Bristol Doctoral Educational Psychology Training course (DEdPsych) Senior Teaching Fellow, Dr Dan O’Hare bans Gender-Critical attendees from the Ed.Psych Festival on sight!
Your ticket for the EdPsych festival of educational psychology has been cancelled and a full refund has been issued to your original payment method.
As the organiser, we have a legal and ethical duty under UK data protection law to safeguard the personal data and privacy of all attendees. Where there is evidence or prior behaviour indicating a risk of inappropriate collection or misuse of personal information, we must act to protect participants.
On this basis, you will not be admitted to this event. This decision is final.
Sincerely,
The edpsy festival team.
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Thank you for informing me. I am obviously disappointed to not be included in the EdPsych Festival video conference but accept your refund with thanks. You appear to be quoting GDPR regs. but I have been assured these do not apply, in the way you suggest, to "intra" professional communications. Indeed in terms of child safeguarding such sharing is to be encouraged, as reflected in some of the guidance excerpts quoted below. It appears my ban from EPNET1 has simply been extrapolated to your own private blog for which, of course, you have every right to exclude whomsoever you choose. Nevertheless you do, of course, as Sex Matters barrister Naomi Cunningham has noted with regard to the activities of professional regulators, “risk liability on their own account for religion or belief discrimination” given my gender-critical ‘beliefs’. These beliefs are well known to you, and form the basis of your reasons for cancellation rather than the spurious accusations of data breach, which as you know, were not upheld by ICO or HCPC, to whom you complained.
Nevertheless, for Dr Sargeant’s session at the Festival I had prepared a few, hopefully fairly anodyne questions for Dr Cora ‘s session. These were not intended as an attack or harassment but I think fair, albeit challenging, questions from one educator to another. I saw an opportunity in Dr Sargeant's session to seek accountability for the promotion of 'social transitioning' from DEdPsych (Bristol and Southampton University) course tutors, such as yourself and Cora, within your powerful positions of influence, which extend directly into compulsory educational settings, unlike merely academic courses where "academic activism" can, and should, roam free.
I had recently read Dr Sargeant's article written with the Southampton DEdPsych course director Dr Sarah Wright (and presumably a Southampton EdPsych course student?) and had developed the following questions...
"Navigating the landscape”:Authors: Gracie New Brown, Cora Sargeant and Sarah Wright Published: 2023 Publication: International Journal of Transgender Health
Results. Eighteen studies were identified for review, including 11 studies based in the USA, five in the UK, one in Australia and one in Cyprus. The voices of school-based professionals, including school counsellors, school psychologists, trainee and qualified educational psychologists, were represented. The themes created highlighted the importance of the environment in which psychologists were working, the reliance on their own views and values to guide their work in the absence of clear guidance, the role psychologists saw they had to advocate for gender diverse CYP, as well as barriers and systems they were fighting against. Conclusion. The review highlighted the need for psychologists to advocate for gender diverse children and young people, in an often non-inclusive environment where there was a need to work systemically with schools. Future research is needed to explore young people’s experiences of the support that they are receiving and would like to receive.
My questions relate to the phrase underlined in bold...
1. At the time of the study (2023) were the authors aware of the implications of these sources of very clear guidance on interaction with all children inc. "gender diverse children".
"TheEducation Act 1996, section 406, prohibits the political indoctrination of junior pupils in maintained schools by forbidding the promotion of partisan political views in teaching and restricting partisan political activities by junior pupils. This duty extends to local education authorities, governing bodies, and head teachers, who must ensure balanced treatment of political issues and prevent one-sided presentations of partisan views"
And...
"Section 175 of the Education Act 2002 mandates that local education authorities and the governing bodies of maintained schools and further education colleges must ensure that their functions are carried out with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. This section emphasises the importance of safeguarding in educational settings and requires institutions to have regard to guidance that supports these duties. The legislation is up to date with all changes known to be in force as of May 30, 2025."
2. I sense from the most recent "Classroom Psychology" videos that Cora (and Sarah?) are pivoting back from their apparent dismissal of the Cass Review and the Supreme Court Ruling that was evident in earlier episodes. Since writing the article above, which noted an "absence of clear guidance", do they now consider these interventions in the gender ideology debate deserve more serious consideration and now represent very "clear guidance" especially with regard to the implementation of ‘social transitioning’ into schools and the use of biological definitions of ‘sex’ within schools?
3. Also the guidance in the renewed Department for Education’s (DfE) (2025) “Keeping children Safe in Education (KCSIE 2025) Statutory guidance for schools and colleges” and associated DfE ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ (2023) contain the obligation on all children's services professionals to raise concerns with DSL staff if they have safeguarding concerns e.g. As Cass noted 'social transitioning' is “not a neutral act” Also KCSIE sections...
