Mick Hartley

For a while it seemed that trans activists like Stonewall were dropping their no-debate policy, and were willing to engage with their opponents. Unfortunately this only led to embarrassment as Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley showed herself to be hopelessly out of her depths at interviews, so it looks like we're back to the old no-debate stance:

Great Ormond Street Hospital has been forced to cancel a top trainee doctors conference after trans activists protested that speakers would make Zoom attendees feel “unsafe”, The Telegraph can disclose.

All trainee child psychiatrist finalists from across London were due to attend the day-long video conference on March 16 on how they can support gender-questioning young people.

High-profile speakers from across the trans debate were invited by a group of trainees at the hospital to speak on panels, including major trans charities, academics and gender-critical groups.

But the programme quickly descended into chaos as trans activists refused to appear alongside gender-critical speakers, trainee doctors sent dossiers of allegations about speakers they disagreed with, and two feminist writers were cancelled.

NHS officials pulled the plug the day before after some internal activists even resorted to using health service whistleblowing procedures to protest about the event, in what has been branded an “outrageous” silencing campaign.

Of course the organisers could have told those trans activists that if they weren't prepared to talk alongside gender-critical speakers, then fine, they'd just carry on without them. It never seems to work like that though. Somehow the activists always get their way.

Helen Joyce, an editor at The Economist, was due to discuss her best-seller, Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, in a panel discussion alongside academics on the opposite side of her gender-critical stance about biological sex being binary and immutable.

But earlier this month she was asked to respond to a list of allegations a trainee child psychiatrist had sent organisers, warning them: “There is no possible way in which this event can possibly be a ‘safe environment’ for LGBTQ+ and especially trans participants.”

Following a string of other internal protests, including a speaker refusing to appear alongside her, her invitation was revoked just five days before the event.

Also cancelled was Stephanie Davies-Arai, the director of Transgender Trend, a gender-critical website for parents, after two separate dossiers of allegations were sent to organisers by a trainee doctor and Mermaids, the child trans charity.

In her intervention, Susie Green, the chief executive of Mermaids who was due to speak alongside Ms Davies-Arai and other charities on a panel about support for trans youth, told organisers that Mermaids “cannot be a part of a conference that gives a platform to Transgender Trend, regardless of whether their work is in the public domain or not”.

She went on to tell NHS staff in an email that "in addition to Transgender Trend, I would suggest that CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health services) stay clear of anyone involved with anti-trans pseudo-medical platforms that have been set up with the sole intention of attacking trans people (especially trans youth) and their healthcare."

This Susie Green, let's not forget, is the mother who didn't like her son's effeminate ways – he enjoyed wearing tutus and dressing as Snow White, and his dad wasn't at all happy – so she took him off to Thailand on his 16th birthday to have all his bits removed for the full monty sex-change. You might think that's grotesque and blatant homophobia, not to mention child abuse, but she's been lauded as some kind of trailblazer, and even gave a TED talk to a bewitched audience. "Pseudo-medical"?? – to say that people can't change sex? It's hard to understand quite how she gets away with it – but get away with it she does.

The saga has sparked fury from campaigners and the cancelled speakers, just days after the landmark Cass Review published its interim report into NHS gender services which found a “fundamentally different service model is needed”.

Ms Joyce, whose book was critical of the notion that men and women are merely self-identified genders and not biological, told The Telegraph: “It's outrageous that a journalist who has written a best-selling book spelling out the harms of this bizarre, evidence-free ideology is no-platformed and subjected to a smear campaign.

“Children are being harmed by gender clinics, and yet when I try to blow the whistle to the child psychiatrists of the future, I'm slandered, insulted and silenced.”

Ms Davies-Arai said it “should concern everyone that the NHS has allowed unsubstantiated claims of ‘transphobia’ to influence their decisions”. She said that given the Cass report, “it is unconscionable of the NHS to continue to silence the voices of those who have always urged caution”.

Other speakers due to take part in the event, with between 100 and 150 attendees expected, were Dr Polly Carmichael, the director of the Tavistock gender identity clinic, Dr David Bell, a whistleblower consultant who resigned last year from the Tavistock after 25 years with serious concerns about puberty blocker treatments, and Bernadette Wren, the former head of psychology at the Tavistock.

Also due to speak was Dr Hillary Cass, the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who is leading the NHS gender services review.

But no, it was all cancelled. The trans bullies got their way. No debate.

What striking, as always, is the astonishing cowardice of the authorities – in this case Great Ormond Street – in the face of these bullies. They happily cancelled feminist speakers when told to do so, but when it became obvious that only complete obeisance to the trans view would do, with not a hint of opposition, did they finally pull the plug.