until the higher number was reached.

2: UKCP have withdrawn from the MoU2 and intend to create a regulatory document around conversion therapy. UKCP (Jon Levett, CEO) said in the meeting “We’ve got together a working group which is going to start to meet on a monthly basis to really start to get some momentum on this. So NCPS are very definitely involved, very definitely signed up to this.” Another trustee states “ [we have] form[ed] a working group led by our CEO John Levitt already we’re collaborating with a number of organisations including the British Psychoanalytic Council, the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society and a number of others”

NCPS’s response is “Just to reassure you, the NCPS has re-joined, and is fully supportive of, the MOU as the right mechanism to ban conversion therapy, a ban which has been our consistent policy. We are not looking to create an alternative MOU […] I have raised this with UKCP and asked them to refrain from sending out these statements”

3: UKCP say that they didn’t have time to consider the potential fallout. We respect that the open letter went up the same day as the announcement. However, what this tells us is that the board just did not consider this, in advance of releasing such a huge statement. They also say in the same meeting that they DID consider that it might be seen as transphobic, but that none of them (it seems) considered the impact that might have. One cannot have it both ways.

“We didn’t have time to address the potential fallout before the petition came against us. So we have been and we are always against conversion therapy and the petition was based on incorrect information”

“To be totally transparent we considered that the withdrawal taken out of context could be experienced as transphobic and homophobic, but what we didn’t consider was the potential impact.” “We believe that as the existing board that we have the skills, the vision and the ethical sensitivity to take the forward and deliver on the charity’s strategic aims”

“We did discuss it with colleagues. We did discuss with some of the colleges, although we acknowledged we didn’t discuss with all of them”

4: From the MoU2: “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.” and “signatory organisations agree that the practice of conversion therapy, whether in relation to sexual orientation or gender identity, is unethical and potentially harmful.”

UKCP state concerns about children and not knowing that children were covered under ‘people’. What exactly *are* children, to UKCP, if not people? Jen Ayling stated: “you know, a child’s need is very different to an adult’s needs and I think that’s where there’s the need for additional guidance.” The MoU does not give guidance on HOW to work with people exploring their gender. It simply allows room for children to fully explore their identities from within a framework that believes “that neither sexual orientation nor gender identity in themselves are indicators of a mental disorder” (MoU2)

From the UKCP meeting: “Now we did an attempt to engage in dialogue but came to the point when faced with a significant increase in our insurance premium”

They suggest that “over the last few weeks we have endeavoured as a board to transparently communicate the reasoning and risk assessment process which underpinned our decision”, yet they have changed their story to being about insurance and explicitly state they couldn’t state this originally. What has legally changed that they now can?

5: From the meeting: “Any clinical guidance will be backed by robust research evidence. We’re supportive of the Cass review and it will form part of our ongoing considerations when creating new regulation and clinical guidance”. Cass has been discredited in many areas and by many voices since its publication. See Transactual the OSF Preprint paper, and Dr Ruth Pearce’s ongoing updates for just three of them.

They also state “You see what we urgently need to do is create new regulatory guidance for conversion practices that has good governance, transparency, consultation, the voice of psychotherapy and most importantly the voices of the LGBTQIA+ community”.

UKCP would not answer a question as to whether they were prepared to start any new version of an MoU from the point of view that a trans identity was as valid as a cisgender identity. They did talk about “healthy exploratory therapy”. Florence Ashley has a very useful paper on why ‘exploratory therapy’ within a framework that doesn’t accept trans (whether in adults or children) as a valid identity is conversion therapy. UKCP declined to answer to this question as well.

6: From the meeting: “The upheaval and cost implications to the charity of appointing an entirely new board would essentially make the organization non-functioning in terms of major future developments for a significant period of time. Conference planning, strategic development work and many of the other projects we’ve successfully launched would have to be put on ice.”

However they go on to list all the things they have achieved as a new board. Which seems to directly contradict their claims of destabilisation.

“There’s a lot done but not all of it will be directly visible to you. So we started to work preparing the relationship with colleges, which was a factor within the EGM core. We are managing legal claims. We relocated the offices. 17th June, I think was the D date. And estimated to save 150 K annually. We’re improving office performance. We’re guiding the NHS pathways, talking therapies pilots. We’ve reinstated the annual conference. We reinstated the ethics committee. And as many of you again will be aware, we’ve consulted on and a developing the new 3 year strategy. And I just want to say a little bit about that is that the three-year strategy and we’ve run 3 4 seminars on that already through 4 webinars on that already. And put up various polls just to gain attraction and interest. The Strategy Working Group is comprised of 2 chairs at the colleges and one vice chair of the colleges working with the board nominated board of trustees.”

UKCP is presenting a bundle of contradictions and obfuscations to its members. There is no real clarity and in removing themselves from the MoU they place their members in a very difficult position.

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:

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.

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.

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.