Why are Health Talk and Oxford University promoting GenderGP?
from Transgender Trend:
Michael Biggs, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford.
Health Talk and the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care are providing advertising for private healthcare provider, GenderGP, a private company in Singapore run by Dr Helen Webberley and Dr Michael Webberley. The pair have a long record of infractions including a criminal conviction for running an unlicensed clinic and suspensions by the General Medical Council after one of their transgender patients committed suicide. Dr Michael Webberley has just been struck off the Medical Register for dishonesty and ‘numerous serious breaches of … fundamental tenets of the medical profession’.
Health Talk
In February this year, Health Talk created a new website on the ‘Experiences of parents and carers of young trans and gender diverse people’. Its credibility is enhanced by logos of the University of Oxford and of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care, along with the National Institute for Health Research which contributed £700,000 to the research. The chief investigator was Dr Melissa Stepney at Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care. (More information on this study was unearthed by Lily Maynard.)
The website recommends three private providers:
‘Young people who used private healthcare spoke positively about it. Private healthcare providers that serve England and Wales, for example, GenderCare, GenderGP and London Transgender Clinic (LTC), were mentioned. They said each service provided their own form of assessment by qualified healthcare professionals to help trans and gender diverse people access healthcare.’
The London Transgender Clinic is the trading name of a company registered in the UK with Companies House and the Care Quality Commission. GenderCare is a network of registered medical practitioners, such as Dr Stuart Lorimer who leveraged his employment at the NHS Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic to develop a lucrative private practice. GenderGP, by contrast, is not located in the United Kingdom. It used to belong to Harland International Ltd, a company registered in Hong Kong and owned by Roton Executors Ltd in Belize. In 31 December 2021 it became a private company registered in Singapore and owned by Dr Helen Webberley.
Health Talk does not normally promote profit-making enterprises. On its other websites—covering a wide range of medical conditions from arthritis to testicular cancer—the phrases ‘private healthcare provider’ and ‘private provider’ are found only once. A webpage on breastfeeding notes in passing that some women obtain information from ‘private providers (independent midwives, obstetrics/gynaecology and lactation consultants, breast pump manufacturers)’, but it does not recommend any particular companies.
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