A Response to the Book Review published in ATOL 12(1) in 2021 of the publication Moore, M. and Brunskell, E. (Eds.) (2019), Inventing Transgender Children and Young People

Abstract

This piece responds to the review of the book titled Inventing Transgender Children & Young People in the last published edition 12(1) of ATOL: Art Therapy Online. Throughout, I will refer primarily to the book review and at times to the book which is its focus, as I suggest the two do not differ in their representation of the argument. I will use the phrase Trans and Gender Diverse (TGD) as an umbrella phrase throughout this piece to refer to the many identities within the gender spectrum.

As a member of the TGD community and an Art Therapist, I was deeply troubled to read a review, published in a journal such as ATOL, that had not critiqued a book which I suggest is misleading and harmful to the TGD community. Having joined the ATOL Editorial board after the publication of the review, I was made aware of the editorial board’s efforts to grapple with questions of censorship and freedom in the decision to publish. However, when perspectives are not based in sound evidence, and create misinformation, this becomes problematic, in this case to the identities of a community and their access to equal social inclusion and to the safe access to best practice care within health systems.