Genspect is Growing Up

From crisis response to long-term support: how a grassroots movement came of age

I remember the moment Genspect finally grew up. It was about a year ago, on one of my walks through the woods at Birr Castle Estate. I was on the phone with Jo - my steadfast comrade since 2020, back when we first started holding online meetings for bewildered, heartbroken parents.

Jo said something simple: “Wouldn’t it be handy to switch on automatic replies at the weekend?”

It stopped me in my tracks. Of course we should! We weren’t in crisis mode anymore—not like we were in 2020, or 2021, or even 2022. Back then, we were clinging to the edge, trying to help panicked parents whose children had suddenly declared themselves trans. But things have changed. Today, there are more resources, more people ready to help, and many more questioning the trans narrative. We didn’t need to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We’d weathered the emergency. Now we needed a long-term plan.

Looking back on those early days still sends a chill through me. We were inundated—hundreds of parents, frantic with worry, wild-eyed from sleepless nights. They were terrified, confused, and utterly alone. In March 2020, we launched the Gender Dysphoria Support Network. By June 2021, Genspect was born. The more we helped, the more people came to us for help.

Then came the detransitioners - people who’d undergone medical transition and come to regret it. They needed practical help. Emotional support. A place to speak honestly. So we ran a campaign that led to #DetransAwarenessDay trending on 12 March 2022 (and every year since). That effort raised about €10,000, which we used to launch Beyond Trans in June that year - our support initiative for those harmed by medical transition. It subsequently attracted further financial support to keep the initiative going.

Today, GDSN supports more than 1,000 families through daily peer-to-peer meetings. Beyond Trans also runs group support sessions, facilitated by psychotherapists, and has helped over 300 individuals harmed by medical transition. We call them Beyond Transitioners—because “detransitioner” just doesn’t capture the whole story.

Genspect has grown into a professional-looking organisation - but looks can be deceiving. Every time a new person joins us, they assume we have a large team and a slick operation. There’s always a slow, almost comic dawning of realisation: Genspect is tiny. We have no office. We’re a handful of people, mostly volunteers, spinning too many plates from our kitchen tables.

Most of our work is volunteer-led, and while we now have two full-time staff and a few part-timers, we survive mostly on donations - no big grants, no deep pockets, no institutional backing. Comparable organisations often run on large-scale philanthropic funding. Newcomers are invariably stunned to discover how little we have - and how far we stretch it.

Our GDSN service continues largely on a voluntary basis, while Beyond Trans is more complex - and therefore more costly. We rely mostly on donations from parents whose lives were upended by the trans trend, and from individuals who value a non-medicalised, evidence-based approach to gender distress. Unlike many like-minded advocacy groups, we don’t benefit from consistent philanthropic support - though we wish we did.

Running an organisation was never my ambition. I still lie awake worrying about budgets - Are we overspending? Do we need to cut back? Should we cancel that project? The finances are always fragile, and every new initiative requires a leap of faith.

As part of our effort to streamline and professionalise, we’re merging the GDSN and Beyond Trans into a single platform. We’re calling it Beyond Trans because, frankly, that’s where most of us are now - well beyond trans. This new platform will support both those who’ve been directly harmed by medical transition and their loved ones.

I facilitated the GDSN meetings from 2020 to 2022 before stepping back in order to focus on running Genspect. When I stepped back, we put peer-to-peer support meetings in place instead - very much based on the Al-Anon approach - where meetings are run by participants themselves. I’m not sure this system will ever be possible for the Beyond Trans cohort, but I do know that these days, the most valuable work I do happens every Saturday and Sunday at 5pm as part of the Beyond Trans initiative.

On Saturdays, I facilitate our “Open Group,” based on the model created by Dr Az Hakeem, who ran similar groups in London from 2000 to 2012. Our online group welcomes anyone who has experienced gender dysphoria—whether currently or in the past. Participants include people who identify as trans, detransitioners, and those who are unsure where they fit. It’s a rare, precious space where people can speak freely without being pressured to stick to a script. Those who identify as trans are faced with the irrefutable reality of medical transition, and it punctures their illusions - gently but comprehensively. This is the work I value most in my life—as a psychotherapist with 20 years’ experience, and as someone who’s seen what real healing looks like.

On Sundays, the 5pm meeting is exclusively for Beyond Transitioners. We’re now also offering more tailored support - with monthly groups for those who transitioned as children and other groups for those who transitioned as adults, because their experiences can be quite different. For example, people who transitioned as minors often face deep and complicated challenges with their parents. Individuals who transitioned as adults, meanwhile, often wrestle with guilt and self-recrimination. All are angry with the clinicians who dismissed their obvious psychological distress and led them to believe medical transition was the solution.

We also offer the Women’s Circle, facilitated by psychotherapist Claire Blaze - a women-only space for female Beyond Transitioners to share and connect.

Our groups are open to anyone aged 18 and over. The age range is wide, and there are many more people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s than most people expect. Most sessions have 12 to 15 participants. Some attend every week. Others come and go. Many are new. The stories they share are devastating - young people left infertile and in pain, middle-aged adults trying to rebuild after surgeries they regret, older people grieving the years they lost. But amid the grief, there’s humour, resilience, and much-needed connection.

Some are trying to return to presenting as their biological sex. Others live in stealth, regretting transition but unable to turn back. Many feel ‘past the point of no return’ and stuck with the consequences of irreversible surgeries. And yet, their approach to controversial topics - like pronouns or single-sex spaces - is generally measured and thoughtful. They’re guided by hard-won experience, not ideology. Nobody polices anyone's language in these groups. As one participant memorably said: “I’m busy not dying of sepsis. I couldn’t care less what pronouns you use.”

All of our support groups are free. ‘Beyond Transitioners’ are often in financial difficulty. Some avoid public life altogether. Others are estranged from their families - parents who once affirmed their transition and now don’t understand their regret. We used to fund individual therapy for Beyond Transitioners, but that’s no longer financially possible. So we’re expanding our group support instead.

We also provide a Directory of Therapists for those seeking one-to-one counselling. To protect our members, we don’t accept clinicians who previously practised gender-affirming care - participants have explained, often in vivid detail, how painful it would be to encounter a previously affirming clinician in this context.

I recently explained this to NHS representatives involved in setting up a detransition service in the UK. I’m pleased they’re planning to run this service - but I don’t envy them. We’ve faced hostility from both extremes - those who deny detransition exists at all, and those who see our compassion as a weakness. The NHS allowed GIDS to become an ideological service led by trans activists and so they will inevitably face a good deal more hostility.

The people who attend our groups are facing immense medical challenges and a heavy psychological burden. Some are living with chronic pain from botched surgeries. Others are weighing up whether to undergo further, often experimental, revisions. It’s harrowing - and the truth is, there are no easy answers.

Most participants feel betrayed by the healthcare system. Many say they’d never set foot in a service where former GIDS staff were employed. Nor would they attend a service that treats detransition on one floor and medical transition on the next. And if the NHS uses ideological language - the kind of language that helped lure them into transition in the first place - they won’t go near it.

Even though Genspect is growing up, we still don’t have many answers. But we’ll keep doing what we’ve always done: raise public awareness about the trans phenomenon, and support those whose lives have been hurt by it.

There may be no easy answers - but there is truth, and there is community. And for those of us who’ve seen the damage up close, that’s where healing begins.

To learn more about our group support meetings, email us at beyond@genspect.org.

If you’d like to support our work, you can do so here: GoFundMe – Genspect: A Healthy Approach to Gender.

We’re deeply grateful for all the support that helps us keep going—it makes a real difference to the people we serve.