Stella O'Malley

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Stella O'Malley
Stella O'Malley on CAN-SG.jpg
O'Malley in 2024
Born1973or1974(age 50–51) [1]
Dublin, Ireland [2]
Occupation(s)Psychotherapist and author
Known forPsychotherapy and mental health
Website www.stellaomalley.com

Stella O'Malley is an Irish psychotherapist and author, with three books on parenting and mental health. [3] [4] She is a regular contributor to Irish national newspapers, podcasts, and TV. She made a documentary about gender dysphoria in children for Channel 4, and is the founder of Genspect, a self-described gender critical organisation opposed to gender affirming care.

Contents

Early life

O'Malley is the third child in a family of four children, with one older sister and brother, and one younger brother. [5]

O'Malley grew up in Dublin in the late 1970s. In her documentary Trans Kids: It's Time to Talk she states that from the ages of 4 to 13 or 14, she insisted that she was a boy, that as puberty developed she felt there was no other option and stopped telling people she was a boy, and at 16 she became comfortable with herself as a woman. She believes that if she had been born 35 years later she would have insisted she was a trans boy and transitioned. [1] [6] During the 70s and 80s when she grew up, this was instead understood by those around her as her being a very eccentric, unusual kid, and she states, "I don't think [my parents] gave it much focus." [7]

Published works

Books

O'Malley has written several books, most of which were on the Irish best sellers list. [8] [9] [10] [11]

Film

In 2018 her Channel 4 documentary Trans Kids: It's Time To Talk [13] [14] aired. The documentary addressed transgender children and their gender dysphoria, expressing concerns that too many children were transitioning and doing so too young. In the documentary, she interviewed transgender children and adults as well as a detransitioned woman, all of whom said they didn't regret their decision to medically transition. Transgender groups and charities she approached had refused to speak to her; she said they accused her of questioning whether transgender children exist. She was criticised for interviewing James Caspian and "trans-critical" feminists who oppose the right of transgender people to self-identify, one of whom asserted there is no scientific evidence anyone is "born in the wrong body". In the film, O'Malley states that she had called herself a boy until puberty, which she retroactively considers gender dysphoria and believes would have led her to transition if born later, but felt comfortable as a girl after puberty. [15] [6] [1] [16]

Some critics praised the documentary, others criticised it for uneven coverage, asking if children and adolescents are being "groomed" into believing they're trans, and O'Malley's conclusion that transgender children "are lost and are being led". [15] [6] [1] [16] Dr Helen Webberley, a UK based GP and gender specialist who had declined to participate in the film, criticised it for not including any trans adults who had transitioned as children. [6] Sarah Carson concluded in her review that "a film like this that tries to prove that to be transgender can be "a phase" – with few statistics and not enough concrete evidence – could do more harm than good". [15]

TV

She has been the resident psychotherapist for two TV programmes, Raised by the Village, [17] on Irish TV channel RTÉ1, and on a TG4 parenting show in Irish, Cad Faoi Na Tuismitheoirí. [18]

Podcasts

Exploratory therapy, Genspect and SEGM

O'Malley advocates for "exploratory therapy" in response to gender dysphoria and has written and testified about how some conversion therapy bills risk limiting access to exploratory therapy. [19] [20] [21] On 9 August 2021, O'Malley co-authored an opinion letter titled "Bill to ban conversion therapy poses problems for therapists" alongside psychologist Jacky Grainer and GP Madeleine Ní Dhailigh for the Irish Times in reference to the Prohibition of Conversion Therapies Bill 2018. In the letter, she criticized the inclusion of "suppression of gender identity" in the bill's definition of conversion therapy. [20] The Union of Students in Ireland subsequently announced that it was boycotting the Irish Times until it apologised for the article. [22] The Trans Writers Union also announced a boycott of the paper due to what they characterised as advocating conversion therapy and a pattern of transphobic behavior. [23] [24] In an interview with O'Malley in Undark Magazine published in April 2022, O'Malley stated that she opposes all medical treatment for teens under 18. [25]

In February 2020, O'Malley tweeted "I hate the phrase gender critical but I am making a list! A large number of people contact me seeking help and I don't know enough Irish therapists who can provide compassionate and nuanced therapy." This was described as compiling a list of Irish gender critical therapists, which some Twitter users equated with conversion therapy. [26]

