The RCGP will allow a ‘gender critical’ conference to go ahead at its headquarters despite pressures from an LGBTQ group.
Next month the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (CAN-SG) will be hosting a conference, First Do No Harm, from the RCGP’s conference centre in Euston Square, which is run by an independent events company.
Speakers at the conference, including GPs, psychiatrists and professors of sociology, will discuss ‘safeguarding’ around sex and gender, ‘sex-based language in healthcare’, and the ‘impacts of gender medicine on same-sex attracted youth’.
Earlier this week, the college received criticism by the Pride RCGP group, whose members said that the college appeared to be endorsing the event.
Now the college said in a statement that this is ‘an extremely complex situation’ that the RCGP has been ‘inadvertently drawn into’.
It said that the college ‘had no involvement’ in organising the conference and did not endorse its content, and that as soon as the college became aware that marketing and publicity material ‘might give a different impression’, it asked the organisers ‘to remove all references to the RCGP’s name’.
The statement said: ‘We have today reached the decision that the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (CAN-SG) conference can go ahead as booked at 30 Euston Square.
‘We have spent the past few days in intense and wide-ranging discussions. We understand the concerns and strength of feeling that this event has provoked, particularly among our LGBTQ+ community of GPs and patients.
‘The legal considerations are such that the College would be at risk of being faced with a claim for breaching the Equality Act if we acted otherwise.’
CAN-SG, a ‘coalition’ of clinicians who are campaigning for ‘improved treatment options for gender dysphoria’, believe that prescribing hormone blockers for gender dysphoria should be ‘scientifically scrutinised’ as there is ‘currently no robust evidence that they improve long-term outcomes’.
Their website also shares views that the proposed bill banning conversion therapy ‘could harm people with gender-related distress’.
In its statement the college said it understands that any association with the event has called its commitment to inclusion and to the care of LGBTQ+ members and patients ‘into question’.
It added: ‘We wish to reiterate that we take our responsibility of supporting our diverse community of LGBTQ+ members and patients, as well as our members providing gender identity services to patients, very seriously.
‘The college has a clear policy around transgender care and has developed e-learning materials for our members.
‘The RCGP is one of 20 health organisations that have signed a memorandum of understanding opposing conversion therapy, so we were very vocal opponents of the Government’s proposal to ban the practice for lesbian, gay and bisexual people in England and Wales but not for trans people.
‘When the document was updated to include gender identity, we worked with other signatories to ensure the memorandum was clear that being opposed to conversion therapy did not mean opposing appropriate clinical and psychological interventions for trans and gender-questioning people and that it is entirely possible to deliver a ban on conversion therapy that protects all LGBTQ+ people.’
Awful job,
GPs will quickly remember why they retired, make excuses and leave.
@Dave
I think your comment may have been meant for the article on retired GPs returning to urgent hubs?
Keira Bell was the canary in the coal mine.
As more damaged detransitioners sue the authorities who were supposed to protect them in childhood, we will hopefully return to treating gender confused children with compassion and counselling, not drugs and surgery, until they are adults able to properly consent to such radical treatments.
It’s also fascinating just how many detransitioners turn out to be gay. If Pride RCGP are so concerned about conversion therapy they should reconsider their support for rushing to affirm and “treat” vulnerable children heavily influenced by the social contagion of Tim Tok et al.