Exclusive: Streeting met with and expressed sympathy for pro-conversion therapy parents group Bayswater

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TL;DR: Exclusive: QueerAF has uncovered video footage of the Health Secretary Wes Streeting saying he’d met with Bayswater parents and expressed his sympathy for the “traumatic experiences” families with trans children had been through. Earlier this year, an investigation exposed how the parents in the group conduct conversion therapy and advocate for forms of abuse towards their children. The group was later invited to participate in the Puberty Blocker ban consultation.

Update: 10am 1st Feb 2025 - A DHSC spokesperson sent a statement which was added to the article

Health Secretary Wes Streeting met with and expressed sympathy for members of a parents’ group that promotes conversion therapy and has been found to engage in child abuse against trans children, QueerAF can reveal.

In a newly-surfaced interview clip from June 2024, Streeting said he’d met with Bayswater parents and expressed his sympathy for the “traumatic experiences” families with trans children had been through. The following month, the group was the subject of an exposé revealing that they encouraged abuse towards trans children and advocated for conversion therapy.?

Streeting made the comments when he was interviewed by a representative of the ‘What is a Woman’ campaign. Championed by former olympic swimmer Sharon Davies, it was created to ask MPs about their stances on sex and gender in the lead up to the election. The campaign was criticised for its “vilification” of trans people by Labour MP Kate Osbourne.

What did Wes Streeting say about Bayswater Support Group?

In the interview, conducted by the campaign ahead of the general election, which QueerAF has uncovered, Streeting says he has met members of the Bayswater Support Group.?

In response to a question about ensuring relatives are not held accountable for their actions by Labour’s proposed ban on conversion therapy, the health secretary states that families have often felt “cut out of the conversation” about their children’s healthcare.?

Despite committing the party to an “inclusive” conversion therapy ban in the interview, he added that “having met with Bayswater Parents, I think that's been a – I'd go so far as to say – traumatic experience for some of those families, and that's really stuck with me.”

Who are the Bayswater Parents Support Group?

In July 2024, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) revealed that Bayswater parents, which presents itself as a support group for the parents of trans and nonbinary children, engaged in extensive lobbying.

The exposé revealed how the group had successfully influenced policy on trans kids in education, anti-trans domestic violence and the proposed conversion therapy ban.?

Parents in the group were also engaged in anti-trans conversion practices on their children, as detailed in their private online forum. Some went as far as describing sending their children to non-affirming therapists, cutting them off from supportive friends and teachers, removing their internet access and destroying their gender-affirming medications, clothing and pride flags.

Just a month after the TBIJ investigation was published, Bayswater Support Group was invited to take part in a targeted consultation on an indefinite ban on puberty blockers for trans kids by the Department for Health and Social Care.

Eight explicitly anti-transgender groups were featured in the consultation, and despite 59% of groups opposing making the order permanent - Streeting sided with the 27% who supported it.

A DHSC spokesperson declined to respond to any of our questions about Streeting or the department's relationship with Bayswater Support Group, but insisted the government's approach to trans healthcare was "putting young people's safety first".

"Absolutely Appalled"

A spokesperson for Trans Kids Deserve Better, an activist group run by and trans youth for trans youth in the UK, told QueerAF they were “absolutely appalled” by the Health Secretary's decision to meet Bayswater:

“It is frankly diabolical that groups like Bayswater and Genspect (an international gender-critical group opposing gender affirmation) were given more regard in the consultation to permanently ban puberty blockers, as opposed to transgender children, the people the ban directly affects.”

Trans Kids Deserve Better was not among the groups formally asked to participate in the targeted consultation despite being the only organised group made up of people directly impacted by the ban.??

Analysis: No wonder Streeting refuses to listen to Trans+ children. It undermines all of his rhetoric

Bayswater being invited to participate in the puberty blocker ban consultation so shortly after the extent of their abuse towards trans children was exposed in the press reveals two things.

First, it emphasises the reluctance of UK institutions to recognise trans and young people as victims of a climate of hate that has pervaded British society.?

But it is also telling that Streeting refuses to meet with one of the only groups of trans kids organising on their own. Streeting has met with trans children, but only alongside their parents or adult campaigners. Their presence helps Streeting to maintain the belief that trans kids lack the agency and maturity to make consequential decisions.?

Trans Kids Deserve Better’s slogan – ‘we are not pawns for your politics’ – challenges this directly. Bayswater’s access to power relies on rendering their children as political pawns. Its status as a parents’ group lends it authority, even though most members would never admit to their children that they are part of the group.

Not giving agency to, or legitimising the opinions of, the children whose rights are at stake suits Streeting’s agenda.?

When he professes his empathy for trans youth, he frames it around his having wrestled with his own sexuality. In doing so, Streeting reveals that he conceives of trans youth as abject, in need of sympathetic authority figures to guide them towards the right decisions.?

Real trans kids demanding autonomy take a sledgehammer to this carefully constructed image. No wonder Streeting refuses to listen to them.

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