A Channel 4 documentary on transgender teenagers has sparked fury on social media after the psychotherapist presenting it appeared to dismiss gender dismorphia as a phase.
Television presenter India Willoughby, 51, who transitioned in 2016 after living as a man until her forties, joined hundreds of people on Twitter to complain about the programme.
The documentary saw psychotherapist Stella O’Malley, 44, from Offaly, Ireland, spending time with several transgender teenagers and recounting her own experience of wanting to be a boy during childhood.
Some viewers were so incensed by Trans Kids: It’s Time to Talk, which aired last night on Channel 4, that they warned young trans teenagers not to watch it.
In Channel 4 documentary Trans Kids: It’s Time to Talk, which aired last night, Stella O’Malley, 44, speaks to Cole who said he felt more hopeful about transitioning after watching YouTube videos online; during the show O’Malley, a psychotherapist, shares that she had been confident she was a boy as a child but now dismisses that period of her life as a ‘phase’
Viewers watching the show criticised the approach taken by O’Malley when interviewing transgender teenagers saying it felt like she was ‘interrogating’ them
Anger: One viewer said that O’Malley appeared ‘deeply ignorant’ towards trans people
Willoughby wrote: ‘Going through a “phase” is not being trans Stella. That’s why nothing permanent happens to those taking the medical route for a long time.
‘Even if Self ID comes in, the medical route will still be slow. Dreadful Ch4. Dreadful. Totally weighted. Televised Mumsnet #TransKids’
Others sent around a link to Ofcom, the television regulator, urging people to complain. During the show O’Malley shared how she had believed she was a boy until puberty hit.
She told viewers that had she been a young child living in today’s society she is ‘absolutely certain’ that she ‘would have transitioned’ and that her time making the programme had left her feeling trans teens are ‘lost… and I think they are being led.’
She adds: ‘At the start it was way more intellectual presuming that maybe there was something I didn’t know and what I am finding is that I know this world well and deeply, profoundly. I think they are lost and I think they are being led.’
O’Malley, now a married mother-of two, examines how the experiences and options open to transgender children today compared to during her own childhood – but viewers were left irate by the programme’s suggestion that being transgender ‘is a phase’.
While watching the show, one viewer, @djjeny, wrote: ‘Quite uncomfortable watching #TransKids – the presenter comes across as ignorant and insensitive.
‘She was a tomboy child and now happy as a woman yet telling dysphoric kids she was just like them. Err no, that’s not how this works. Also very inappropriate questioning/interrogation.’
The show sees the parents of Matt, a transgender boy, expressing their fears about their son’s decision to stop puberty, saying they hope he won’t regret it when he’s an adult
O’Malley questions Matt’s parents on puberty blockers, which will effectively stop their son from going through female puberty. She asks them: ‘Did you decide on puberty blockers? Did you just suddenly say ‘let’s do it’! When you first heard of them, did you say give them to me?’
@MsSevenVictor added: ‘I’m sending a huge hug to all the #TransKids out there who may be unfortunately watching this and feeling like s***. You are right. You are worthy. They don’t know you. Be strong. Ask for help if you need it. #YouAreNotAlone #TransKidsItsTimeToTalk is TRASH!’
During the show, the presenter says she’s worried that experts are readily turning to the option of transitioning as a ‘solution’ to gender dysphoria, as in the past nine years there has been a 2,500 increase in the number of children accessing theNHS’s gender service.
O’Malley adds that while medicine isn’t necessarily wrong for those who want to become a different gender, there isn’t enough research into the long-term effects hormones may have.
Tearfully saying of younger people seeking treatment: ‘I think they are lost and I think they are being led.’
On social media, @parislees disagreed strongly with the programme’s approach, saying: ‘Journalists and broadcasters have completely failed trans people and their families in this country. Failing to inform the public about the facts is one thing. But this relentless, mean, obsessive campaign of misinformation is unforgivable. #TransKids’
@MrMatthewTodd added: ‘Hope actual trans young people know we support you. This nastiness will eventually die away. We will get there in the end. You have the right to be who you are – not what other people say you should be. They used to tell us being gay was a phase, how could we know etc! #transkids’.
