The strategy behind Helen Webberley’s media blitz: Attention over sensemaking

There’s been a slew of interviews and debates released this last week or so with Helen Webberley. She's appeared on Times Radio, The Hodge-Cast, Heretics, GB News and The Robby Starbuck Show. And I suspect there are more to come.

For those not in the know, Webberley is the founder of GenderGP, a controversial organisation known for prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children as young as 11 years old in the name of “gender-affirming care”. Webberley was previously suspended from practicing medicine due to misconduct.

Although “gender-affirming care” might sound like a compassionate and worthy approach to gender distressed children, the truth is actually rather disturbing.

It's true that no child should be refused professional medical care for conditions such as gender dysphoria—it's just that the ‘gender-affirming’ model has been proven to be at best inadequate and at worse, deeply harmful.

Although many ‘gender-affirming’ advocates have argued that prescribing puberty delaying drugs will buy a gender distressed child “time to think”, the data suggests that putting a child on puberty blockers almost guarantees they will be locked into a path of cross-sex hormones and transition.

Whereas if you do not medicalise and ‘affirm’ a child's belief that they are the opposite sex, gender dysphoria almost always runs its course without intervention (usually around puberty).

Which means that if you don't tell a gender distressed child lies about being “trapped in the wrong body”, put them on puberty blockers and proceed as though it's possible for them to eventually change their sex, they'll likely just become comfortable in the body they have.

This undoubtedly means that rather than providing valuable and sensible “care” for gender distressed children, the ‘gender-affirming’ model has essentially functioned as a child-transing factory, needlessly pushing kids down a path of unnecessary surgery and lifelong medication. Not to mention the number of kids who would simply have just grown up to be homosexual. Gender-affirming care is the modern day version of ‘conversion therapy’.

The growing number of vocal and brave de-transitioners speaking out about their experiences is only the tip of the iceberg for what will eventually be recognised as one of the most horrifying medical scandals of our lifetime.

But there's something about Webberley’s current media tour that is clearly off. The first thing to note is that the run of interviews she's participated in have been arranged for her by a PR team of 5 people that she's hired. These interviews also coincide with Webberley’s efforts to launch GenderGP in the USA.

None of this would be particularly unusual were it not for the fact that Webberley is utterly woeful at making sense on a topic she is supposed to be an expert in. In short, she is a medical professional in gender services who has treated children, yet she appears incapable of offering up a defence of her beliefs that is any less insane than the most deranged online gender cultist.

All Webberley can seem to muster is tired mantras and falsities such as "trans women are women because they say they are” or “a woman can have a penis” and “humans can change their sex". Any attempts to tell her these untrue things she just said aren't true will be met with indignation and accusations of discrimination.

She will also repeatedly dismiss every credible data point and study as fringe anecdote, then immediately pivot to the testimony of the "trans people I speak to" as a counterpoint. That's when she's not appealing to authority/ad hominem ("I'm a clinician, you're not!").

It's a greatest hits of the most tedious logical fallacies, thrown out so consistently that it's hard to believe it isn't by design.

The fact that she also tends to interrupt when she senses certain questions are about to expose how nutty all this is makes me think she doesn't fully believe it herself.

Some people have simply discovered that any attention is good attention. Especially when you have a new business to launch.

I suspect Webberley knows the game's up for her in the UK. The Cass review and the subsequent ban on puberty blockers has been a devastating blow for her business model. GenderGP was subsequently dissolved in the UK and is now registered in Singapore.

People are free to platform and interview anyone they want of course. Far be it for someone like me to police who can and can’t talk to each other. And there is a certain amount of public service in exposing her views to the daylight.

However, I think we have seen enough of her now to know she's either completely off her rocker, legitimately evil—or both.

But despite this fact and the endless deluge of hate, mockery and disgust she is receiving in response to these media appearances, it is still clearly benefiting her.

A cynical person may suspect her plan is not to win the arguments (she can't) but to get as much attention as possible. Why? Because even if the overwhelming consensus is that she’s mad as a bag of spanners, enough tribal and confused people will decide (or pretend) otherwise. And her mere presence on these platforms positions her as a somewhat credible figure.

Over on her social media, she is currently recieving praise and congratulating herself on some of the most appalling attempts at argument I've seen in a long time. And this highlights one of the biggest problems created by this new digital dystopia. There's no viewpoint so insane that you won't find enough people to agree with it and help you build something off the back of it. If you can now find a sizeable tribe to affirm any worldview, how can truth win the day?

There are people in this digital landscape who genuinely earn their success. They profit because they’re offering something valuable to our understanding and to the wider issues.

But others have realised they don’t need substance, insight or the truth to make money or gain a following. All they need is our attention. And they’re willing to say almost anything to get it.

The rest of us will need to wise up to this new business model and starve the worst offenders of the attention and profit they depend on once we've got the measure of them.