UK: GIC (West London Mental Health NHS Trust) withdraws from RCPsych event

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

I have received the following press release from West London Mental Health Trust (Charing Cross GIC) concerning their participation in the controversial Royal College of Psychiatrists' event which is expected to be the focus of trans community protests next month due to the participation of controversial figures journalist Julie Bindel and Dr Az Hakeem, who claims that those who transition are "escaping an intolerable psychological reality into a more comfortable fantasy":

19 April 2011 The team at the WLMHT Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) at Charing Cross Hospital notes the apparent shift of emphasis in the Royal College of Psychiatrists Gay & Lesbian Special Interest Group conference, ‘Transgender: Time To Change’ on May 20th and feels compelled to withdraw on this basis. When we were originally asked to take part, GIC clinicians understood that our role was to outline the work we do within our own service and explain the very considerable evidence base which underpins it. We are very happy to do this and our more than 55 years of experience as the country’s leading NHS provider gives us a rich and robust data set from which to draw observations. It now appears that the conference comes at trans issues from a very specific agenda, namely, to explore the validity or otherwise of gender diagnoses as medical and psychiatric phenomena. We regret this, and so long as this is the case, we feel we can’t support it. Although we were somewhat wary of engaging in what is essentially a clinical discussion with a predominantly non-trans panel, which, moreover, features a non-clinician whose personal opinion is already well known, we agreed to do so in order that discussion might focus on evidence rather than anecdote. The Royal College should be aware that there is a great deal of disquiet around this event within the trans community. Interested parties should also note that the discussion as it now stands will be one-sided at best.