The psychotherapist revealed she believed if she been a young child living in today’s society she is ‘absolutely certain’ that she ‘would have transitioned’
Matt, who is autistic, declined to answer any questions except to answer that his own experience wasn’t a phase
A conversation with trans man Kenny, now in his twenties, saw him share his fears about the medication he’d taken as a teenager to stop the puberty process
Kenny began transitioning eight years ago, but confessed he had ‘no clue’ back then what to expect when he started taking hormone blockers and testosterone
MailOnline has contacted Channel 4 for comment.
In the documentary the psychotherapist hopes to open a conversation about allowing those with mental health issues have more time to understand and digest the process.
But she admits to finding it difficult to present a fully balanced argument because after approaching transgender charities, lobby groups, NHS and private doctors, they are all refusing to engage with the documentary.
She stresses: ‘It’s right to ask legitimate questions about people who may regret transitioning, or the lack of research into the drugs to make sure we are not doing harms to kids.
‘Fundamentally you can’t help but think they don’t like the fact that I exist,’ she questions.
‘They don’t like the fact that I had gender dysphoria, I was that kid and I have grown up to be this woman. On some level that is threatening as far as I can say.’
Speaking out: Cole speaks with Stella about documenting his transition on YouTube and in the past two years how he doesn’t mind being a ‘guinea pig’ because his quality of life is better
She adds: ‘I never realised quite how hard it would be to make a film about transgender kids.
‘I feel it is so important as a society that we can have a real conversation about the best way to support kids like I was who are confused about their gender.’
Among the people Stella speaks to is Kenny, who began transitioning eight years ago, but confessed he had ‘no clue’ what to expect when he started taking hormone blockers and testosterone.
Kenny said he ‘found out along the way’, only learning recently that there was even a possibility he could still get pregnant, or equally that he could already be infertile.
Although he had a double mastectomy, he decided not to go through with bottom surgery because after learning at a surgical consultation that he may lose all sensation during sex.
‘I only knew about the bottom surgery when I went to a consultation to talk to a surgeon. I was 21.
‘I think it’s unfortunate that there wasn’t as much information. When you start taking testosterone chances of children and things like that basically become non-existent.’
Stella also meets with a 13-year-old named Matt who has already started taking puberty blockers with his parents’ consent. But they are terrified that he could change his mind in the future and put the blame solely on them.
YouTuber Cole, 24, who lives with his mother in Bristol, began taking hormone blockers when he was 22 and has been documenting his transition online.
Reflective: Stella, pictured, sees herself in one woman she meets and ponders whether her path might have been different if she’d lived as a child in today’s society
He believes that YouTube videos are helping: ‘My generation are the ones that are transitioning all at the same time.’
While he acknowledges the lack of evidence of the long term effects of testosterone, and that he is essentially taking untested drugs he doesn’t mind: ‘But because of my quality of life before, I am OK with being a guinea pig.’
Cale, who lives in south London, was 15 when she decided she wanted to become a boy, believing it was a solution to her feelings of not being able to fit in.
However after years on hormones and surgery, including a double mastectomy, Cale decided to de-transition when she couldn’t see a future as a man.
She now identifies as a woman: ‘What’s done is done. I wouldn’t undo it because I went through a lot of self-reflection, a lot of learning about myself and I grew as a person.
‘I went through a lot of bad stuff and a lot of good stuff it’s just how it is. I don’t regret it.’
Stella reflects on her own journey, and admits she sees something of herself in Cole but they both where on different paths because of the options open to them at the time.
‘I went through a kid thing and then I came out of it and I went through lots of other things in my life and came to this position,’ she says. When I see a trans kid by god everything gets raised up again.
‘I’m sure some of them will go on to transition and live happily ever after and I’m sure other ones will have more complicated roles and I just think what if a huge amount of those kids are me.
‘What if they got this wrong, what if everything I had is what they are feeling because it certainly sounds very, very like it.
‘All I’ve felt is recognition and that has made me way more freaked out than I was at the beginning of this.’
She adds: ‘At the start it was way more intellectual presuming that maybe there was something I didn’t know and what I am finding is that I know this world well and deeply, profoundly. I think they are lost and I think they are being led.’