Deception, Lies...and Katy Montgomerie

Last October, I received an email from a concerned parent. This is not unusual; I often speak with parents who are living with a child struggling with gender dysphoria and simply need someone to talk to or to be signposted towards support and resources.

The email, from ‘Alfred’, had a subject line of “Distressed Daughter”.

It read as follows:

“Dear James,

My daughter stormed into the living room yesterday saying she needs hormones and surgery and she said she has been cutting herself. What do I do??? I know this is the wrong option for her and I just wanted to know if there was someone she could talk to? Please help!

Kind Regards,

Alfred”

I had heard these types of stories before. Clearly, I thought, his daughter is struggling. There were additional risk factors too, including self-harm. He seemed desperate, unsurprisingly. He wanted someone for her to talk to, which made complete sense, given the fact that all studies have shown that explorative therapy can be extremely beneficial for children with gender dysphoria.

I was keen to help, however, I could. I responded with:

“Thanks for reaching out and extremely sorry to hear what you and your family are going through.
How is your relationship with her at the moment? Does she seem amenable to advice and exploration? If so, going to see an appropriate counsellor/therapist could help.”

Myself and ‘Alfred’ had a back and forth conversation over the following 24 hours.

He told me that his daughter was “totally shut off”. He asked me whether I knew any therapists who would not automatically “affirm” her into transitioning. Again, this is an increasing concern amongst parents, given what we know of the current state of play in the therapeutic professions. We have heard the horror stories of children being ‘affirmed’ down a path of irreversible, medical transition, only to regret it for the rest of their lives.

I explained to ‘Alfred’ that if his daughter was not open to speaking to someone, that “it could end up being counter-productive”. It is common therapeutic knowledge that someone who feels as if they are forced to go to therapy is not going to be receptive to the experience and is, therefore, less likely to benefit from it.

‘Alfred’ came back and said to me that his daughter had made an “agreement” with him that she would go to therapy.

And so I provided ‘Alfred’ with the names of a handful of therapists that I know, who support ethical, explorative therapy for children with gender dysphoria.

I didn’t hear from ‘Alfred’ again. I assumed that he had contacted the therapists, found one that was a good fit for his daughter and that she was now in therapy, hopefully on a path towards better mental health.

Except…there was no ‘Alfred’.

Yesterday, I was contacted by a parent, who, for the purposes of this article, I will call David. David told me that he had a son who said he was ‘trans’ and had been self-medicating from GenderGP over a period of time. His son’s school were aware of this but never informed the family. This was an extremely shocking story to hear, although it is not the first time I have heard such a thing.

Then he told me about ‘Alfred’.  

‘Alfred’ was not real. All along, it was David’s son posing as someone else’s father. David discovered this when he logged on to his son’s Twitter account, concerned by who he might be engaging with online.

I asked David why his son had done this. He then sent me the following screenshot (which I have redacted to remove any possibility of his son being identified):

The screenshot was a Twitter conversation between David’s son and Katy Montgomerie. Katy Montgomerie is a trans activist who does not shy away from controversy and who has previously described ‘gender critical beliefs’ (i.e., belief in biology) as “absolutely disgusting” and “hateful”.

In the conversation with Katy, David’s son writes:

“Hey, I recently made a burner email and went back and forth with James Esses in the hopes that he’d give me a list of his “colleagues” (people he would want doing therapy on tarns (sic) kids) and I got a pretty scary list back; if you’re interested please let me know.”

Here is a child, clearly in a vulnerable position (more on this below), stating to an adult that he has engaged in deception and lies, in order to try and gain information.

Katy does not respond by questioning the lies and deception. Nor does Katy ask him about his mental wellbeing and why he feels the need to take such drastic steps.

Katy simply states: “Yes definitely”. He promptly provides Katy with the list of explorative therapists that I had previously provided him with.

All Katy seemingly cared about was getting material that could be self-serving. In this way, Katy was enabling, facilitating and encouraging a vulnerable child to engage in lies and deception. Katy completely shirked any responsibility that we as adults should hold when it comes to children.

David also provided me with another screenshot. In it, his son (aged just 16 at the time) messaged Katy Montgomerie and said “both of my parents are pretty full on TERFs. I’d also be more than willing to share my experiences”.

Again, this is clearly a message from a vulnerable child struggling. However, Katy, without hesitation, advises him to contact ‘WhatTheTrans’ – a ‘trans news outlet’ – clearly in order to use him for propaganda purposes.

In part, the above has been caused by the dangerous narrative that has been pushed by proponents of gender ideology as regards therapy. The term ‘conversion therapy’, acknowledged by the UK government as being a misnomer, has put the fear of god in children. I have come across materials online that encourage children to mislead and manipulate doctors and therapists to get hormones. There are other videos teaching children how to ‘spot a conversion therapist’ – telling them that a therapist who gets their pronouns wrong may be trying to ‘convert’ them.

Children have been taught to believe that a therapist who doesn’t automatically encourage them down a pathway towards medical transition is not to be trusted, when in the fact the exact opposite is true. This flies in the face of safeguarding and the duty of care we owe children.

The fact that children, like David’s son, are driven to engage in such lies and deception demonstrates, in many ways, how vulnerable they truly are.

The fact that there are adults out there, like Katy Montgomerie, willing to take advantage of these children and their vulnerability so that they can push propaganda, tells us how far as a society we have truly sunk.