Tag: transphobia

Shocking Treatment!

Is the media erasing trans history?

This month is LGBTQ+ history month. A month where we both look back through LGBTQ+ history and consider where we are in relation to that.

In December 2025, the BBC aired a documentary on shock treatment for LGB(T)Q+ people. This is known as ‘aversion therapy’ and has strong links to the conversion ‘therapy’ (Davison et al. 2024) that TACTT stands against now. 

Aversion therapy is at its core a behaviourist treatment. It would be too easy to disavow ‘aversion therapy’ as in no way linked to conversion therapy, but when we consider that ‘cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)’ is considered a type of talking therapy currently available, and that aversion therapy is a type of behavioural treatment, it becomes easier to see the links between the two. This is not in any way to suggest that CBT is aversion or conversion therapy by default; merely to show how aversion and conversion ‘therapies’ are linked and why we are talking about them as part of our history.

At TACTT we stand against all types of conversion practices, and we also stand for the inclusion of trans people in any policy against conversion practices. Inevitably this has meant showing that trans people have always been a part of the narrative – one of the arguments for excluding trans people from any policy on conversion practices has been that there is ‘no evidence’ to suggest that this has ever happened, and therefore we don’t need to include trans people (thus leaving the way clear for this to be accepted). Our history matters for our future. The media representation of both our history and our imagined futures, shape the landscape that we are all situated in, whatever our relationship to sex and gender. This must be accurate where we have the information, and clear that we do not, where we do not. Anything else risks harm.

TACTT’s guest post from Hel Spandler, professor at the University of Lancashire, for LGBTQ+ history month, shows us that trans people have always been included in this horrific practice, and that erasure of trans people’s narratives continues to exist in the present day media conversations.

Shocking Treatment!

Is the media erasing trans history?

Hel Spandler, Professor of Mental Health Studies, University of Lancashire

The mainstream media seems to be fascinated with contemporary stories relating to trans people, especially trans women, and debating trans rights. Yet, at the same time, the media appears to erase trans people’s existence, potentially reinforcing the idea that being trans is a recent phenomenon or a fad. Moreover, it downplays the historical relationship between trans oppression and lesbian and gay oppression. 

For example, following a BBC investigation and subsequent documentary (‘Shock Treatment’), aired on 5th December 2025, the UK Government has apologised for the practice of subjecting LGBT+ people to a particularly crude and unpleasant example of conversion practice, known as Aversion Therapy in NHS hospitals in the early 1960’s to the early 1970’s.  This involved subjecting LGBT people to electric shocks (and emetics) to try and change their sexuality or gender.  Whilst the existence of this ‘therapy’ is nothing new to historians and activists, the documentary did an excellent job of bringing its attention to a wider audience and highlighting LGBT survivors’ calls for acknowledgment and justice.  

However, subsequent BBC coverage of the investigation primarily referred to the treatment of sexuality, rather than sexuality and gender.  Unfortunately, this confusion resulted in critics on social media complaining that the BBC was merely “pandering to the trans lobby” by erroneously using the acronym ‘LGBT’ when the treatment was “overwhelming inflicted on gay men and lesbians”.  Yet the documentary was historically correct in referring to LGB&T people suffering from this practice. 

Research and personal testimonies clearly indicate that many trans (as well as bisexual) people were treated with aversion therapy as well as gay men and lesbians.  Indeed, a recent summary of the available evidence concluded that:

“It is reasonable to assert that while men with sexual desire towards other men were most likely to undergo this ‘treatment’, the next largest LGBTQ+ target group included people who ‘cross-dressed’ and those who may now be understood as trans” (Davison et al. 2024).

The oppression of people with non-normative sexualities and genders is deeply intertwined, and behavioural psychologists who practiced Aversion Therapy attempted to change people’s behaviour by associating their ‘undesirable’ behaviour with pain (whether through giving the person electric shocks or making them vomit by giving them emetics). If the undesirable presentation was ‘homosexuality’, then the stimuli used were homoerotic (sexualised images of the same sex). However, if it was ‘transvestite’ or ‘transsexual’ presentation, then the stimuli centred on images of the sex or gender which aligned with the person’s identity.  In other words, trans women would be given electric shocks (or emetics) when shown images of women. 

My study of lesbian and bisexual women’s experience of aversion therapy was only able to identify ten individuals who were ‘treated’ for female same sex desire by this method (Spandler and Carr 2022).  It is possible that more were affected, but there has been no dedicated study of trans people’s experience of this treatment in the UK.  Yet we know that there were more cases of trans feminine people subjected to this practice, including people who were then referred to as ‘transexuals’, ‘male transvestites’ and ‘cross dressers’ (note: I am not aware of any examples of ‘crossing dressing’ women or trans men treated with this method, although they might have been).

