Insight from Dr Helen Webberley

Gender-affirming surgery for under-18s: what actually happens The debate about gender-affirming surgery for under-18s is often muddled by treating very different procedures as if they were the same thing. Genital surgery for minors is extremely rare and already…

Are abortion and gender-affirming care the same thing? Abortion care and gender-affirming care are not the same thing. They are separate areas of medicine with different evidence bases, different patient populations, and different legal frameworks. The…

Coming out as trans: what changes in your relationships Coming out as trans changes relationships in ways that are often unpredictable: some people draw closer and some drift away, and the reasons rarely follow a neat script. Family dynamics shift the…

Supporting someone who is trans: what actually helps When someone you care about comes out as trans, the most important things are believing them, using their chosen name and pronouns, and staying present. You do not need all the answers immediately.…

Gender dysphoria, mental health, and what transition does Gender dysphoria is the distress that arises when a person's gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. It is recognised as a mental health condition because it causes…

Sex Matters lose their case against police trans search guidance Sex Matters brought a judicial review challenging police guidance that allowed trans detainees to consent to being strip-searched by an officer matching their lived gender rather than their…

Democrats are retreating on trans rights. What does it mean? The Democratic Party is retreating on trans rights, with figures like Amy Acton publicly referring to trans girls as boys. This is not a fringe position but a deliberate, party-wide strategic move…

Recognising bad-faith anti-trans debate online Anti-trans hostile debate online frequently uses NHS safety claims, detransition stories, and activist pile-on campaigns as tools of bad-faith argumentation rather than genuine inquiry. These…

Detransition, regret, and how the stories get weaponised Detransition means returning to living in the gender assigned at birth, but the reasons are varied and often misrepresented. Some people detransition because of social pressure, family rejection, or…

Australia's puberty blocker guidelines and the ABC controversy Australia is developing national clinical guidelines covering puberty blockers for trans and gender-diverse young people. When ABC News covered this process, its editorial choices drew significant…

Trans men are invisible, and that invisibility costs lives Trans men are largely invisible in public life because they were socialised to stay quiet, and because successful transitions mean they are rarely read as trans at all. That invisibility carries a…

What does 'cis woman' mean? A cis woman is someone who was assigned female at birth and whose gender identity is also a woman. 'Cis' is short for cisgender, from the Latin for 'on the same side as', and it simply names…