I’m not sure if I dislike lying more or less than I dislike transgenderism. They are both the same thing, really, when one comes to think about it.
This story has been sat in my disk drive for four years. I have steadfastly resisted telling it because I could not see the point. Partly, I guess, is that I have wished to focus on helping society rid itself of gender identity ideology and helping parents work out how to save their children from that sick cult. Every so often, however, another straw is added to the camel’s back. When I read a lie. As they say, the truth will out. Frequently I get asked something that prompts me to tell this story. I would rather not, it still makes my blood pressure rise. However, if I don’t tell it, then others tell their versions.
This isn’t a “he said, she said” - there are witnesses, including an accredited journalist.
This isn’t about who gets the credit. I have spoken with Harry Miller of Fair Cop and with Chris Elston, aka Billboard Chris, about Harry Truman’s idea that in great enterprises, such as the one that we are embarked upon, it matters not who gets the credit. The truth is, of course, that correctly placed credit does serve to add extrinsic motivation to the oodles of intrinsic motivation pioneers already have. And in the dark months, that external acknowledgment of one’s contribution can help things continue at a better pace. The last thing we want is anything that can slow down the progress we could have made in saving children from the harms of gender. All the same, any lack of progress cannot be blamed on those who fail to recognise. Selling one’s self has to be part of the mix, that and top advocacy. How did I fail to persuade those with whom I disagreed that I was right (and I was right, and I have been vindicated)? Being a Cassandra is a curse.
In Autumn 2016 my daughter, having been groomed by her school and Allsorts Youth, declared she was transgender.
I spent 2017 knowing it was wrong and desperately trying to find out why, and what could be done, and who shared my point of view.
I spoke with Stephanie Davies-Arai at Transgender Trend, and asked whether parent-peer support was something they did or would do. They did not have the capacity or intent, so I volunteered to establish something. Peer-support is clinically proven to be useful in communities affected by grief and the sorts of challenges that can affect mental health, so I knew it was needed.
I started to bring together parents affected by having a child think of themselves as transgender.
As part of this project, I set about educating myself as best I could, and I attended my first event – A Woman’s Place in Brighton – it was the presence of a detransitioner, Gill Smith, which drew me. Kathleen Stock was also speaking there.
The hardest part of building any enterprise is the bootstrapping, the first eighteen months. There is no brand to act as a magnet, no reputation, the ideas are still new and forming and beyond the core, often difficult to sell.
On 5th December 2018 I hosted a meeting at the Marquis of Cornwallis pub in Bloomsbury for parents of ROGD kids and any other interested parties. This was the day parent peer-support in UK moved from online and into the real world.
The group started growing. We used a Slack community ‘Critical Critters’ which allowed us to grow an online membership of about 60.
In the Spring of 2019 my daughter started taking testosterone, I was wrecked.
By the Summer of 2019 we decided to have a business meeting to decide upon a name and become properly established. The meeting was scheduled for October 12th in a hotel in Bayswater.
Shortly prior to that meeting one member, let’s call her ‘B’ asked me whether another member, let’s call her ‘A’ could chair the meeting. I am always keen for others to step up, so I agreed. It did not dawn on me until it was too late that in such an important meeting it was always me who should have been in the chair. Nevertheless, as the meeting got underway, I stood at the front and started to do a brief introduction. In a move that still stuns me to this day, ‘A’ physically elbowed me in the ribs to push me aside. I genuinely did not know what to do, and I was at a complete loss for words. Thus, the tone of that fateful meeting had been set.
Why did I not respond immediately? A man would expect instant retaliation. Women, on the other hand rely on men to be socially conditioned to restrain themselves. Some abuse this privilege.
I had invited journalist Joani Walsh to attend and observe the meeting. Another member, let’s call him ‘C’ objected, supported by ‘A’ and ‘B’. It was becoming clear there was a trio seeking to run the show, my show, and they didn’t want any witnesses.
Charlie Evans, the detransitioner du jour, was our guest speaker that day.
The chairing of the meeting was so amateurish that the chair, ‘A’ did more speaking than our guest. This served to further foul my already deteriorating mood.
On the agenda was the choosing of a name, and I suggested Bayswater Support Group, as the meeting progressed, it became clear that a ‘boardroom coup’ was in progress and that the people who now run the group with that name had been conspiring behind my back to takeover that which I had started.
