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Ideologically-captured local authorities across the UK promote a political, social justice approach towards children experiencing gender-related distress. In this essay Shelley Charlesworth examines the example of Trafford Council to see how their activist agenda is created and maintained.

A seven page report written for Trafford Council’s Children’s and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee is a damning document, showing that activist gender ideas permeate every aspect of the Council’s work, potentially exposing children, especially the most vulnerable, to the harms of gender ideology.

The report is titled Support for LGBTQ+ young people in Trafford but for ease of comprehension we will refer to it as the LGBTQ+ Report. We’ll shorten the Children’s & Young People’s Scrutiny Committee to simply the Scrutiny Committee.

It’s the work of various teams in the council reporting to the Scrutiny Committee and indicative of the views of those who actually work with and provide services for children in the borough.

The staff teams who authored the LGBTQ+ Report are Public Health, Education, Youth Engagement Services and Commissioning Teams. The process is entirely circular. Those providing the unevidenced background for the Scrutiny Committee are the same groups and charities charged with providing advice and support on the ground.

Citation cartel is a useful term describing the academic practice of citing only work that agrees with your argument in a circular way thus reaching a predetermined conclusion. This is what is happening in Trafford. But unlike most academic work this cartel has real life effects on the lives of children with gender-related distress and their families.

The dangers of a citation cartel were underlined in the Cass Review’s rejection of the treatment guidelines of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health. The final report said:

“WPATH 8 cited many of the other national and regional guidelines to support some of its recommendations, despite these guidelines having been considerably influenced by WPATH 7…The circularity of this approach may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor.”

The Cass Review itself was subjected to attacks using the source laundering method, described here by researcher Dave Hewitt. Citation cartels may fail in their objectives, in this case to discredit Cass, but cause real harm in spreading disinformation.

The Citation Cartel: Stats

The LGBTQ+ Report claims “A higher proportion of people identifying as LGBT+ were living in Old Trafford and the North of the borough.”  According to the Council’s website Old Trafford, the north and Partington in the west are the most deprived parts of the borough.

“Within Trafford, five small areas (called Lower Super Output Areas) rank in the 10% most deprived areas in the Income Deprivation Affecting Children, in the whole of England”

This tallies with peer-reviewed research published by the BMJ which shows a correlation between areas of social deprivation and people identifying as transgender. The report authors show no evidence of understanding this link. This blind spot is compounded by an over-estimation of the numbers of trans identifying children and young people in the borough which is based on its own survey.

“The Trafford Youth Offer Survey 2025 is currently live and includes the option for young people aged 11-19 to self-identify their gender. 36 young people out of a survey size of 1339 (as at 7th March 2025) identified their gender as Trans/Transgender (12) Gender Fluit [sic](9) Non-Binary (9) Other (6). This represents 2.7% of the total responses received. If this proportion was extrapolated on a whole Trafford population, there could be over 500 young people who would identify their gender in these categories. There is likely to be a much larger group who identify as LGBT+ as the survey reflects their reported gender identity rather than their sexual orientation.”

This is how Trafford arrives at a much higher rate of trans identifying children and young people than other surveys. The LGBTQ+ Report authors really should have asked if the figure of 2.7% is believable. After all, the Council is to base its services and priorities on this data.

The 2021 ONS figures note

“People aged 16 to 24 years were the most likely age group to have said that their gender identity was different from their sex registered at birth (in this article we refer to people in this category as being trans), with 1.00% (63,000) identifying as such.”

It is just not credible that Trafford has over double the national average of young people saying they are trans.

The Citation Cartel: activist students

A week earlier the Scrutiny Committee had heard from students from Trafford College who called for more support in schools for trans and queer+ students, and for more training for teachers and staff. A student called Silas made the unevidenced claim that “a recent study had found that 76% of transgender youth had experienced gender dysphoria by the age of seven and 96% had by the age of thirteen.”

Councillors at that meeting were quick to endorse the message.

“The Chair agreed with everything Silas had said. The Chair was pleased to hear that LGBTQ+ education was now on the curriculum but agreed that work clearly need to be done in supporting the training of staff to greater understand the issues faced.”

