We are ashamed of the role that psychology plays in gender care | Letters

As clinical psychologists, we write with long-standing concerns about the scandal unfolding in the Gender Identity Development Service clinics. Some of us are former Guide clinicians. While we welcome your editorial position, we would like to point out that it is not just the medical profession that has ‘a lot to think about’ (‘The Observer take on the Cass review: children were catastrophically failed by the medical profession’ ).

These were psychology-led services. Whether intentional or not, and many did their best in an impossible situation, it was the clinical psychologists who promoted an ideology that was almost impossible to question; who, as the Cass report shows, have largely failed to carry out proper assessment of young people in difficulty, thereby putting many on an “irreversible medical trajectory” that was in most cases inappropriate; and who failed in their most basic duty to keep good records.

It is also our professional body, the British Psychological Society, which has failed (despite years of pressure) to produce guidelines for doctors working with young people in this complex area; and that, forced to give an official answer for the first time, is now minimizing its own role in events and calling for ‘more psychology’ in response. We are ashamed of the role that psychology has played.

What happened at Gids was a multifactorial systemic failure, but when the Observer rightly calls for “accountability for the managers and doctors who pursued such unethical practices and caused avoidable harm to young people.” We believe that the role of our own profession needs to be fully explored.
Sixteen senior clinical psychologists
Names supplied

It’s one rule for them…

Angela Rayner, one of the few authentic working-class voices in the shadow cabinet, is being hounded for potentially failing to pay several thousand pounds in capital gains tax (“Angela Rayner continues to campaign despite police investigation”). On the other hand, no one in the disgraced upper echelons of the Post Office has even been prosecuted, despite benefiting from huge salaries and payouts, accusations of possible perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Jane Ghosh
Bristol

India has the right to oppose the West

Simon Tisdall is right to point out the problems with Narendra Modi’s divisive domestic politics (“A nagging doubt plagues the world leaders courting India: Which side is Narendra Modi actually on?”). I did not vote for Modi or his party at any point and as a supporter of the Aam Aadmi Party, I sincerely wish for more diversity in our political conversation, which is caught between the Congress and the BJP.

That said, the second part of Tisdall’s article betrayed his true concerns: how will India align with the West? The Western world has never really cared about democratic politics in the developing world. From Augusto Pinochet to Mobutu Sese Seko, from Park Chung Hee to François Duvalier, the list of authoritarian rulers supported by the West is too long for this space.

Modi’s foreign policy prioritizes India’s interests, as it should. I fervently hope that we will continue to resist involvement in the next Western crusade. We have seen the consequences of this stupidity in Pakistan, which has consistently put geopolitical games above its own domestic priorities.
Aditya Pant
New Delhi, India

Two stories from the high seas

Regarding “Jail time for holding a sign? Protest against the climate crisis is being brutally suppressed”: In the days of sail, when ordinary sailors felt oppressed and had no means to protest, an anonymous hand took a cannonball from the rack and rolled it across the deck at night . This can be dangerous and difficult to resolve.

If the government closes the gap that allows people to express their anger and fear about the climate crisis, it won’t be long before anonymous hands begin to wreak havoc beyond its control. The protests of doctors and organic farmers will pale in comparison.
Then Papworth
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

As a postscript to Tim Adams’ piece on the Royal Navy’s dropping of the requirement for new recruits to be able to swim (“If you’re looking for a good old British farce, look no further than Liz Truss’s memoirs”) , it is worth remembering that many sailors in earlier times could not swim because there was little incentive or opportunity to learn. However, sailors feared being buried at sea, hence the popularity of wearing a gold earring, to pay for a proper burial if they died away from home.
David Hughes
Bath

Take action now against child poverty

Michael Savage rightly argues that early action on child poverty could give a new Labor government “a guiding purpose” and highlights the abolition of the horrific two-child limit as key to this (“Labour’s first 100 days: what’s their grand plan for the government” ?”). A first step to demonstrate intent would be to commit now to including in the Manifesto a comprehensive, intergovernmental strategy on child poverty, as agreed by the 2023 Annual Conference, following its adoption by the National Policy Forum. While we must continue to push for specific reforms, even if they will cost money, a clear commitment to such a manifesto would reassure us that tackling child poverty will indeed be a guiding goal for the party as child poverty deepens and grows.
Ruth Thrush, Labour, House of Lords
London SW1

How can the climate emergency not be one of the five key battlegrounds outlined in your analysis of Starmer’s first hundred days? What’s more important than that? There will be consequences in so many areas, such as food security, flooding and immigration. Britain is facing an energy crisis due to the weak capacity of its privatized national electricity grid. The Conservatives under Rishi Sunak have cut UK spending on the energy transition and are using the term ‘luxury faith’ on climate policy. One of the main reasons to vote Labor would be to elect a government that would take this seriously.
Jackie Kemp
Leith, Edinburgh

A taste of Birmingham

Rebecca Nicholson’s profile of the Dads Lane allotment holders in Joe Lycett’s guest adaptation (“Life on a Birmingham allotment”) gave a nice picture of the allotment community in Birmingham. Her findings are fully reflected in the Birmingham allocations study we have just carried out with the University of Birmingham.

With the support of the local allotment garden federation, almost 900 plot owners completed the survey. It showed that half of the rental contracts are held by women; on each plot an average of 100 kg of fresh fruit and vegetables are grown per year; and the main benefit of having an assignment is peace of mind and relaxation.

Allotments are an unglamorous, neglected feature of British city life. Yet they provide a vital source of physical and mental health and fresh food to hundreds of thousands of people – often in unglamorous, neglected communities.
David DraycottSecretary, Moor Green Allotment Gardens Association
Mosley, Birmingham