Sounds like he asked some mildly probing questions that challenged the patient's self-beliefs, and Pink News have decided to spin this as being "conversion therapy".
Note also that Pink News' general editorial stance is that unconditional affirmation is the only valid approach, so it's not much surprise they jumped on this story.
I would still recommend giving that podcast a listen, it gives a much richer insight into Dr Hakeem's work than that article.
There is nothing inherently partisan about disagreeing with the ideology of gender identity and its effects on law and policy.
In particular, opposition to this in the UK has been spearheaded by left-wing, grassroots feminist groups. This was in reaction to the right-wing Conservative government's proposals to allow people to change their legal sex by self-declaration, rather than the current system of requiring a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and approval from a panel of people with legal and medical qualifications.
Littman's study hasn't been discredited though. It's been robustly critiqued, as one would expect for any research that advances a novel hypothesis.
The main issue that people have with her study is that it challenges the often deeply held belief that a person's gender identity is innate; it hypothesises that there is a population of trans-identifying people who have adopted this identity via sociogenic means. By doing so, it calls into question the affirmation-only clinical approach that has been so ascendant in recent years.
Challenging people's fundamental beliefs and practices on a topic is never going to be popular amongst those who hold such beliefs. This is why her research received such an intense backlash, and why activists are so keen to claim that it's been debunked and discredited, even when it hasn't.
> Trans healthcare for kids does not involve surgery. Surgeries are not performed for people under the age of 18.
Unfortunately that is not true.
There are surgeons who perform 'gender affirming' double mastectomies on girls as young as 13. This is documented in the medical literature.
The former CEO of Mermaids, a UK-based charity for children who identify as transgender, had her child castrated and given a penile inversion at the age of 16, by a surgeon who specializes in constructing 'neovaginas'.
Your comment reminds me of a very interesting interview with Dr Az Hakeem, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who set up group therapy sessions for gender dysphoric patients: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ycqNoareUT6Y6s85LrJSF
He would include in these groups people at all stages in their transitions, so those considering transitioning further could be informed and challenged by those who had gone the whole way with surgery and all.
ROGD is the term given to the phenomenon of teenagers with no history of gender dysphoria suddenly announcing a transgender identity, typically after spending massive amounts of time online, and often after a friend has announced that they are trans. Who would be better placed to notice this set of circumstances than their parents?
> All rises in incidents of transgenderism are easily explained by a more tolerant society accepting it.
This doesn't explain the disproportionate rise in teenage girls seeking treatment at gender clinics though.
Here's a fascinating essay by a detransitioner on how she began thinking of herself first as 'non-binary' and later as male, and ended up being prescribed testosterone medication for this: https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name. She goes into quite some detail about how being exposed to gender identity ideology on Tumblr over a period of years was what influenced her to transition.
Other detransitioners have described similar online influences. It seems likely that this is at least one of the factors causing such an increase, and may well explain why the rise in referrals to gender clinics are so skewed toward female teenagers, who are the primary demographic of sites like Tumblr, and who are particularly vulnerable to social contagions.
Indeed, it's quite telling that the GMC, who have condemned actual conversion therapy, didn't accept the complaint against Dr Hakeem: https://sex-matters.org/posts/healthcare/conversion-therapy-....
Note also that Pink News' general editorial stance is that unconditional affirmation is the only valid approach, so it's not much surprise they jumped on this story.
I would still recommend giving that podcast a listen, it gives a much richer insight into Dr Hakeem's work than that article.