Councillor Shirley Procter said she was “appalled around the Government decision to no longer provide medication to suppress puberty for trans children, which would make transition much harder for young people. Councillor Procter offered for Silas, and any other young people, to reach out to her if they needed any support.”

It’s hard to believe that councillors tasked with the welfare of children in Trafford are so ill-informed about the harms of puberty blockers and their almost inevitable pathway to irreversible cross-sex hormones. They should know that puberty blockers have been banned by government and the NHS because the evidence for their use is weak.

They are not helped by the LGBTQ+ Report authors who only looked at evidence which called for an affirmative, experimental approach to children with gender-related distress.

The Citation Cartel: LGBTQ+ groups

The LGBTQ+ Report cites work done by the Trevor Project, a US based organisation which focuses on suicide prevention for LGBTQ young people. Their 2024 report which looked at the UK painted an alarming picture of poor mental health among LGBT youth, recommending more gender-affirming care for this cohort and a ban on conversion therapy. The lead author of that work is a trustee of the LGBT Consortium (the well-funded umbrella group that only accepts LGB organisations as members if they sign up to the gender identity belief system) and a member of the Queer Futures research team.

The latter takes an activist rights based approach to mental health, citing Gendered Intelligence, Allsorts, and The Proud Trust as trusted sources, groups who are all opponents of the Cass Review findings and its developmental approach to gender-related distress in children. The reason for pointing out these connections is that the Trevor Project, its authors and their sources, all share the same unevidenced and discredited view that ‘trans’ children should be affirmed and medicalized. The Trevor Project are better described as a trans activist organisation.

It’s also important to note that the Trevor Project’s methodology relied on self-reported data, from people recruited on social media, which is likely to introduce selection bias.   

However, the Trafford report authors repeated the Trevor Report’s findings uncritically.

“The survey found that over half of the participants had considered suicide in the past year, with trans and nonbinary youth reporting significantly higher rates. In terms of causal factors, the study highlights that victimisation and discrimination, non-accepting school environments, the absence of a trusted adult, and the lack of access to affirming spaces are closely associated with poor mental health outcomes, and were worse for trans and nonbinary youth.”

Findings from #BeeWell, an online survey which gathers data on the basis of self-identified sex, are cited as evidence:

“The 2023 GM BeeWell survey with year 10 pupils showed that 9% of respondents indicated they experience discrimination because of sexuality. In Trafford, this ranged from 6% in Trafford South to 11% in Trafford West neighbourhoods.”

#BeeWell works closely with The Proud Trust, the regional trans activist body, who advises #BeeWell in framing transgender questions in their surveys. In turn #Beewell signposts schools to The Proud Trust for training and support.

The next piece of evidence offered to the Scrutiny Committee is a 2017 report by The Proud Trust and partners 42^nd Street, Albert Kennedy Trust and the LGBT Foundation. 73 young people, mostly under 18, took part in the survey that came up with a list of predictable demands such as “space for trans young people to explore their gender identities” and “LGBT-inclusive, unbiased sex and relationship information, and sexual health education in schools” alongside calls for more training and “LGBT awareness raising work.”

The Proud Trust is engaged with the council at many levels. In 2023 they enrolled the Trafford Youth Engagement Service, part of Trafford Children’s Services, in their kitemark scheme, the Rainbow Flag Award.

The Youth Engagement Service, now  rainbow lanyarded and certificated by an activist group, are themselves giving “LGBT+ staff awareness training across Children’s Services including children’s homes, family information service, foster carers, social workers and SEND support teams.” In this way, The Proud Trust’s gender identity ideology is spread throughout all the council services related to children.

The same belief system is also in the school nursing system. The LGBTQ+ Report states that it is “providing whole-school delivery and direct work with young people on a 1:1 drop-in or intensive case work basis. The team is trained in inclusive practice and LGBTQ+ specific issues and cover things such as use of inclusive language, bullying prevention and emotional support, healthy relationships.”

Citation cartel: the NHS and 42^nd Street

42nd Street is a mental health charity for 11-25-year-olds which has been working in the Greater Manchester area for 40 years. Its annual turnover is around £3.5 and it employs around 100 people. Their annual capital grant from the Trafford Integrated Care Board in 2023 was £685,992 for services for this group of teens and young people, in keeping with other years. It has a social justice agenda promising to “embed systemic anti-oppressive practice and cultures that champion inclusion.” Unsurprisingly, this rights approach to gender-related distress is evident in its “LGBTQ+” work.