55. DPA and UK GDPR do not prevent the sharing of information for the purposes of keeping children safe and promoting their welfare. If in any doubt about sharing information, staff should speak to the designated safeguarding lead (DSL). Fears about sharing information must not be allowed to stand in the way of the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
205. However, the Cass review identified that caution is necessary for children questioning their gender as there remain many unknowns about the impact of social transition and children may well have wider vulnerabilities, including having complex mental health and psychosocial needs, and in some cases additional diagnoses of autism and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
206. It recommended that when families/carers are making decisions about support for gender questioning children, they should be encouraged to seek clinical help and advice. When parents are supporting pre-pubertal children, clinical services should ensure that they can be seen as early as possible by a clinical professional with relevant experience.
207. As such, when supporting a gender questioning child, schools should take a cautious approach and consider the broad range of their individual needs, in partnership with the child’s parents (other than in the exceptionally rare circumstances where involving parents would constitute a significant risk of harm to the child), including any clinical advice that is available and how to address wider vulnerabilities such as the risk of bullying.
So a similar question as 2. i.e. Does KCSIE also represent very "clear guidance" that is now available for "school psychologists, trainee and qualified educational psychologists" and is there no longer a need for "the reliance on their own views and values to guide their work (withgender diverse CYP) in the “absence of clear guidance,"?
I would be very grateful if you could offer these questions to Dr Sargeant and look forward to their, (and your?) responses.
Regards,
David Buck
Dr David Buck BSc MA MSc PhD C.Psychol. AFBPsS. HCPC No: PYL03081
Independent Consultant Educational Psychologist, Ofsted Inspector SEN.
Dr Dan O’Hare’s edpsy blog also hosts some partisan material notably that of the Educational Psychologists for Material Change (EPMC) Position Statement, which includes demand for Ed. Psychs to sign up to core beliefs such as these examples. For an educator in his position these are in clear breach of The Education Act 1996, Sections 406 and 407 (duty for educators to maintain political impartiality) since they include items unacceptable to the Association of Educational Psychologists at their AGM where the motion proposed by EPMC was rejected viz.
Decolonial strategies, as an endeavour to actively unlearn and dismantle dominant Eurocentric and neoliberal ways of thinking and understanding the world; whilst rebuilding forms of knowledge-making that exist outside of these norms.
Class struggle between economic classes is the basis of fundamental socio-historical change; for example, under capitalism, between workers, benefit claimants and students, and those whose form of property ownership enables them to economically exploit the rest.
Feminist psychology as a means to understand the role that patriarchy, gender and intersections of race and ethnicity play in the distribution of power in society, and subsequent social experience.
LGBTQ+ solidarity, to refute the idea of ‘heteronormativity’ and dismantle traditional assumptions about gender and sexual identities.
Relational and inclusive practice within schools, and a challenge to schooling policies based on neoliberalism, oppression, behaviourism and exclusion.
Both Dr Dan O’Hare and Dr Cora Sargeant are tutors/supervisors on the DEdPsych Ed.Psych. professional training courses at Bristol and Southampton Universities, respectively. Both have raised “Fitness to Practice” complaints against me via the profession’s regulator, the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) neither complaint (HCPC Ref: FTP.98709/97856 & FTP.93902/94539) has been brought to a conclusion. The reason for delay might be due to my gender-critical views being supported by the following advice, guidance and legislation, in some contrast to the complainants’ own breaches inherent within the ‘gender-affirmative’ position viz…
The Education Act 1996, Sections 406 and 407: Political impartiality in schools.
The Section 434 of the Education Act 1996
The Human Rights Act 1998
Section 175 of the Education Act 2002;
Sections 10 and 11 of the Children Act 2004
The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 updating regulations in Section 434 of the Education Act 1996
The Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005
The Equality Act 2010 including…
The School Premises (England) Regulations 2012
Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014
The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, as amended Part3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years (2015)
The Statutory Guidance on Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions (2015)
The UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act (2018)
The Statutory Guidance Working together to safeguard children 2023
The Statutory Guidance Keeping children safe in education 2025
Both Dr Dan O’Hare and Dr Cora Sargeant have been instrumental in permanently banning me from the EPNET1discussion forum. Together my “misdemeanours” appear to include unproven GDPR data breaches involving ‘gleaning email addresses of EPs’ (from publicly available sources, so their complaints to both ICO & HCPC were regarded as unfounded!), ‘targeted harassment’, ‘repeated misgendering’, ‘discredit(ing)… on the basis of my gender identity’, ‘Sharing sensitive personal information’, ‘Outing a transgender person’, ‘use of defamatory and sexualised online commentary’, ‘ direct discrimination,...serious breach of professional integrity’, ‘insinuation with no supporting evidence2… (of)...sexual or professional misconduct’, ‘puts me at professional risk… reinforces social harms’, ‘position me as a threat to colleagues and students’, ‘weaponises a misinterpretation of the law to manufacture suspicion’, apparently all ‘a form of workplace hostility disguised as ‘reasonable’ concern’... Etc. etc. i.e. the now well-worn, hopefully soon atavistic(?), transwoman-victimhood playbook.
