Are we ready to talk about wholesale gender affirmation in UK schools?
Our previous posts (see, for example, here and here) about the continuing contentious debate surrounding trans ideology have focussed on clinical and counselling psychology. However, it can be argued that educational psychology has an even more important part to play as its remit is for all children whether in health care systems or not. We are very pleased, therefore, to post this timely and thoughtful piece from Dr David Buck, an independent Consultant Educational Psychologist.
1. Educational Psychologists’ Campaign for ‘Gender Critical’ Approaches.
A small number of Educational Psychologists (EPs) have mounted an ongoing campaign for the last couple of years to raise the issue of ‘gender politics’ in EP practice. This group suggests that the existence of ‘grooming gangs’ in Rotherham and elsewhere in the UK makes a parallel argument for institutional complacency in UK children’s services due to managers’ fear of retribution from ‘PC/critical social justice’ activism. This has led to the current position of the EP profession as a whole becoming institutionally ‘gender affirmative’, thus challenging biological explanations of sex difference (Joyce, 2021) and supporting ‘social transitioning’ (e.g. chosen use of pronouns and encouragement to adopt opposite sex stereotypes).
Much progress has been made on limiting ‘medical transitioning’ to the realm of adult choice and is no longer part of the ‘gender affirmation’ of children. Severe limitations are now imposed on the use of puberty blockers and re-assignment surgery for the under 18s after the relatively unaccountable activities of the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS – launched in 1989 to help people aged 17 and under who are struggling with their gender identity) leading to its appropriate closure by the NHS in March 2024.
We are now arguing against the wholly unguarded support that Educational Psychology training courses and local authority (LA) EP delivery services appear to be giving to ‘social transitioning’ (an inherent component of the ‘gender affirmative’ approach). This is now clearly at odds with the Department for Education’s (DfE) ‘Gender Questioning Children’ (GQC) guidance and the Cass (2024) review, which was unable to discount its harmful effects. We also, more broadly, counter the clear bias in favour of critical social justice theory (CSJT), which drives ‘identity politics’ that is deployed within EPs’ professional associations.
In contrast, our own campaign promotes the relevance of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) assessment to ‘gender distressed’ children as a means of accommodating this group in UK schools leaving whole school environments relatively unchanged, especially single sex spaces and the Science curriculum, which has been altered to prioritise gender identities over biological explanations of sex difference.
We have attempted to get EP governance, professional associations, training course leaders, EP forums and blogs, etc. to at least facilitate discussion on ‘identity politics’ that includes ‘gender critical’ commentary. Such views are characterised by a biological definition of sex difference which we have been promoting. We prefaced all our posts with the following note:-
These posts are sent in the spirit of opening debate on the important issues raised around trans-identifying students within all phases of the education system relevant to Educational Psychology practice. However since ‘gender affirmation’ has become such an overwhelming position any alternatives e.g. ‘gender critical’ views (i.e. a biological definition of sex difference, presented here) are treated as ‘transphobic’. It is ‘trans activism’ of ‘Gender Identity Ideology’ that is our particular target (since it ignores negative whole school effects) and is not directed at trans-identifying individuals themselves.
These professional associations include the British Psychological Society (BPS), the BPS Division of Educational and Child Psychology (DECP), the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP) and the National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists (NAPEP) UK , as well as the EP forums and EP blogs that include EPNET and EDPSY. These groups have all resisted, in their own ways, the facilitation of any discussion or publication that could be considered ‘gender critical’, often simply because they promote the Cass Review or the DfE – GQC guidance.
2. On Organisational Capture by Gender Ideologues.
In our view, the current authoritarian manner and regressive misogyny (e.g. encouragement to adopt sexual stereotypes) that underlies the promotion of ‘gender affirmation’ by all public services, including UK Educational Psychology Services and EP Training Courses, has now reached a point of being a real threat to child safeguarding. The threat is associated with the unreflective ‘institutionalised political correctness’ (the PM’s contemporaneous comment on the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal (CSE)) whether from naive critical social justice activists or public sector policy scribes. Such threats are not trivial, as the events in Rotherham demonstrated. Hence our current emphasis is on those didactic ‘PC’ (now ‘social justice’) narratives, similar to those in past CSE scandals, which are still apparent in the present as anxieties held by those in positions of professional governance of children’s services. These fears, held by those professionals, are that they could somehow be exposed as acting in a discriminatory manner. Events demonstrate that this distorts their rational decision-making. This is just as relevant now within children’s services’ responses to ‘Gender Identity Ideology’ (GII) as the topical focus on the inertia of these services’ is associated with the ‘grooming gang’ CSE scandals of the past. The potential harm of ‘social transitioning’ – that it can lead to re-assignment medication and surgery – has not been eliminated by research (Hall et al., 2024; Cass, 2024) so safeguarding should, in our view, default to a cautionary approach in this regard i.e. ‘do no harm’.
