David Buck: Will Southampton University become the next Tavistock GIDS of ‘social-transitioning’?

Dr. David Buck C.Psychol. AFBPsS is an independent Consultant Educational Psychologist

In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, confirming that the terms “woman” and “sex” under the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex. For many, particularly so-called “gender-critical” feminists, this was a long-awaited confirmation of common sense and a turning point in protecting women’s rights in areas such as single-sex toilets, sports, DV refuges and more generally.

But while this ruling was celebrated, it failed to stop the spread of ‘social-transitioning’ policies in schools where children are encouraged, even enabled, to adopt new gender identities without medical oversight. What was once fringe has become embedded in educational policy and practice, often pushed by ideological “gender-affirmative” activism masquerading as “inclusion” of vulnerable groups.

One major driver has been from Educational Psychologists (EPs), a profession quietly wielding significant influence over school systems, yet largely unknown in the public imagination.  Many EPs now promote gender-affirmative approaches, in doing so bypassing proper safeguarding protocols despite warnings in the NHS-commissioned Cass Review (2024).

This concluded that social-transitioning is “not a neutral act” but these concerns have been largely ignored or left unchallenged across the EP profession. Indeed, Cass made clear that unchecked social-transitioning in schools can be a gateway to irreversible medical interventions like puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even re-assignment surgery, often based on a flawed model of ‘child-led’ decision-making. That very model saw the closure of the now-discredited Tavistock GIDS clinic in 2023.

So why has this caution not filtered into educational practice? A critical, yet under-scrutinised, carrier of this ideological spread lies within the UK’s 12 University-based doctoral Educational Psychology (DEdPsych) professional training programmes, particularly at Southampton and Bristol universities. These courses, tasked with producing future EPs, are deeply infused with Critical Social Justice (CSJ) ideology, promoting gender ideology, identity politics, and ‘inclusion’ narratives regardless of whether at odds with child safeguarding that was noted by Cass.

Two individuals stand out in this regard: Dr Cora Sargeant, a self-identified transwoman and Senior Teaching Fellow on Southampton University DEdPsych course and Dr Dan O’Hare, Senior Lecturer at the Bristol University DEdPsych course.

Both maintain blogs and contribute to forums such as EPNET[1], promoting overtly political content, including support for social-transitioning and rejection of gender-critical perspectives. Such activism appears to breach the Education Act 1996 (Sections 406 & 407), which mandates political impartiality in teaching. Yet their influence is not limited to opinion, there’s a growing concern these ideologies are now structurally embedded into DEdPsych EP professional training and research.

O’Hare’s blog even hosts the manifesto of the Educational Psychologists for Material Change, calling for decolonisation, dismantling heteronormativity, and embracing trans activism. Dr. Sargeant’s online presence, particularly his “Cl­assroom Psychology” YouTube series, heavily advocates for ‘social transitioning’, also shared on Dr O’Hare’s ‘EdPsych’ blog. Both DEdPsych tutors clearly dismissing Cass’s warning that this “is not a neutral act”, it is ideological programming embedded in EP professional training conflicting with the legal responsibilities that their students will inherit upon graduation.

Here lies the fundamental problem. Activism within purely academic courses may (and should?) fall under the protection of academic freedom. But activism in professional training, especially in sectors like children’s mental health and safeguarding, should not challenge adherence to statutory responsibilities. These include compliance with government DfE statutory guidelines (e.g. DfE’s Gender Questioning Children guidance (GQC), 2023 and Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE), 2025) and judicial rulings, obligations these DEdPsych EP training programmes now seem to dismiss.

Worryingly, former Tavistock clinicians are now reportedly teaching on Southampton’s DEdPsych course, raising urgent questions about oversight and the future direction of the profession.  Attempts to raise these concerns through official channels, including complaints to the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) and the Office for Students (OfS), have been met with bureaucratic delay or silence.

Internally, dissenting EPs face pressure under the ironically authoritarian ‘Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’ (EDI) banner, eerily reminiscent of the silencing and culture of fear in public services that allowed the Rotherham child abuse scandal to persist. We are now witnessing what may amount to an emerging safeguarding crisis. If uncritical promotion of social-transitioning continues to dominate EP training and practice, children especially girls, will lose access to single-sex spaces, while vulnerable, identity-questioning children may be set on life-altering medical pathways without proper scrutiny.

There is already a paper trail, such as the Southampton Educational Psychology Research Blog, evidencing the ideological slant of research and its downstream effect on schools. If legal action arises from de-transitioners, as in the Keira Bell case, the universities involved may face serious legal exposure. This is not speculative. The EP profession is now openly hostile to gender-critical commentary, treating it as dissent. On EPNET, around 40 EPs rejected the Supreme Court ruling on its public release; only one defended it. The British Psychological Society is largely equivocal at best on gender-ideology and where opinion can be deduced they are invariably gender-affirmative on balance, with its selection of articles[2] for publication in its journals overwhelmingly promoting such perspectives.

Efforts to reform the profession from within have reached an end-point. The ideological capture of the Educational Psychology sector, driven by activist academics and tolerated by timid regulators, now demands political and legal intervention. We have therefore urged members in both Houses of Parliament to investigate the ideological drift within UK DEdPsych courses and to uphold the right of gender-critical professionals to express concerns without being labelled ‘hateful’ or ‘transphobic’. As Naomi Cunningham, barrister at the Sex Matters campaign charity notes, even regulators may be legally “liable on their own account” for belief-based discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.

The time has come for a Judicial Review into the UK DEdPsych EP professional training system and the UK EP profession more broadly. The safeguarding of children and the protection of women’s rights cannot be left in the hands of EP gender-affirmative ideologues. Our children deserve better.