Mick Hartley

From the LGB Alliance response to the Scottish government's consultation on ending conversion practices in Scotland:

We are particularly concerned about “conversion practices” described in relation to talking therapy. It is essential to understand that many of the teenagers, especially girls, who are being referred to gender clinics, mistake their homosexuality for a gender identity issue. We know that an exceptionally high percentage of teens referred to gender clinics have same-sex sexual orientation – so much so that clinicians at the Tavistock GIDS clinic in London joked: “Soon there will be no gay kids left”. Data reported by GIDS reveal that teenage patients expressing a sexual orientation were overwhelmingly homosexual or bisexual. 67.7% of adolescent female patients were recorded as being attracted to other females only, 21.1% were bisexual, and only 8.5% were listed as heterosexual. Among adolescent male patients, 42.3% were attracted only to other males, 38% were bisexual, and only 19.2% said they were attracted only to females….

One whistleblower explicitly referred to the institutional homophobia at the GIDS in his exit interview. Furthermore, the BBC Newsnight reporters Hannah Barnes and Deborah Cohen reported that homophobia was a factor in all the families they spoke to. In our view, the medicalisation of largely LGB, “gender non-conforming” teenagers is the greatest medical scandal of our age. The Scottish Government presents its Bill as progressive and caring. We say it is the opposite. The Bill is homophobic at its heart and strikes a mortal blow at the interests of lesbian, gay and bisexual people, eroding rights that have been painstakingly advanced over the past half-century.

But read the whole thing: it's a comprehensive demolition.