Safeguarding Trans-identified Children and Adolescents – Our New Guide
Download Guide Most young people who adopt transgender identities are now doing so in adolescence. For some, this may turn out to be a normal experimentation or ‘trying on’ of…
The Cass Review Interim Report: The Significance for Schools
Earlier this month, Dr Hilary Cass submitted an interim report to NHS England which covered their work to date. The report detailed the information gathered from stakeholders, including clinicians, charities,…
Breast Binding – Self Harm or Gender Care?
What is binding? Binding is the practice of flattening breasts with constrictive materials to give the impression of a flatter, more masculine appearing chest. It is most commonly associated with…
Top Ten Tips
Our Top Ten Tips At Bayswater Support, we seek evidence-based care and are cautious about ‘affirmation’. Here are our top ten tips for when your child identifies as trans or…
The chilling effect of conversion therapy bills
We are often told that conversion therapy bills have been introduced in other countries with no issues.Not so, according to Dr Alexander Korte, who describes the detrimental consequences of German…
A Mother and Daughter Speak About Their Experience of Adolescent Trans Identity
Earlier this year, a mother and daughter were interviewed by Evan Davis on BBC Radio 4's PM programme, describing their experience of navigating the daughter's adolescent trans identity. Whilst the…
HMC Spring Conference 2023: Our letter to heads on ideological talks
The HMC Spring Conference 2023 ‘Making Good Things Happen’ took place on Thursday 4 May in London. We became aware that two keynote talks would cover 'The Joy of Trans'…
The Policy Exchange Report on Gender and Safeguarding in Schools: A Summary for Parents
Download our PDF A detailed report by the Policy Exchange think-tank offers a useful overview of current school policies in relation to trans-identified students. An Examination of Gender and Safeguarding…
Social Transition: The Most Recent Advice for Schools
Download our PDF A request to change name and pronouns in line with a cross-sex or non-binary identity by changing school records can seem like the kindest and most inclusive…
Trans Identity: The Tip of the Iceberg?
Gender dysphoria is complex and multifactorial. Immediate affirmation of a child’s attested trans identity may obscure the background circumstances that led to this conclusion. Child and adolescent trans identity —…
Autism and Gender Identity
There is increasing awareness among parents, caregivers, clinicians and therapists that there is a clear link between gender identity issues and Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We know that currently, 76%…
Parents Should Be Front and Centre When It Comes To Safeguarding
We welcome the emphasis from Nadhim Zahawi MP to the Education Select Committee that "Parents should be front and centre" when it comes to safeguarding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXFtK6shaPA Alarmingly, a recent YouGov…
Conundrums, Confusion and Circular Arguments: DfE Guidance on Gender Identity
This article was originally published as a Twitter thread. We reproduce it here with kind permission of the author. The Department for Education has given schools an impossible task when…
Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults
Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults Published this week, this paper by Stephen Levine, E. Abbruzzese, and Julia M. Mason, summarises the prevailing informed consent model…
The Cass Review: Interim Report Published
We welcome today's interim report from The Cass Review and its recognition that the current service model "is not a safe or viable long-term option". The report deserves a detailed…
Meeting the Scottish Gender Recognition Unit and our Concerns over changes to the current legislation
We're grateful to the Scottish GRUnit for meeting us recently to discuss our concerns over its proposals to reform the gender recognition process, notably lowering eligibility to 16yr olds, the…
Our Concerns About Healthtalk.org Project Featuring Trans-Identified Young People And Their Parents
We wrote to Professor Sue Ziebland at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care, Professor John Powell at NIHR, and Dipex Charity (responsible for Healthtalk.org website) in July 2020 outlining our…
Sweden Calls For Restraint In The Use Of Cross Sex Hormones In Minors
Today Sweden's National Board for Health & Welfare calls for "restraint" in the use of hormones by under 18s suffering gender dysphoria. "the risks of blockers & cross-sex hormones for…
The Economist: Activist Doctors Are Pushing For GPs To Prescribe Cross Sex Hormones
The Economist has reported on concerns about NHS England's new pilot gender clinics for adults. The protocol is blatantly unsafe, especially for vulnerable young people (17 and above), whose mental…
Professor Tanya Byron: We Think You Failed This Dad
This week Professor Tanya Byron failed a dad who'd asked for help about his 6th former child who identifies as non-binary. We'd like him to know he's welcome in our…
Submission: Banning Conversion Therapy
In October 2021, the UK government opened a public consultation on its proposals to ban conversion therapy. According to the government website: "The consultation seeks views on a package of…
Joint Statement On Scottish Government Plans to Legislate For The Self Declaration Of Sex
We signed the below statement asking for the Scottish government to engage meaningfully with us and other stakeholders, as the NHS and UK government are doing. Good policy relies on…
Mental Health in Trans-identified Adolescents
There is ample evidence to suggest that the current cohort of children and young people presenting with gender dysphoria are different from the almost exclusively pre-pubescent males previously seen. Not…
Why Are So Many Girls Deciding They’d Rather Be Boys?
