Sex, Sanity, and the Search for Clarity

Words matter, especially when they shape how we live, legislate, and understand ourselves. That’s why I welcomed the UK’s recent legal move to reaffirm a fundamental truth: biological sex is real, immutable, and essential to law.

As a psychotherapist, I’ve worked with countless individuals struggling with gender identity, including many who now regret having medically transitioned. These people are part of a growing cohort of detransitioners who feel abandoned by the very systems that once encouraged them.

In Ireland, our own legal misstep came in 2015 with the Gender Recognition Act. By opting to use the word gender instead of sex, we invited a storm of ambiguity. Gender is a fluid, subjective concept, rooted in feelings. Law, by contrast, demands precision. Using vague terminology in legal frameworks has created confusion for institutions, clinicians, and individuals alike.

That confusion has real consequences. I run weekly support groups for detransitioners - people dealing with lifelong effects of decisions often made during adolescence. Irreversible voice changes, chronic health issues, sterility, sexual impairment, psychological trauma - the list is harrowing. Many trusted professionals, believing they were offering support, instead ushered vulnerable young people down a path filled with lifelong burdens.

Worse still is how easily activism has infiltrated medicine. The space where caution and evidence should guide care has become overly politicised. We now see clinicians pressured to affirm rather than assess, to expedite rather than explore.

My call is not for cruelty or ignorance but for clarity and care. We must be brave enough to return to evidence-based practice, to protect children from premature medicalisation, and to say that biology matters and feelings, though deeply human, should not dictate irreversible interventions.

Let’s restore balance. Let’s listen to those who were promised liberation and now live in pain. Let’s craft policies grounded in science, not slogans.

This piece expands on my appearance today on the Gript Livestream (23rd April), where I discussed the legal, medical, and cultural implications of gender identity with unfiltered honesty.