Therefore, rather than pandering to ‘gender ideology’, it could be argued that the media coverage is contributing to the erasure of trans people, especially trans women, and undermining public knowledge about trans history and oppression.

Whilst this might seem like an insignificant and innocent mistake, it is set within a broader context of a trans moral panic, especially about trans women – who, as we’ve seen, were one of the main targets of aversion therapy. Moreover, it has important implications for discussions about a trans inclusive ban on conversion therapy.    

I hope any inquiry will lead to a great awareness of extent of this practice, and restorative justice for all victims and survivors. This is not about blame and punishment – that would simply apply the flawed logic of Aversion Therapy. Rather it is about acknowledging, understanding – and hopefully preventing – the harm that all forms of conversion therapy can do.

Meanwhile, although aversion therapy is no longer used to treat people’s gender or sexuality, some autistic people, people with learning difficulties and mental health conditions are still subject to crude behavioural ‘reward and punishment’ techniques in mental health services (such as exclusion, segregation and restraint).  Moreover, LGBT+ conversion therapy is a spectrum and, whilst Aversion Therapy was a particularly crude and sadistic method, subtle and not-so-subtle techniques are still used to suppress or change LGBT+ people’s sexuality and gender.

 References

Davison, K., Hubbard, K., Marks, S., Spandler, H., & Wynter, R. (2025). An inclusive history of LGBTQ+ aversion therapy: past harms and future address in a UK context. Review of General Psychology, 29(1), 33-48.

Spandler H., & Carr S. (2022). Lesbian and bisexual women’s experiences of aversion therapy in England. History of the Human Sciences, 35(3-4), 218–236. 

Our interim response to the Cass report

Friday 12th April 2024

Media statement: 


TACTT is deeply concerned by the final report of the Cass Review, whose core underlying premise is effectively an eliminationist agenda, dressed up in the language of ‘reasonableness’. 

We do not accept the manner in which the report’s findings were reached, nor the contention that such findings were reached in good faith. We are appalled by reports that the Cass Review is already being used to justify restrictions to access to private care for under-18s and could potentially restrict access to care for under-25s.  

The UK is now considered a hostile country for trans people, especially trans children (Horton, 2024). We fear that this situation will worsen in the aftermath of this review. 

TACTT acknowledges that a review of service provision was needed in the light of distressingly long NHS waiting times. Such delays were named as a matter of concern in the prevention of future deaths report issued by the coroner presiding over the December 2023 inquest into the tragic death of Alice Litman.

Pending our forthcoming detailed response, we urge fellow clinicians to be cognisant of the fact that uncritically following the review’s recommendations/findings could invoke a risk of harm. 

We reiterate our commitment to a basic accepting and open-minded attitude, and our respect for principles of self-determination and autonomy, as fundamental elements of psychotherapeutic support. 

In the interim:

• We note that the Cass report claims to consider wider context, yet excludes mention of recent increases in abusive hate speech, discrimination and violence and sustained legislative, political and media campaigns that threaten the human rights of trans people (as recently noted by a UN Special Rapporteur). Moreover, the final report did not present findings on any potential barriers to accessing care for multiply marginalised young people, who experience racism, classism and other forms of discrimination. 

• We express our profound concern at review findings/recommendations that are at variance with current international guidelines. 

• We note that despite the report’s claims that a wide range of perspectives including those with lived experience were heard, anti-trans voices and opinions were centred throughout the report whilst often being presented (from the inception of the project) as ‘impartial’.

• We echo expressions of concern from expert individuals and organisations regarding methodological flaws of the report. We note that evidence supporting an anti-trans position was consistently held to a lower burden of proof or research standard than other material. We note that the Cass Review dismissed numerous research studies whose results strengthened the evidence base to support medical treatment for gender incongruence. 

• We reject the report’s hunt for ‘causes’ that paves the way for fundamentally pathologising approaches that treat trans people – young and old – as a problem. 

We express our support to impacted young people and their families for whom this week has been profoundly traumatic.

We urge clinicians to treat the Cass findings with extreme caution and not to assume that they represent best practice or that they have been arrived at after a full and impartial review of clinical data. 

Further information: 

email therapistsagainsttransphobia@gmail.com

TACTT

Who we are

Therapists Against Conversion Therapy and Transphobia (TACTT) is a  grassroots collective of therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists and other therapeutic practitioners, incuding trainees in these fields, who oppose conversion therapy and transphobia in the therapy profession.We do not have a formal structure, which allows for individuals within the group to take action. We are UK-based but our members are based all over the world, each doing their bit to take action.