Top LGBT therapist resigns from professional body and accuses it of ‘failing’ LGBT community
The leading psychotherapist for the British LGBT community has quit the UK’s largest professional organisation for therapists after claiming that the body “fails” lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Dominic Davies, a government advisor and author, has walked away from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), accusing the organisation of “hypocrisy”, “tokenism”, “arrogance” and “inaction” over LGBT issues.
In a blog post written earlier this week, Davies says: “I feel incredibly let down by my professional body… I am so frustrated by their constant inaction and lack of understanding of the issues that I am resigning.”
The resignation comes after the Department of Health invited Davies and other key figures from leading mental health organisation to compile a Memorandum of Understanding on conversion therapy in a bid to end it. After being signed by an array of mental health bodies, it was revealed that the document would not over conversion therapy used on trans people even though, at the time, trans teenager Leelah Alcorn had killed herself just weeks before.
Speaking to BuzzFeed, Davies said: “The BACP appoint themselves as experts but I’m a member of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health. I have a lot of experience of what’s happening to trans people. It [the BACP’s response to the memorandum] is outrageous.”
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