We maintain that the UK EP training, governance, management, and EP representative organisations put greater emphases on the ‘social justice’ for minority groups rather than on the effective assessment of their special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) through well-established statutory procedures of Part 3 – Children and Families Act 2014. Their apparent obsessions with niche minority interests flamboyantly demonstrate the EP profession’s virtue signalling of ‘social justice’ which is made at the expense of general negative effects on wider school issues. One of the most prominent examples is their promotion of the messages from Gender Identity Ideology (GII) charities. Here the minority interests of trans-identifying children are so obviously ranked above whole school interests via ‘gender affirmative’ views e.g. they take a position that prioritises the ‘inclusion’ of these pupils’ access to all facilities according to their chosen gender. This is to the potential detriment of single sex sports, spaces and healthcare for all, where ‘sex’ in these contexts has normally been defined as ‘biological sex difference’.
The EP profession’s university-based training courses and local authority EP services’ senior staff also show widespread support for ‘gender affirmative care’ reflecting the bias of the GII charities noted above. Their activity on the EPNET forum has clearly indicated widespread and uncritical promotion of ‘social transition’. They are now effectively briefing against both the latest DfE guidance ‘Gender Questioning Children’ and the Cass Review which has highlighted the poor evidence base for either positive or negative outcomes of gender affirmative care. Even more seriously, this clear bias towards ‘critical social justice theory’ is evident in their professional association, the AEP, in its feedback on DfE guidance GQC consultation. This feedback formulated plainly irresponsible recommendations NOT to follow the DfE GQC guidance. They do this by leaning heavily on the entirely unaccountable advice from GII charities, such as the discredited Stonewall ‘Global Diversity Champions Programme’ and ‘Just Like Us’ who say: ‘We recommend schools do not implement this draft, non-statutory guidance. We encourage teachers to stand for inclusion, not exclusion’. The implication that gender-critical commentary would ‘stand for exclusion’ is disingenuous or faux-naïf at best.
These organisations are more concerned with virtue signalling the ‘well-being’ of these niche minority groups such as trans-identification rather than that of the school population as a whole. As deserving of attention as these groups may well be, the wider negative implications for all of meeting their needs across the educational system are rarely directly addressed by the BPS, DECP, AEP, NAPEP or EPNET. The dominance of the moral imperative to signal ‘inclusivity’ apparently easily overrides the rights of others e.g. in schools the rights of all to single sex spaces, sports and healthcare. The organisations’ role in platforming the profession’s obsession with demonstrations of their own ‘compassion’, ‘kindness’ and ‘empathy’ take primacy over the more mundane issues that abound for all SEND children e.g. the current dearth of SEND resources, poor literacy and numeracy levels.
3. Educational Psychologists Are Influential So Discussion Within The Profession Is Vital.
We have been raising these concerns because LA EPs are very influential across the whole school estate as a reference point for special educational needs and disabilities (SENDs) and wider psychological needs relevant to all pupils e.g. counselling services after a school is involved in a ‘critical incident’. It is therefore imperative that they are offering evidence based advice that is congruent with government guidance.
The issues we have discussed here will only be resolved by the encouragement of open debate amongst front-line workers, free from training, governance, representative organisations and managerial oversight within each of the public sector services responsible for child-safeguarding. That is currently impossible in the Educational Psychology profession in general and within the remit of the BPS, DECP, AEP, NAPEP & EPNET in particular. Their spurious technocratic reference to rules and values of self-serving interest, especially amongst Senior Management Teams and academic Educational Psychology training staff, is evident in their active censorship and attempts to shut-down rather than facilitate such debate.
Although the British Psychological Society (BPS) has made a post-Cass statement , this shows a very weak and ambiguous response to that review. Additionally, the formal professional guidance shows little has changed since pre-Cass versions – the BPS full guidance (originally published in 2109, revised version published 2024) shows that none of the ‘References’ or ‘Further Reading’ are post-2022 let alone post-Cass Apr 2024. Professor Christina Richards chaired both the original and the review working parties and much reference is made to her book, co-authored with Dr James Barrett, ‘Trans and non-binary gender healthcare for psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals’ (published pre-Cass in 2020). Not only that but in their book’s biographies it is revealed Professor Richards was elected to the Executive Board of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). This self-selecting lobbyist-group is well known for its ‘gender affirmative’ position and as such has been widely criticised for its ‘independent’ pretensions e.g. Jennifer Black (2024) , The Economist (2024), Malcolm Clark (2024)
‘…No organisation has played a greater role in the adoption of the pseudo-science of so-called ‘gender affirming healthcare’ globally than the World Professional Association of Transgender Health…’ (Clark, 2024).
Given its active choice to hold onto gender ideologues to revise its policy document, the BPS seems unwilling to represent any neutral, let alone any sort of independent, review of the impact of Gender Identity Ideology as one might have hoped on a first reading of their ‘new’ post-Cass guidance. Indeed its current focus on GII appears to support the proposal that sex is determined by an individual’s feelings of gender identification to the opposite sex rather than being biologically fixed (see also here).
