Image from She-Ra and the Princess of Power (2018) by ND Stevenson Caring about trans kids in 2023 continues to be heart-breaking. Worry and far too many tears. Over the past 4 years, most ‘spare’ hours in my day (or more usually in the night) have been focused on my PhD: “Cis-supremacy: Experiences of trans children and families in the UK”. I chose to embark on a PhD in frustration at the bad science that informed policy and practice across the UK, frustration borne from failed attempts to advocate for trans children’s rights since 2015. I have now submitted my PhD (phew), having already publ ..read more

In this short blog I want to draw our attention to the term ‘diagnostic overshadowing’ and its use by anti-trans actors to mask attempts at conversion practices. Diagnostic overshadowing is a medical term used to describe the situation where one medical condition or diagnosis ‘overshadows’ another one, leading to mis-diagnosis. Trans communities will recognise the concept in the well documented ‘trans broken arm syndrome’. Transphobic or inexperienced medical practitioners can go into panic when treating a trans person, and mistakenly attribute completely unrelated medical issues to a person ..read more

Susie Green has been at the helm of Mermaids for more than 7 years, taking Mermaids from a tiny unknown, unregistered cis parent support group (with varied levels of trans positivity) to a substantial, internationally recognised, multiple award winning, formalised charity, with many trans staff members, a multi-million pound budget, and high commitment to the rights and well-being of trans children. I have an enormous amount of respect for Susie and how she has fought for trans kids against pressures and challenges that would have broken many other people. Today it was announced that Susie is ..read more

NHS England has just released a consultation on a revised Service Specification for trans children and adolescent health care. The revised specification is dangerous, ideologically-driven, and will cause serious harm to trans kids in the UK. There are many many deficiencies and areas of outrage in the draft. It has been written with dangerous bad intent (I wonder who in NHS England wrote it). We will need collective action to fight for trans kids’ rights, so I’m putting my work-in-progress analysis here for others to build from. I have divided my feedback into 26 categories: 1. Inclusion of ou ..read more

In 2021 the NHS (NICE) reviewed the evidence for the use of puberty blockers within trans adolescent healthcare. They concluded that the evidence was of “very low certainty”, a finding that was then repeated across national media, with the headline “Evidence for puberty blockers use very low, says NICE”. This unsurprisingly prompted increased demands, including from politicians, for withdrawal of trans adolescent healthcare. Several people have written about the flaws in the NICE review, including this excellent article by AJ Eckert. I’ve examined parents of trans children’s concerns with the ..read more

Schools have a duty of care to trans pupils, with a requirement to provide LGBTQI+ inclusive PSHE. However, many schools still struggle to provide trans inclusive primary and early secondary school education on puberty and bodies, with schools often drawing upon outdated and exclusionary curricula. Research has shown that trans children can experience exclusionary curricula, especially on bodies and puberty, as upsetting, delegitimising and harmful. Schools providing trans exclusionary education are associated with high levels of minority stress for trans pupils, with minority stress leading ..read more

This morning people who care about trans kids were reacting in utter dismay to hearing the Secretary of State for Health use the Cass interim review to justify the need to exclude trans people from a ban on conversion therapy. I’ll link the lovely Olly Alexander linking to a clip of our Health Secretary using Cass to call for conversion therapy for trans kids – see here Despite evidence that conversion therapy on trans children is particularly harmful, with research showing “For transgender adults who recalled gender identity conversion efforts before age 10 years, exposure was significantly ..read more

 Horton, C. and Carlile, A. NB. This is the accepted manuscript for an article to be published in a special issue of the Teacher’s College Record due for publication later this year. Abstract Background/Context: Throughout the past decade, increasing numbers of trans children are being supported in childhood, with schools in countries across the world tasked with educating a generation of (known) trans pupils. Schools can adopt diverse approaches to inclusion or exclusion of trans pupils, with consequences for trans children’s well-being and safety at school. The literature includes exten ..read more

I’m getting my infographic on trans inclusive education translated. Please let me know if any changes are needed to the Spanish here before I finalise (I’ll credit the awesome volunteers who translated once it is finalised)                                                  APOYO A NIÑES TRANS EN LAS ESCUELAS Recomendaciones de un artículo de Frontiers of Soci ..read more

I’m translating my infographic on trans inclusive education into German (and will credit the volunteer translator when it’s finalised). Please let me know if you have any suggested changes to the translation below. Erkenntnisse und Empfehlungen sind entnommen aus dem folgenden Artikel in “Frontiers of Sociology” 2020 (open acess) zum Thema LGBT+ – inklusive Bildung: “Thriving or surviving? Raising our ambition for trans children in primary and secondary schools” Cal Horton, Goldsmiths, University of London trans Schüler_innen erfahren Stigmatisierung und Entwertung in der Schule, oftmals ..read more