Welcome to the Bayswater Support Group Website. If you've found your way here, you will have followed one of our QR codes - thank you! Below you will find a…
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What’s going on in the teenage brain?
Transgender Trend published a new article this week called 'The Teenage Brain'. Consultant Neuropsychologist Dr Sallie Baxendale presents a brief overview of how the teenage brain develops over a period…
A History of Affirmation
A huge thank you to SunMum, a Bayswater Parent who has researched and recorded this history of the affirmative approach to treating gender confusion in young people emerged in the…
The Judicial Review of Puberty Blockers
After the judgement in December 2020, leave to appeal was granted and the appeal case will be heard on 23rd June 2020. The increasing legal costs being incurred are being…
Mum A’s Story
Mum A's Story I would like to thank Bayswater Support Group, for giving us this opportunity to promote our legal case against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. This is…
Overvalued ideas and a deeply held belief about identity
Sometimes we can see our children's immersion in this new identity as a sort of delusion: the unshakeable belief in something that is untrue. Previously intellectual young people, often with…
What do we know – Cornell University
At some point, most of our parents have been told by our children that gender transition is the only treatment for gender dysphoria, that it is a miraculous cure for…
A New Way to Be Mad
This article from The Atlantic discusses the phenomenon of apotemnophilia: the attraction to the idea of being an amputee. Some sufferers will even go so far as to seek out…
A Typology of Gender Detransition and Its Implications for Healthcare Providers
This open-access article discusses how important it is to look at detransition from a research perspective, highlighting the comparative lack of discussion and resources aimed at identify and supporting individuals…
GIDS Whistleblower Marcus Evans: Why I quit the Tavistock
Marcus Evans explains in his article for Quillette why he felt compelled to resign as a Governor at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the Gender Identity Development…
Detransitioners: Videos
Transgender Trend wrote an article addressing the rise in YouTube vloggers describing their own transition through an ideological lens, and the influence this might have on young women who are…
A Harvard Psychiatrist explains our Social Justice Warriors
In this article, Abigail Shrier interviews Harvard Psychiatrist Harold Bursztajn, about Generation Z (those born after 1995) and how living their lives online encourages a dichotomous view of the world…
When sons become daughters: Parents of transitioning boys speak out
The changing demographic of young people presenting to gender clinics has hit the headlines in recent years, with a flipping of the sex ratio from predominantly male to overwhelmingly female.…
Safe Schools Alliance: Factsheets and Template Letters for Parents
SSA UK works with schools and educators to ensure that school policies meet the safeguarding needs of all students, and that they do this whilst taking into account the protected…
Transgender Trend: A fantastic resource for parents
Transgender Trend is an organisation of parents, professionals and academics based in the UK who are concerned about the current trend to diagnose children as transgender, including the unprecedented number…
When Children Say They’re Trans By Jesse Singal
In July 2018, Journalist Jesse Singal wrote an article for The Atlantic, a left leaning US magazine with a long history and a good reputation. It caused outrage to pro-affirmation…
My Brief Spell as an Activist
Lucy Kross Wallace is a young autistic woman, who describes her gradual slide into social justice activism via autism advocacy and how she developed the self-awareness to see that her…
Erin Brewer: Interview series with detransitioners
Erin Brewer has interviewed several detransitioners about their experiences, what led to their trans identification and how they came to detransition. At the end of this post is a list…
Trans Kids vs. Gay Kids: The Battle Over Gender Non-Conforming Children
Arty Morty is a gay man who has significant concerns that many children who would otherwise grow up to be gay, are being directed down the path to ‘being trans’.…
Alice Hope: Supporting a Trans Teen
Australian mother Alice Hope created a YouTube channel with helpful advice on how to support a trans-identified teen. From advice on names and pronouns to responding to requests for binders,…
Benjamin Boyce: Detransitioners
Benjamin Boyce has created a series of sensitive and in-depth interviews with men and women who have pursued medical transition and then, having found it was not the solution they…