I had gone into the meeting assuming my position as leader was unquestioned. After all, everyone was there because of the group that I had established, from scratch, over many months. That the others had hitherto asked for my input for anything material gave me a sense of security as to my role that, it turns out, was unfounded.
The irony was that if they had done this honestly and involved me, I would have let it happen, I was wrecked by what was happening to my daughter. I would have happily taken a non-executive director type role. However, two significant factors meant that I could not let this slide. I had to regain control of the group. Both reasons were principles.
My principles were borne out of my contempt for lies.
Lies are toxic. In an organisation they lead to distrust and resentment. I was not going to have liars running an organisation that I founded. This trio had used deceit and dishonesty to wrest control.
The first principled stance was that we should be founded on truth and honesty. It is truth and honesty that will, should they prevail, end the crazy gender identity ideology harming our children. I simply could not allow significant control of this most important endeavour fall into the hands of those whom I knew to be dishonest and deceitful.
They had also expressed an intention to present themselves as a moderate voice looking for consensus. I had always known that no consensus was possible. Arguing that the Earth is discus-shaped is just as daft as arguing that it is completely flat. Transgenderism is a lie, and the Earth is a sphere (slightly flattened at the poles). The only honourable position to take is that which involves no lies. No, it cannot be said that ‘gender affirming care’ can be beneficial for some people. Mental distress resolves with time, amputated body parts do not. There is no merit in being ‘cautious’ about the medicalisation of vulnerable young people in the name of gender, one has to be completely opposed to it. Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, and the illogicality of any perceived ‘benefit’, it is simply unethical.
The second principle, then, is that we should be driven by ethics, by duty, “First Do No Harm”; the proposed ‘cautious and pragmatic’ approach, rejecting the founders’ consensus, was a betrayal of these principles. I could not in all conscience go along with it.
I had spent over a year bringing people together and creating a community. This was ‘my baby’ and I was being bullied. The stress of my daughter being on testosterone, having just been literally elbowed aside, and seeing my hard work undermined, put me well out of my comfort zone. Nevertheless, I tried to keep a level head. It took about two months for the resulting nervous breakdown to arrive, and a good few more afterwards for it to pass. Contracting Covid did not help.
The group I had assembled could be roughly divided into two halves. The newbies who had not quite worked it all out yet. And the old hands who knew that the NHS gender operation, including CAMHS, was wrongheaded and profoundly unsafe. What hurt me most was the few old hands who sided with the deceitful upstarts.
There were policies, too, that those of us who had been involved for a while had assumed were givens: The NHS was unsafe, no child was transgender, Kellie-Jay Keen (aka Posie Parker) was marvellous, this was an international endeavour (how could we turn down an overseas parent coming for help), all opposite-sex imitation medicine should be classified as cosmetic and elective. You get the idea.
The upstarts rejected all of these.
My principles informed the new name I had for our group: ‘Our Duty’. To this day I do not know why I did not keep the Bayswater name (I had taken a dislike to the name despite it being my suggestion), it would have been strategically advantageous retaining it because there were many at that meeting who had no idea what was going on. Again, I assumed that everybody could see the crime for what it was and would swing behind me. I was wrong. I was also mistaken to have confidence in the idea that any grouping built on a foundation of deceit would not last long.
Our Duty launched that same month with an article in The Sunday Times.
By my reckoning, this episode set our movement back by at least one year. The NHS is removing adolescent women’s breasts at a rate of one operation per day. If you ever wonder why I can be so bitter and angry at what happened in October 2019, there is your answer.
I have seen four different origin stories for the Bayswater Support Group, none of them are true. A group with about 60 members laboriously gathered over 18 months is not ‘founded’ when it splits in two. It was the publication of one fictitious account in Dr Az Hakeem’s book Detrans that finally tipped me into telling this story. Dr Hakeem is a good man, so I am sure he was oblivious to the lies in the chapter contributed by ‘A’.
Over this last six years I have seen the effect that parent peer-support can have. Yes, we help families help their children desist from transgender ideation, and that is hugely satisfying when it happens. Our detractors call it conversion therapy, we call it reconnecting with reality. Very many of our parents have had their children suffering the transgender delusion for too long, and their need to relate to others who understand can be as raw five years in as it was on day one. We could always do more, more support, more activism, more advocacy and more education.
We tell it as it is. No, your child is not transgender, they just think that they are.
That old saying “the truth shall set you free” is something everyone in this mess needs to hear and believe in.