In June 2021, O'Malley founded Genspect. [27] [28] Genspect has supported numerous legal complaints against clinicians and has supported parents trying to prevent children from socially transitioning at school without full parental support. Genspect also "stands in full solidarity" with Our Duty, an organisation that advocates an immediate moratorium on gender-affirming healthcare for anyone under 25 and public funding for gender-affirming healthcare at any age. The group recommends talk therapies where the stated goal of any treatment regimen must be "swift desistance from transgender ideation". Genspect has advised parents against using trans children's chosen names and pronouns, recommended that schools ban "tucking" and "binding", as well as use "biologically accurate language in all cases" and not punish students for misgendering other students. Genspect also stated that "acceptance of the reality of their biological sex" should be the first treatment for gender variant children. [29] Jenn Burleton, Executive Director of TransActive, described Genspect as "an anti-trans, 'gender critical' organization ideologically affiliated with TERFism, ROGD [Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria], and Alliance Defending Freedom". [30]

O'Malley is a clinical advisor to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM). [31] She also helped found the International Association of Therapists for Desisters and Detransitioners (IATDD) and the Gender Dysphoria Support Network (GDSN) in 2020. [19] [31] [32]

In March 2022, O'Malley would have appeared at an NHS conference on gender dysphoria at Great Ormond Street Hospital, alongside paediatrician Hilary Cass, journalist Helen Joyce, CEO of Mermaids, Susie Green, and fellow Genspect advisors Sinéad Watson, Stephanie Davies-Arai, and Lisa Littman. The event was cancelled following complaints by NHS whistleblowers, researchers, and trans rights activists, who accused a majority of the speakers as having a "record of extreme prejudice towards trans people". In particular, opposing inclusion of protections for trans people under the UK conversion therapy ban, intervening in a court case in Arizona in defense of the state's Medicaid ban on trans healthcare, and arguing gender-affirming care for transgender youth is "abusive". [29]

On 6 May 2022, Gay Community News (Dublin) published an article about concerns people raised over O'Malley being invited to address an Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI) conference on managing gender issues in schools. In the article, O'Malley was characterised as an anti-trans conversion therapy advocate whose views were misinformation. [23] On 10 May 2022, TD Mick Barry raised issue with O'Malley's invitation to the conference, referring to a Twitter Spaces conversation in which she stated "I don't think you need to give empathy at all, none, zero. I think I should because I'm trying to understand them" when asked why woman should have sympathy for who they describe as autogynephiles. [33] [34] LGBTQIA+ activist Izzy Kamikaze also shared link to the released audio. O'Malley has sent a legal letter to Barry accusing him of defamation and sent similar language to Kamikaze for sharing the link. [35]

Personal life

O’Malley lives in Birr, County Offaly with her husband and two children. [2] [12]

Related Research Articles

Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. Methods that have been used to this end include forms of brain surgery, surgical or chemical (hormonal) castration, aversion therapy treatments such as electric shocks, nausea-inducing drugs, hypnosis, counseling, spiritual interventions, visualization, psychoanalysis, and arousal reconditioning. There is a scientific consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective at changing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity and that it frequently causes significant long-term psychological harm. The position of current evidence-based medicine and clinical guidance is that homosexuality, bisexuality, and gender variance are natural and healthy aspects of human sexuality. An increasing number of jurisdictions around the world have passed laws against conversion therapy.

Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identity—their personal sense of their own gender—and their sex assigned at birth. The term replaced the previous diagnostic label of gender identity disorder (GID) in 2013 with the release of the diagnostic manual DSM-5. The condition was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder. The International Classification of Diseases uses the term gender incongruence instead of gender dysphoria, defined as a marked and persistent mismatch between gender identity and assigned gender, regardless of distress or impairment.

Kenneth J. Zucker is an American-Canadian psychologist and sexologist known for the living in your own skin model, a form of conversion therapy aimed at preventing pre-pubertal children from growing up transgender by modifying their gender identity and expression.

Stephen Barrett Levine is an American psychiatrist known for his thesis that gender dysphoria and being transgender are often caused by psychological issues that should be treated psycho-analytically as opposed to with gender-affirming care. He co-founded Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine's Gender Identity Clinic in 1974, served as the chair of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) drafting committee for the 5th edition of their Standards of Care (SOC-5) published 1998, and served on the American Psychiatric Association (APA) DSM-IV (1994) Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender youth</span> Children and adolescents who are transgender

Transgender youth are children or adolescents who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. Because transgender youth are usually dependent on their parents for care, shelter, financial support, and other needs, they face different challenges compared to adults. According to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, appropriate care for transgender youth may include supportive mental health care, social transition, and/or puberty blockers, which delay puberty and the development of secondary sex characteristics to allow children more time to explore their gender identity.

Detransition is the cessation or reversal of a transgender identification or of gender transition, temporarily or permanently, through social, legal, and/or medical means. The term is distinct from the concept of 'regret', and the decision may be based on a shift in gender identity, or other reasons, such as health concerns, social or economic pressure, discrimination, stigma, political beliefs, or religious beliefs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debra Soh</span> Canadian sex researcher

Debra W. Soh is a Canadian columnist, author, and former academic sex researcher.

Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) is a controversial, scientifically unsupported hypothesis which claims that some adolescents identify as transgender and experience gender dysphoria due to peer influence and social contagion, particularly those assigned female at birth. ROGD is not recognized as a valid mental health diagnosis by any major professional associations. The APA, WPATH and 60 other medical professional organizations have called for its elimination from clinical settings due to a lack of reputable scientific evidence for the concept, major methodological issues in existing research, and its stigmatization of gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

Jack L. Turban is an American psychiatrist, writer, and commentator who researches the mental health of transgender youth. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, Scientific American, and Vox. He is an assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at The University of California San Francisco and affiliate faculty in health policy at The Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies.

<i>Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality</i> 2021 book by Helen Joyce

Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality is a 2021 nonfiction book by journalist and gender critical activist Helen Joyce that criticizes the transgender rights movement and transgender activism. It is published by Oneworld Publications, their fifth book in the Sunday Times bestseller list. Reviews of the book ranged from positive to critical. In 2023 it was shortlisted for the John Maddox Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgender Trend</span> British pressure group

Transgender Trend is an anti-trans British pressure group, which describes itself as a group of parents, professionals and academics who are concerned about the number of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It was founded in 2015 by Stephanie Davies-Arai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genspect</span> Organization opposing transgender rights

Genspect is an international group founded in June 2021 by psychotherapist Stella O'Malley that has been described as gender-critical. Genspect opposes gender-affirming care, as well as social and medical transition for transgender people. Genspect opposes allowing transgender people under 25 years old to transition, and opposes laws that would ban conversion therapy on the basis of gender identity. Genspect also endorses the unproven concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), which proposes a subclass of gender dysphoria caused by peer influence and social contagion. ROGD has been rejected by major medical organisations due to its lack of evidence and likelihood to cause harm by stigmatizing gender-affirming care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine</span> Group opposing gender-affirming care

The Society For Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) is a non-profit organization that is known for its opposition to gender-affirming care for transgender youth and for engaging in political lobbying. The group routinely cites the unproven concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria and mistakenly claimed that conversion therapy techniques are only practiced on the basis of sexual orientation rather than gender identity. SEGM is often cited in anti-transgender legislation and court cases, sometimes filing court briefs.

Quentin L. Van Meter is a pediatric endocrinologist and president of the American College of Pediatricians, a socially conservative advocacy group which is known for opposing gay marriage, gender reassignment surgery, and abortion. He has advocated and referred his clients to conversion therapy and is known for rejecting the medical consensus on the efficacy and safety of transgender health care.

Laura Edwards-Leeper is an American psychologist and founder of the first pediatric gender clinic of the United States. She also served as head of the Child and Adolescent Committee for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

The Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (CAN-SG) is a UK and Ireland-based advocacy group that opposes the use of hormone blockers for treatment of gender dysphoria in adolescents.

Therapy First, originally named the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA), is a group created in 2021 by members of the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) and Genspect to advocate gender exploratory therapy, which experts consider to be a form of conversion therapy.

The early 21st century has seen a rise in and increasing organisation around anti-transgender sentiments in the United Kingdom, the most common strain being that of gender-critical feminism. This has led to some referring to the United Kingdom by the nickname "TERF Island".

The Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MoU) is a joint publication by a coalition of mental and physical health organisations in the United Kingdom disavowing the practice of conversion therapy. It was initially published in 2015 and only condemned sexual orientation change efforts, before being updated to include gender identity change efforts in 2017. Signatories include the Royal College of Psychiatrists, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, NHS England, the British Psychoanalytic Council, and the Royal College of General Practitioners. The UK Council for Psychotherapy was a signatory to both editions, but withdrew in 2024 over the inclusion of protections for transgender children.

False and misleading claims about gender diversity, gender dysphoria, and gender-affirming healthcare have been used to deny healthcare to transgender people. These include claims that most pre-pubertal transgender children "desist" and cease desiring transition after puberty, that most people who transition regret it, that gender dysphoria can be socially contagious, and that gender dysphoria is caused by mental illness, among others.

References

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  18. ↑ "Cad Faoi na Tuismitheoirí?". RTÉ. 6 December 2021. Archived from the original on 19 June 2022. Retrieved 2 April 2022. The Cookes in Kerry benefit from guidance from our parenting expert Stella O Malley who helps them navigate …
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  35. ↑ Tighe, Mark. "Trans quote wrong, says woman 'defamed' by TD Mick Barry" . The Times . ISSN   0140-0460. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
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