Mick Hartley

Members of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy [BACP] are responsible for a new app, “Exploring Lesbian Culture for Trans Femme”. Yes, it's the return of the cotton ceiling. Bev Jackson at The Critic has the details:

The resurgence of “cotton ceiling” rhetoric among — of all people — members of the BACP – “a professional body representing counsellors and psychotherapists in the UK” — is like a rotting corpse rising to the surface of your local lake.

You remember the “cotton ceiling,” right?

In 2012, a trans-identified man named Morgan Page ran a workshop at Planned Parenthood Toronto entitled “Overcoming the Cotton Ceiling: Breaking Down Sexual Barriers for Queer Trans Women.” The aim was to teach “transbians” techniques to pass through the “cotton ceiling” — a cute term for women’s underpants. In other words, it taught straight men who “identify” as women how to get lesbians into bed. …

In 2022, the “cotton ceiling” workshop came up during the Allison Bailey case, in which Bailey, then a barrister, sued her chambers, Garden Court, and Stonewall UK for discrimination and harassment. For me, the weirdest sentence of that trial came from the witness Cathryn McGahey QC, a former vice-chair of the Bar Council’s ethics committee. When asked her views on the “cotton ceiling” phenomenon — about helping men find ways to get into lesbians’ knickers — McGahey cast about for an analogy. In a lightbulb moment, she compared the “cotton ceiling” workshop to “South Africa attempting to racially integrate society.”  I. Kid. You. Not. 

I’ve never seen contempt for lesbian sexuality displayed quite so blatantly. Maybe McGahey had heard Nancy Kelley (then Stonewall CEO) describe us as “sexual racists” and stowed it away for future use.

Fast forward to 2025, and to an initiative called VODA — “Self-Care for LGBTIA+ Lives.” It’s won awards — from UK StartUP Awards and Attitude.(2)

VODA is promoting an app called “Exploring Lesbian Culture for Trans Femme”. Remember: “trans femmes” are male. The app focuses entirely on the validation of the “trans femmes”, without any acknowledgment that other people — you know, women — may be involved….

This is essentially an invasion manual. It shamelessly encourages men who self-define as lesbians to “claim their space” in the lesbian community.

Four of the six-strong VODA team are also BACP members. Their involvement in this app is unclear, but they have certainly not distanced themselves from it. The app seems to be a profound breach of the BACP’s Ethical Framework (2018)….

The message promoted by the VODA app — and by “LGBTQ+” and former human rights organisations — is that “male lesbians” are victims to be coddled while the rights of actual lesbians don’t matter. I’m sick of this upside-down logic. People born male cannot be lesbian and should not be encouraged to invade lesbian spaces. To see a therapists’ organisation cheering on this violation demonstrates that the “cotton ceiling” discourse is alive and well.

I hope the BACP will be receiving a strongly-worded complaint about this grotesque app, which encourages men to trample on lesbians’ right to dignity and to their right of association.

You think a battle's been won, and…zonk…up it pops again. Playing whack-a-mole with the trans activists.