Trafford’s LGBTQ+ Report promotes 42^nd Street’s drop-in services, Q42 for young people aged 13-15, and +42 for those aged 16-18, and links to their online resources. The 42^nd Street’s webpages and Instagram account reveal that it has responded to the  Supreme Court ruling in alarmist activist language. Given the known mental health comorbidities that teenagers with gender issues experience, it is irresponsible to cast them as fearful victims.

“Our trans and non-binary friends have the same absolute rights as everyone to feel safe, to be respected and to live their lives to the fullest with dignity and pride⁠. Our most vulnerable communities deserve support, reassurance, compassion and hope, not increasing hostility and fear.”

The same post links to Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence for further support. In fact vulnerable teens will only hear the same misinformation, that the ruling is transphobic and that they have lost rights as a result.

It might be expected that a £3.5m mental health charity focussed on adolescents and young people would engage in good faith with the Cass Review, the first and most in-depth study of gender healthcare for the under 18s. However the only reference found in a search for Cass turned up just one item. This was a call to teenagers with lived experience of being transgender or non-binary to take part in a focus group which would provide feedback to the Cass Review team. If 42^nd Street have taken Cass’s recommendations on board there is no evidence of this in any public open sources.

There are Healthwatch UK bodies in every local authority whose job it is to be a voice for the public in the NHS. Healthwatch Trafford is one of the report’s recommendations for finding support locally. A quick check finds they will send gender-distressed youngsters to Mermaids, Stonewall or The Proud Trust.

The LGBTQ+ Report signposts an NHS website as a source for support. But the Health 4 Teens site is not neutral or evidence based but parrots the ideological language of trans activism; sex is ‘assigned’ at birth, intersex means ‘a person who may have the biological attributes of both sexes or whose biological attributes do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or female,’ cisgender, gender identity is ‘innate,’ being gay means you are attracted to someone of the same ‘gender.’

A teenager with gender-related distress looking for further support from Health 4 Teens will be signposted to The Proud Trust or the LGBT Foundation. Alternatively they are told to speak to the school nurse, who we now know, will have been trained in LGBTQ+ inclusivity, most likely by The Proud Trust.

The LGBTQ+ Report touches on the setting up of new gender hubs for children and highlights long waiting lists. A reference to the Cass Review follows, saying only this:

“The final report of the Cass Review showed that children and young people who are referred for gender incongruence or gender dysphoria show significantly higher than expected levels of: · autism spectrum disorder · attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) · anxiety · depression · eating disorders · suicidality · self-harm · adverse childhood experiences”

But the report authors clearly have no idea of how to connect these facts to the rest of their activism-based findings, so these well-evidenced findings are ignored, with the exception of suicidality, picked up in the following paragraph:

“In Trafford there have been tragic cases of young people who have died whilst in mental health crisis with gender incongruence or struggling with their identity which highlight the inter-relationships between these issues and put into sharp focus the need to do as much as possible to create supportive environments and identify acute needs early. Trafford CAMHS have been contacting Trafford children currently waiting for the Gender Identity Service to offer mental health support whilst they are waiting.”

Any child who has died while waiting for mental health care is tragic, but the LGBTQ+ Report supplies no evidence for the claim of such occurrences in Trafford, nor that there is a link to gender distress. The Report should have mentioned the independent review by Professor Louis Appleby into suicides at the Tavistock which concluded “The data do not support the claim that there has been a large rise in suicide in young gender dysphoria patients at the Tavistock” and that the evidence for an increase in suicide risk in trans identifying children is “generally poor”.

And while they are waiting for a CAMHS appointment children and their families are to be directed to 42^nd Street with their gender-affirming approach, the belief system that Cass so carefully rejected in favour of a developmental model.

The self-referential circle is now complete. Council employees, councillors and third party bodies in Trafford are all signed up to a trans activist approach to childhood gender distress.

The problems at Trafford are not unique, we know of many other local authorities that are in similar thrall to gender identity theory. Councillors may come and go according to electoral fortunes but this is no excuse for them not to be better informed on subjects which have a direct bearing on children’s health and well-being.