Why Genspect Is Following WPATH Across the World

It began, as these things so often do, over tea and indignation. I was in a teashop in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, halfway through a scone – jam first, cream second, naturally – when I started grumbling to my old friend and colleague Alasdair Gunn. Word had reached us that EPATH, the European arm of WPATH, was planning to hold their annual conference in Killarney. My own backyard! And not just any old conference – this one was to be presided over by none other than Dr Annelou de Vries, the lead architect of the Dutch protocol that launched the puberty blocker era and, in turn, one of the greatest medical scandals of our time.

There’s something tragic about it, in a way. Like Oppenheimer watching the fallout of the bomb he helped build, the inventors of the Dutch protocol did not foresee the full devastation of what they set in motion. To be clear, this isn’t a comparison between puberty blockers and nuclear weapons – it’s an analogy about the law of unintended consequences. What began as a cautious clinical experiment has spiralled into a global treatment model, applied far beyond its original context. And the consequences are now undeniable – a generation of vulnerable young people fast-tracked onto experimental interventions with life-altering effects, all under the banner of affirmation.

Some like to imagine that EPATH is the more measured wing of the WPATH empire – quieter, more clinical, less ideological than their American cousins at USPATH. But that apparent reasonableness is precisely what makes them so insidious. Polite language and soft voices don’t make bad ideas any less harmful, they just make them harder to challenge.

Back in the teashop, I sprayed crumbs everywhere as I exclaimed, “We can’t let them swan into Ireland spreading their gender-affirming lies without anyone pushing back!” Fueled by caffeine and righteous fury, we resolved then and there to organise our own counter-conference – right in the heart of Killarney.

And it was a roaring success. In April 2023, we brought together the world’s leading voices in the field. Helen Joyce gave a brilliant keynote that set the tone: clear-headed, succinct and always witty. Michael Biggs delivered a powerful presentation exposing the lack of evidence behind the medicalised model. Ken Zucker offered decades of clinical insight. But perhaps most unforgettable was the panel of detransitioners – young people who had been led down the garden path of affirmation, only to discover too late that their underlying issues were never addressed. Their stories were profoundly moving and cut through the ideology like a knife through butter.

Killarney lit a spark for responsible, ethical gender care, and from this we established the Killarney Group – more on that later. Next up: Denver, Colorado. As USPATH – WPATH’s American offshoot – gathered in November 2023, so did we. And once again, just like in Killarney, WPATH defectors left their own conference and joined ours. Some of them have stayed with us ever since.

Then came Lisbon in September 2024, when EPATH held their conference in Portugal. But by then, the landscape had shifted. The WPATH Files had dropped and they were devastating. Internal leaks confirmed what many of us had long suspected; that WPATH had not only failed in its duty of care, but had actively suppressed dissent, prioritised ideology over science, and pushed irreversible treatments on children with no solid evidence base. The evidence against WPATH continued mounting—the WPATH Tapes revealing more damaging internal conversations, the Cass Review exposing how their guidelines relied on circular citations, and court documents in Boe v. Marshall showing systematic suppression of unfavourable research and political interference in guideline development.

WPATH is now a dead man walking – a zombie organisation staggering forward with no credibility, kept alive by institutional inertia. Genspect, by contrast, is thriving. We’re now nearly as large as WPATH, and far more trusted. Not because we shout louder, but because we’ve earned our reputation as credible, balanced, and humane.

And now, as USPATH prepares to convene once again in September 2025, Genspect will be there too – not to protest, but to lead. Our speaker line-up is exceptional, and our focus is firmly on solutions. It was at our inaugural conference in Killarney that we founded the Killarney Group – a working group of clinicians, researchers, educators, and parents committed to developing practical, humane alternatives to the current medicalised model. Our first major project is now coming to fruition.

At this pivotal moment, we’ll be launching The Gender Framework – the first published book by Genspect, written and developed by the Killarney Group. It offers a practical, non-medicalised approach to gender-related distress that prioritises biological sex over gender identity.

This isn’t just another critique – we have enough of those by now. This is a roadmap. It provides schools, clinics, hospitals, youth clubs, sports bodies, prisons, and other institutions with a clear, compassionate, and evidence-based alternative to the ideology-driven model currently dominating the field. It shows that there is a better way – one that genuinely supports vulnerable people without subjecting their bodies to irreversible harm.

At Genspect, we’ve reached a hard but necessary conclusion: the politics of appeasement does not work.

I’ve always loved history – and I’ve learned a great deal from it. In 1922, Michael Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, believing it was “the freedom to achieve freedom.” But it split the country, and the scars remain to this day. In 1938, Neville Chamberlain waved his piece of paper and promised “peace in our time” after the Munich Agreement – and we all know how that ended. At Yalta, well-meaning diplomacy helped lay the groundwork for decades of Cold War oppression. My point isn't the inevitability of war, but how ineffective leadership, which fails to reckon with root causes, extends suffering under the guise of compromise. The road to hell, as ever, is paved with good intentions.

The outcome of the Judicial Review over Gender Plus shows, in real time, how the softly-softly approach has failed in the UK. GIDS was closed, yet the new regional centres remain hesitant and won’t openly support desistance. Puberty blockers were banned, yet another study was immediately commissioned. A conversion therapy ban looks set to pass, while private providers are still free to prescribe cross-sex hormones. It’s a far cry from the hope promised by the Cass Review.

Being vague or guarded at this stage is a mistake. The choice isn’t binary – it’s not between locking people up or tiptoeing around the truth. There’s a third way: speak plainly and unapologetically, say these interventions are harmful. Anything less implies there’s something to hide.

At Genspect, we’ve taken these lessons to heart. We do not believe in re-enacting Vichy. We do not collaborate with EPATH, WPATH, or USPATH – because working alongside discredited institutions only lends them a veneer of legitimacy they no longer deserve. These organisations have lost public trust and surrendered professional integrity. They cannot be reformed. They must be replaced.

Instead, we believe in leading the way – leaving the medical model for gender identity where it belongs: in the dustbin of history. Never before in the history of medicine have doctors attempted to medicalise identities. It’s a fundamentally flawed idea – and one that has failed spectacularly.

At Genspect, we’re focused on showing – through action, evidence and compassion – that it is possible to support gender-distressed people without rushing to alter their bodies irreversibly. We can listen, support, and guide without a scalpel or a prescription pad in hand.

We’re following WPATH not to emulate them, but to outgrow them – to show the world that doing better isn’t just possible, it’s essential. Join us in Albuquerque this September as we lead the way forward.

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