Benjamin Boyce: Gender, Sexuality and Transition
Benjamin Boyce is an ex-pre-school teacher who began making videos about his experiences of being a student at Evergreen State College in Washington State, USA, during the events of June…
NICE review echoes concerns raised by experts: poor evidence base for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones
Many clinicians have now raised concerns about the use of puberty blockers in children, particularly in the last few years. Much of the unease of these medical professionals has been…
Our statement in response to the family court ruling on parental consent to puberty blockers
In light of last December’s judgment by the High Court that under 16s were unlikely to be able to consent to the prescribing of puberty blockers, an application was made…
Gender: A Wider Lens Episode 16 – Gender Dysphoria – What It’s Like For Parents
Although we have posted a link to Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley's fantastic podcast series before, we thought this episode deserved a special mention of its own. This episode highlights…
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions What is gender dysphoria? Gender dysphoria is the term used to describe the distress and discomfort experienced when a person feels their biological sex does not align…
The Times Investigation: Raising Concerns About GIDS
The Concerns On 8th April 2020, The Times ran a series of articles about worries over the treatment of children at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust Gender Identity Development…
The Trans Train and Transgender Regret Documentaries
Investigative journalists in Sweden have now produced three reports looking at the treatment given to those who seek gender transition, and who later regret their decision. All three parts are…
Dysphoric: A Four-part Documentary Series
Dysphoric - Fleeing Womanhood Like a House on Fire is a four part documentary looking at the effect of gender identity ideology on women and girls. It includes interview excerpts…
School Refusal: What to do when your child is reluctant to go to school
Many of our parents have reported that their trans-identified child has experienced a period of time when they were out of full-time education, whether for a few weeks or several…
Books on Transitioning
Here we make some suggestions of books that may help you to understand more about transitioning: social, medical and/or surgical. From books on the current provision of transgender health, to…
You’re Not Trans. You’re Just Weird: A Letter From a Mother to Her Son
This heartfelt letter was posted on Medium.com, but taken down within hours. We have reproduced it here with kind permission of Donna M. My dear, sweet, son, I’ve got to…
Bayswater Support shares concerns about Telegraph investigation into GenderGP
1 March 2021 Bayswater Support Group is gravely concerned about the implications of the investigative article in The Daily Telegraph on 27 February. The response of Gender GP, as posted…
How We Could Reform ‘Transition to Adulthood’ care in the NHS
A look at seamless transition – not of gender, but from childhood to adult life. How well does the NHS support vulnerable teens with gender distress as they move into…
A Message of Hope for Dysphoric Young People, From Five Anonymous Detransitioners
Five detransitioners, five personal stories of overcoming gender dysphoria. 1. Time is not your enemy when it comes to medical transition. Young people with gender dysphoria are routinely presented with…
Information to Share with Your Child’s Doctor or School
Amongst the many issues members of Bayswater Support ask for our help with is sourcing information to share with schools and healthcare settings. We have brought together some of the…
Talking Therapy: Is No Therapy Better Than Bad Therapy?
Access to a therapist is often the first thing that parents consider when their child tells them about their trans identity. Maybe your child already has already been seeing a…
Articles: Therapist Lisa Marchiano
The parents I speak with overwhelmingly love their children. They are interested in supporting their children in growing to adulthood with healthy bodies. They want to support their child’s emerging…
Video: Sasha Ayad
Sasha Ayad is a therapist who works with children and young people who struggle with issues around their gender identity and gender dysphoria. She co-hosts the podcast Gender: A Wider…
Podcast: Gender – A Wider Lens
Psychotherapists Stella O'Malley and Sasha Ayad take a look at gender from a psychological perspective in their podcast Gender: A Wider Lens. Is gender identity a facilitation of development and…
Documentary: Trans Kids – It’s Time to Talk.
