Richard Green’s Controversial Legacy

When memorialising the dead, we shouldn’t gloss over their wrongs. This is what Peter Tatchell’s obituary does when it touts Richard Green’s allyship to trans people.

Richard Green’s name is infamous in trans health. Much ink has been spilled over the harm done by the UCLA clinic, whose practices many consider ‘conversion therapy’. Sociologist Karl Bryant, a patient of Dr. Green, later said that: “The study and the therapy that I received made me feel that I was wrong, that something about me at my core was bad, and instilled in me a sense of shame that stayed with me for a long time afterward.”

Sé Sullivan, another patient of the UCLA clinic, also wrote their doctoral thesis on the clinic and dedicated it to “all those lost to suicide or other self-harming response to the violence born” out of the clinic and of those who followed similar practices at its behest.

Whereas Tatchell’s obituary paints Richard Green as a hero of trans communities, many in our communities now see him as a villain. Having specialised in the legality and ethics of reparative practices, I can’t help but see Green’s legacy as a troubled moment of our history. His work on the “Sissy Boy Project” laid the grounds for what came to be known as desistance research, which is still used today to oppose affirming care for trans youth.

As we reflect on Richard Green’s passing, I hope that we can have a thought for those trans people who did not find reprieve in Green’s work. For all the important contributions Dr. Green made to the field, it is difficult for me to praise as a defender of trans people someone whose approach was described by a past patient as: “You can wish you can be something that you’re not, but that’s not ever going to happen.” In the world of trans health, this isn’t acceptable.

Letter to the editor submitted to The Guardian in response to Peter Tatchell’s obituary of Richard Green published in their pages.