4. Conclusion.
However we may regard USA President Trump at a personal level, Joanna Williams has summarised his recent Executive Order (20th January 2025), which proclaims the United States will only recognize ‘two sexes, male and female’ in this way…
By asserting the basic, biological reality of two-sexes, Trump will safeguard women’s right to single-sex prisons, hospital wards, changing rooms and public toilets. Female athletes will no longer risk injury or lose scholarships after being forced to compete against bigger, stronger males. Children will not be taught to choose from one of hundreds of so-called ‘gender identities’ and encouraged to bring their bodies in line with this new sense of themselves through a lifetime of popping pills and surgery. The need for pronoun badges or declarations will be done away with and even the transgender Pride flag, with its baby pink and blue triangles, can be retired. (Williams, 2025 ).
Further, in the UK the Supreme Court is about to (Feb/Mar) make a final decision on the case of Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent). The question being considered concerns only the status of those who have Gender Recognition Certificates (GRCs). It has already been established that for the Equality Act and all other laws that individuals who identify as the opposite sex do not legally alter their biological sex.
If ‘Women Scotland Ltd’ win the Scottish government will have to amend the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 to make clear that ‘women’ does not even include men with GRCs. This will eliminate the last UK legal anomaly that creates confusion over the biological reality of sex in law. If so, how long will it take the BPS and others to alter their position which undoubtedly will become regarded as at odds with all these international legal developments?
The BPS position on the ‘culture wars’ in general and on ‘identity politics’ in particular is becoming out of sync with cultural shifts regarding trans-identification with every week passing. Its sluggish, if not overtly stubborn responses to these cultural, political and legal changes is leading it to a future perception as the ‘Tavistock GIDS’ of ‘social-transitioning’. GIDS was established in 1989 and closed down in March 2024 by the NHS. The most poignant question, due to the subtle, nuanced but non-the-less powerful forms social-transitioning can take is – will anyone notice, or will it take another 35 years to bring the BPS to book?
In the meantime front-line EPs would do well to process their involvement with trans-identifying children through an encouragement of parents of this client-group to use the Education, Health & Care Needs Assessment procedures of Part 3 CFA 2014 (Buck, 2022, 2024). EPs can then protect their own professional credibility by writing in a manner suitable for Special Educational Needs & Disabilities Tribunals and Family Courts. Then at least there will be a greater possibility such reports will be properly judged against the principles within the NHS Cass Review, the DfE’s ‘Gender Questioning Children’ guidance and revised legislation. In this context EPs’ written output is free from evaluation against the rapidly ageing GII values that their employing local authorities, Educational Psychology training course tutors, EP representative bodies or the British Psychological Society itself continue to offer.
REFERENCES
Black, J. (2024). Dispute arises over World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s involvement in WHO’s trans health guideline https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/387/bmj.q2227.full.pdf
British Psychological Society. (2024). Guidelines for Psychologists Working with Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity: For adults and young people (aged 18 and over). https://www.bps.org.uk/guideline/guidelines-psychologists-working-gender-sexuality-and-relationship-diversity
Buck, D. (Sept. 2022). Transgenderism in Schools.
https://www.cieo.org.uk/research/transgenderism-in-schools/
Buck, D. (Apr. 2024). The Importance of Special Educational Needs Assessment Concerning Trans-Identifying Children in UK Schools: The Role of Educational & Child
Psychologists’. – Genspect. https://genspect.org/reconstructing-uk-educational-child-psychologists-roles-regarding-intersectional-identities-of-transgenderism-with-special-educational-needs/
Cass, H. (2022). Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people. NHS England. https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/
Children & Families Act. (2014). Part 3 Children And Young People In England With Special Educational Needs Or Disabilities Section 22. The Stationery Office, London.
Clark, M. (2024). All roads lead to WPATH – ‘The Critic’. https://thecritic.co.uk/all-roads-lead-to-wpath/
Department for Education’s (DfE) ‘Gender Questioning Children’ (GQC) guidance. https://consult.education.gov.uk/equalities-political-impartiality-anti-bullying-team/gender-questioning-children-proposed-guidance/supporting_documents/Gender%20Questioning%20Children%20%20nonstatutory%20guidance.pdf
The Economist (27 Jun 2024). ‘Research into trans medicine has been manipulated. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/06/27/research-into-trans-medicine-has-been-manipulated
Equality Act. (2010). The Stationery Office, London.
Executive Order (20th January 2025). Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To TheFederal Government. The Whitehouse, USA. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/
Forstater v. CGD 2022 – M Forstater v CGD Europe and others: 2200909/2019 – GOV.UK
Hall, R. Taylor, J., Hewitt, C.E., Heathcote, C., Jarvis, S.W., Langton, T., Fraser, L. (2024). Impact of social transition in relation to gender for children and adolescents: a systematic review – BMJ Archives Disease in Childhood. https://adc.bmj.com/content/109/Suppl_2/s12
Joyce, H. (2021). Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality – Oneworld.
Richards, C. & Barrett, J. (2020). Trans and non-binary gender healthcare for psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals. London: Royal College of Psychiatrists/Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/trans-and-nonbinary-gender-healthcare-for-psychiatrists-psychologists-and-other-health-professionals/BE6DD100185E0396E84363F92C6A329E
Supreme Court (2024). Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent). https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2024-0042
Williams, J. (2025) . Donald Trump, feminist icon? https://cieo.substack.com/p/donald-trump-feminist-icon-68a?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=365184&post_id=155344749&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ueb70&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
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