This documentary from psychotherapist Stella O'Malley considers the huge rise in numbers of young people embarking on gender transition, through the prism of the gender identity issues that she experienced…
Louis Theroux – Transgender Kids
Louis Theroux travels to San Francisco where a group of pioneering medical professionals help children who say they were born in the wrong body transition from boy to girl or…
BBC Panorama – Trans Kids:Why Medicine Matters
Doctors are divided about the best way to help young people - so what is the evidence? Dr Faye Kirkland investigates how much we understand about the care being offered…
BBC This World Documentary – Transgender Kids
“In this challenging documentary, BBC Two's award-winning This World strand travels to Canada, where one of the world's leading experts in childhood gender dysphoria...lost his job for challenging the new…
BBC Newsnight Coverage of Gender Transition, GIDS and Detransition
The Gender Identity Development Service at The Tavistock Centre in London has been caught up in a lot of negative press in recent years. Deb Cohen and Hannah Barnes have…
An A to Z of Terms
An A to Z of Sex and Gender Sometimes the language our children use to describe their experiences can be confusing; whilst some words might be completely new to us,…
Parenting a Young Adult with Gender Dysphoria
We are very grateful to one of our members who has kindly offered the following account of their experience as the mum of a young adult who is transitioning (for…
Adult Gender Clinics: A Clinician’s View
We are very grateful for the following comments from a former senior clinician at an adult NHS gender clinic which, we hope, will help to inform parents of vulnerable adults…
Detransition Story: Watson
Sinead Watson is a woman who identified as trans and underwent medical and surgical transition in her 20s and has now detransitioned, realising she mistakenly thought that transition would solve…
Parent Story: From Blue to Pink
The following is a personal account, first written as two blog posts by one of our parents, reproduced by kind permission of @Feudaltimes. My daughter is extremely bright, most articulate…
Parent Story: Helen
Until July 2016 we were a standard family. My husband, me and our two children – one son and one daughter. We raised our children to believe that toys, activities…
Gender Issues for Autistic girls
This article first appeared on the Autism Hampshire website. It is reproduced here with kind permission of the Author. Advice for Parents with Gender Atyptical Daughters I write this article…
Puberty Blockers: A Letter to a Parent
Background Those of us who give our time to our support group do so because we want to help fellow parents who are facing the same difficult parenting decisions as…
The Importance of an Unhappy Adolescence
It's miserable to be unhappy in your teenage years - but it is also profoundly important. It's hard to imagine adulthood going well if there haven't been quite a few…
BMJ Rapid Response: Supporting Parents of Children with Gender Dysphoria
Our BMJ Rapid Response, published 27 January 2020 at https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m215/rr-0 in response to this article by Sally Howard about the difficulties faced by GPs caring for young people with gender…
Statement: Bayswater Support Group Shares Concerns of CQC Inspection Report, Calls for Enhanced Child Mental Health Support
20 January 2021 Bayswater Support Group shares the concerns of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), whose inspection report today described the service provided by the NHS Gender Identity Development Service…
Statement to The Mail On Sunday about Puberty Blockers
On Sunday 16th January 2021, Sanchez Manning reported in The Mail on Sunday about GenderCare, a private clinic treating young people wishing to take cross sex hormones. We were asked…
Autism expert concerned over autistic girls declaring a transgender identity
In The Times Newspaper, a global expert on autism, Prof Christopher Gillberg, says autistic girls are adopting trans identities as they are ‘particularly vulnerable to seizing on a single answer…
Statement: Bayswater Support Group Welcomes Court Ruling in Use of Puberty Blockers in Under 18s
1 December 2020 Bayswater Support Group, which represents families in the UK Ireland, welcomes today’s ruling that protects young patients (and clinicians) by requiring a judge's oversight of the “experimental”…
Statement: On the NHS England Announcement of an Independent Review into the Treatment of Gender Dysphoria in Children
22 September 2020 Today NHS England announced a wide-ranging review into its support for children with gender dysphoria, led by Dr Hilary Cass OBE, to 'ensure that the best model(s)…
Our Letter: Regarding the EHRC Transgender Guidance for Secondary Schools
15 September 2020 Rebecca Hilsenrath CEO, Equalities and Human Rights Commission via email: correspondence@equalityhumanrights.com Dear Mrs Hilsenrath, EHRC Transgender Guidance for Secondary Schools We read with concern the report in…
Our Letter: Concerning the Oxford Study “Identifying the Health and Care Needs of Young Trans and Gender Diverse People”
A 30 month long project entitled Identifying the health and care needs of young trans and gender diverse people was started by the Nuffield Department of Primary Care, and we…
Thoughts on J.K. Rowling’s Essay and its Responses
"Being male is preferable to being female and vulnerable.” (contributed by a parent in our group) We wanted to express our gratitude to J.K. Rowling for shining a light, in…
Gender change is no fix for Autism
The Australian Article (paywall) The story was also covered in The Daily Mail. Article in The Australian, quoting Tony Attwood's statement that gender change in children could lead to later…