1 EPNET: The Educational Psychology JISCMail List - A forum for the exchange of ideas and information (other descriptors are available!) among University research/teaching staff working in the field of Educational Psychology and Educational Psychologists throughout the UK and elsewhere.
2Completely untrue! My evidence included reference and excerpts from over 50 hours of Cora’s own videos, extensive text examples of critical responses on both EPNET and Mumsnet, which Cora herself attached to his complaint!
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THE FOLLOWING SENTIMENTS ARE PRECISELY THE GENDER AFFIRMATIVE THEMES THAT GOT THE TAVISTOCK GIDS CLINIC CLOSED DOWN - NO INDICATION OF THE NEED FOR MULTI-PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT THAT THE CASS REVIEW RECOMMENDED, WHICH MIGHT LEAD TO EXPLORATION OF ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVES THAT MIGHT NOT “TRANS AWAY THE GAY” (LGB-ALLIANCE) FOR EXAMPLE?!
Subject:
Re: Consultation on the new DfE draft guidance “Gender Questioning Children”
From:
Dan O’Hare <dan@EDPSY.ORG.UK>
Reply-To:
Dan O’Hare <dan@EDPSY.ORG.UK>
Date:
Fri, 23 Feb 2024 18:07:32 +0000
Content-Type:
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Dear Cora,
I stand in awe of your grace, kindheartedness and ability to get to the heart of the matter.
Your message made me think about the considerable number of trans young people I met and worked with as a LGBT+ youth worker back in 2011/12.
The youth group that we ran was based in a county town in a southern England, but the location of it needed to be kept secret because the risk of attacks or abuse from others who meant harm, was significant.
Some of the young people came to the group because their parents had found this avenue of support. They were dropped off by parents/carers, we got to know them, some of those adults even accompanied us on trips - like our trip to Wicked in the West-End (a mind blowing revelation for some of our young LGBT members…!)
Some young people came to the group as a way to increase their social circle. To meet people they described as ‘more like me’. To make friends and feel at ease in a way that they identified they didn’t with friends at school.
Some young people attended under a heavy blanket of secrecy. No one knew, and that was essential for their own safety, their wellbeing, their having a place to live.
During my time with this youth group we worked with and met more questioning, non-binary and trans young people, proportionally, that we might have expected from mere statistics. My anecdotal observation or recollection is that among these young people, still more there was a higher proportion who had sought out this youth group in secret - who could tell us in clear and certain terms that it was absolutely necessary in order to maintain a basic quality of life.
Some of these young people, I am sorry to say, were experiencing and living in situations where they did experience abuse. Daily. Yes, all of the four ‘main categories’.
When these young people entered this space, you could almost see and feel this heavy blanket dropping from their shoulders. For some of the trans young people this looked like elation - I distinctly remember one girl who actually danced whole circuits of the room. For others, this dropping of the blanket looked like 20-30 minutes of silent time under a coat. Depleted by a gender presentation that didn’t match how he was coming to understand his identity, one boy required ‘re-charge time’ before he was ready to get on with the important business of playing pool, drinking hot chocolate, and gossiping!
The affirmative care that we offered in that group, quite literally, saved lives. I’m sure I could dredge up, from memory, some touching conversations with some of the trans children and young people from the group, but I think episodes 18 and 19 of your podcast make this point better than I could now. (Episode 18: The speed of transition, Episode 19: gender euphoria)
One quote from a non-binary trans young person from a piece of research you highlighted really stood out to me and resonated so strongly with my own experiences:
“I wish I could describe it to those of you who haven’t had it before (gender euphoria), but existing in a space, in a moment where your body and gender align [and] feel right with each other when so often that is not the case is ELECTRIC. It’s what keeps trans folks alive, those moments of feeling fully and euphorically ourselves”
So to answer your question, when a young person tells me something about their gender identity, do I believe them? Yes. A strong, resounding affirmative yes. I will hear their voice, recognise and respect their inherent worth and dignity, nurture their growth and attempt, in my own small way to create a world where they truly belong.
THESE ARE PRECISELY THE GENDER AFFIRMATIVE THEMES THAT GOT THE TAVISTOCK GIDS CLINIC CLOSED DOWN - NO INDICATION OF THE NEED FOR MULTI-PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT THAT THE CASS REVIEW RECOMMENDED, WHICH MIGHT LEAD TO EXPLORATION OF ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVES THAT MIGHT NOT “TRANS AWAY THE GAY” (LGB-ALLIANCE) FOR EXAMPLE?!
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https://www.afaf.org.uk/the-banned-list/