Stonewall and the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Censorship & Accusations of Bigotry Stifle Vital Gender Debate Within RCPsych

Gender Critical Candidate Smeared in RCPsych Election

Dr Lenny Cornwall is a consultant psychiatrist who stood for a role on the Board of Trustees at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in April 2023. He ran as an openly gender critical candidate, which is a status protected in law from discrimination on the grounds of belief. Dr Cornwall campaigned for ‘evidence-based rather than ideological leadership’. He stated that this would mean removing the influence of non-medical politically motivated groups, including ending the Royal College’s partnership with Stonewall due to its stance of ‘no debate’ about transgender healthcare. Dr Cornwall also stated that the Royal College must do more to canvas the opinions of its membership on contested issues rather than imposing top-down decisions on its members.

You would think that these were reasonable aims, but gender activist doctors who would like to maintain the climate of ‘no debate’ reacted to Dr Cornwall’s election campaign about as well as could be expected. For example, Dr Joseph Hartland (lead author of the gender-affirmation only nationwide GLADD Conversion Therapy Medical Schools Charter) reacted by telling Twitter followers: ‘If you vote for this individual in the [Royal College of Psychiatrists] elections, you are a bigot voting for a bigot’. Dr Hartland went on to say: ‘Ideological criticisms of Stonewall are entirely anti-trans and anti queer agendas’.

So in other words, no doctors should be allowed to question or raise concerns about Stonewall’s influence on the taxpayer-funded NHS. They must do what Stonewall say entirely, otherwise they are bigots. This approach completely stymies any opportunity for open discussion between clinicians regarding ‘gender identity’, despite this being essential for safe patient care and decision-making. Can the UK medical profession really be expected to potentially compromise patient safety around these issues solely to avoid offending the sensibilities of self-proclaimed ‘queer medical activist’ doctors?

In light of this influential doctor’s assertions, we cannot forget that Stonewall’s ideological stance has been shown as recently as July 2022, when the charity controversially stated ‘Research suggests that children as young as 2 recognise their trans identity’ and that these children need ‘affirming education’. Stonewall’s stance is that children as young as two years old should be socially transitioned and affirmed at nursery. This is a deeply contested intervention, as described by Dr Hilary Cass, who is leading an independent review of the Tavistock gender clinic. Her interim report included this description of social transition:

‘Social transition – this may not be thought of as an intervention or treatment, because it is not something that happens within health services. However, it is important to view it as an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning. There are different views on the benefits versus the harms of early social transition. Whatever position one takes, it is important to acknowledge that it is not a neutral act, and better information is needed about outcomes.’

NHS staff cannot be expected to give unquestioning adherence to edicts from external lobby groups like Stonewall, no matter how strongly activists feel about it. Equally, the UK population should be informed about the level of lobby group pressure that is embedded within the National Health Service which they fund with their taxes. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has a responsibility to ensure that their decisions are evidence-based and not influenced by gender ideologues.

However, the level of Stonewall’s influence upon RCPsych remains significant. In February 2022, the Royal College of Psychiatrists won a Stonewall Silver Award and was named as Stonewall’s 134th top employer in the UK, which RCPsych proudly proclaimed made it Stonewall’s highest ranked medical royal college. In February 2023, RCPsych achieved a Stonewall Gold Award and had moved up to being Stonewall’s 90th employer in the UK for following their requirements. Stonewall has a truly concerning sway on the decisions of RCPsych’s leadership and this unelected organisation should not to be able to exert ideological influence over RCPsych in exchange for ostensibly ‘progressive’ kudos points.

Forbidden Questions at RCPsych EDI Presentation Q & As

Gender ideologue doctors have arguably created a hostile environment in UK medicine for medics who may want to raise concerns or even ask questions about the affirmation-only approach that they promote. As shown following Dr Hartland’s EDI presentation to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, questions about gender identity ideology are not welcomed. While the exact questions asked in the presentation’s Q & As are unknown, we do know that the presenter considered 80% of them to have been transphobic and was upset by this to the extent that they ‘had to dig [their] nails into [their] hand’ during the presentation in order to ‘keep control of [their] emotions’. They then posted a picture of the effects of this on Twitter.

Some psychiatrists have described this as an action which may have been designed to close down discussion on the gender identity topics being discussed. If so, it in many ways achieved that aim, as the Royal College of Psychiatrists reacted with the following statement reprimanding the audience of psychiatrists: ‘We are appalled by the treatment of the presenters this afternoon during our CCQI EDI webinar. It represents the opposite to the College values, which we strive to uphold every day. We are currently looking into what happened and how’. However, no investigation seems to have subsequently taken place and the questions posed by the audience were never publicised, meaning that their content cannot be widely scrutinised. RCPsych’s behaviour in treating the audience as being guilty of transphobia has angered many members within the college, who would like RCPsych to address that incident and their response to it.

After the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ trustee election, Dr Lenny Cornwall responded to the accusations of his gender critical beliefs making him a ‘bigot’ by tweeting ‘Someone said anyone who voted for me was a bigot (so that’s 1593 of us). It would be nice if @rcpsych made a statement now to refute that.’ Yet so far there has been silence on this from the leadership of the Royal College. This does make it appear that self-described ‘queer medical activists’ and their outbursts are running the show rather than the leadership themselves, who cannot bring themselves to publicly disagree with them (or Stonewall). Will the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ leadership listen to the concerns of Dr Cornwall and the 48% of RCPsych members who voted for him and against Stonewall’s influence? As outlined in A Question of Ideology (Yasmin Zenith, The Critic), this is an ideological chasm within UK psychiatry that is only growing wider.