The group began in autumn 2019 when three parents who’d met online decided to meet in person. For convenience, we chose the area of Bayswater in London. By the time of our first meeting in October of that year, we’d become a group of twenty-five mums and dads: the Bayswater Support Group. We adopted a simple governing document as an ‘unincorporated association’. By the time we held our first AGM in early 2021 we’d grown to more than 200 members and we now number over 400.

We are strictly for parents and guardians of children and young adults who identify as trans or non-binary. We felt that the public discourse about gender-distressed young people was often occupied by people who weren’t directly impacted by the issue as we were, so we wanted parents to have a voice directly. We have members in all regions of England and in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Our members are overwhelmingly parents whose children are adolescents or young adults. They are at different stages of gender transition, and have different experiences of NHS services.