A Labour councillor has resigned this morning, saying the council is not doing enough to safeguard gender confused children.
Councillor Milla Gauge says she has been repeatedly told by colleagues she must not pursue “urgent and credible” concerns raised with her about council and school policies in relation to children questioning their gender.
This was the case even after a blistering report into failings at a local GP practice, WellBN, were published in June.
She says the council – which has statutory duty to oversee and scrutinise local health services – would not make any statement about the report as it had “no case to answer”.
She also says she has been prevented from raising concerns brought to her about adult single-sex services – specifically survivors of sexual violence.
And she says she has asked repeatedly if the council will be adhering to the new Equality and Human Rights Commission’s updated Code of Practice, which comes into effect today – but has not received any assurance it will.
This will spark the eighth by-election since the last local elections, making Ms Gauge the eighth member elected as a Labour councillor to quit – and the third in her Queens Park ward.
Two more Labour councillors have left the party – Ty Galvin now sits as an independent and Bruno De Oliveira is now a member of the Greens.
Brighton and Hove News has asked the council and the Labour group to respond to her letter of resignation, which is posted in full below. The story will be updated if and when a response is received.
Milla Gauge’s statement
Today I have resigned as a councillor on Brighton and Hove City Council.
It has not been an easy decision. It comes after many months of reflection and many unsuccessful attempts to persuade the council to take what I believe are necessary steps to address residents’ reasonable concerns regarding safeguarding, lawful governance and democratic accountability.
Throughout my period in elected office, my career in the health service including my work on violence against women and girls, my time as a school governor, charity trustee for vulnerable adults, and as a magistrate, I have stood for fair treatment for all and a voice for the vulnerable. Safeguarding is at the non-negotiable core of these principles.
That conviction is also deeply personal. As a mother and stepmother to four daughters I care profoundly about the safety, rights and opportunities of women and girls. I also believe that every child experiencing distress deserves compassionate, evidence-based care from appropriately qualified practitioners acting within their professional competencies, and every family deserves confidence that their public bodies are willing to ask the difficult questions of others and of themselves.
Over the last two years, residents from Queen’s Park have come to me with increasingly urgent concerns which they said weren’t being heard and weren’t being answered.
Parents questioned the Council’s approach to gender-related issues affecting children and young people, the role of external organisations working in schools and the pathways through which some vulnerable children came to be referred for medical intervention.
Women who had experienced sexual violence spoke to me about their safety, dignity and difficulty accessing appropriate services.
They were not asking me to take sides in a culture war; they were asking me to ensure that their public bodies took their credible concerns seriously, sought and scrutinised evidence and discharged their safeguarding responsibilities fully.
As their councillor, I believed I had a duty to do exactly that.
The publication of NHS Sussex’s patient safety investigation into WellBN GP Practice reinforced those concerns. The investigation identified serious patient safety failures, including inappropriate prescribing for children and young people presenting with gender dysphoria.
The report and the similar concerns that parents raised with the council before and after its publication should have prompted open reflection from the council sooner about whether its own sex and gender-related policies, safeguarding between services and health scrutiny arrangements have been safe and sufficiently robust.
Over many months I have endeavoured to answer my residents’ concerns through the routes available to me. I have had private meetings, I have engaged with officers on the data, I have spoken at our Group meetings and I have attempted to ask questions at committee and council meetings.
Although my NHS job meant I couldn’t play a direct role in scrutinising health services, I have tried to improve our approach to reducing violence against women and girls in our licensing strategy, to raise the profile of women and girls’ safety needs in our City Plan, to strengthen whistleblowing for staff in my role on the Audit and Standards Committe, to inject renewed vigour into our use of Equality Impact Assessments through my role on the People Oversight and Scrutiny Committee and I have tried to hold Full Council to account for the accurate use of sex and gender data across all our services.
Most recently, in light of the WellBN report, I have asked leadership for a public review of the council’s scrutiny of gender-related health services and an urgent review of its guidance for schools, equivalent guidance recognising the rights and needs of girls and an independent review of council policies to ensure compliance with equality law.
Throughout I have only asked for what I regard as reasonable and proportionate steps that any public authority committed to safeguarding, lawful governance and democratic accountability should be undertaking proactively and openly.
When I followed up on safeguarding concerns raised publicly in my election hustings I was told they had not been echoed in private complaints so there was no case to answer. When I pushed for more robust licensing measures to protect women and girls, I was told that I should not communicate with officers or others on issues which weren’t solely restricted to Queen’s Park ward – despite being a member of the Licensing Committee at the time and both licensing and violence against women and girls being very much of concern to my residents.
Most recently I was told that the council would make no public statement about its scrutiny of health services in light of WellBN’s patient safety failures because, again, there was no case to answer. Even though the 78 children and young people in the scope of the report were found to have been potentially harmed by services which our council has a statutory duty to hold to account.
Today, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s updated Code of Practice comes into effect, reflecting the Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling that clarified the correct interpretation of the Equality Act 2010. Public authorities not only have a fundamental duty to comply with the law on single sex spaces and services but an obligation to demonstrate to their residents urgently now how and when they intend to do so. Brighton and Hove City Council has not yet provided that assurance, either to me in private or, as I have asked for, publicly.
This resignation is not an attack on colleagues, officers or any community. It is about whether our council is prepared to engage with residents’ reasonable concerns, to openly ask difficult questions of itself and others, and to both comply with the law and be seen to do so.
The greatest privilege of being a councillor for a ward as rich in community spirit as Queen’s Park has been helping residents navigate difficult situations and standing alongside them when they needed someone prepared to challenge public bodies or powerful interests.
Ensuring everyone gets fair treatment and standing up for the vulnerable has guided my public service and professional life and it will continue to do so. Safeguarding is at the non-negotiable core of that responsibility and it is owed equally to gender-distressed children, to women and girls, and to every member of our community. I deeply regret that I cannot pursue that effectively in this administration and I am therefore resigning my post as councillor so I can continue my work through other means.
Good for her. I’m so disappointed in the Council and how blinkered they are.
Brighton and Hove City Council appears to be falling apart, and residents are paying the price.
It is failing to follow proper safeguarding procedures, failing to listen to parents and residents, failing to answer legitimate questions, and failing to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of women and girls, including female pupils in local schools.
Instead of dealing honestly with material reality and the law, the council has chosen to embed the false claims of gender ideology into its policies and institutions, despite the fact that most ordinary people do not accept that sex can be changed or that safeguarding should be subordinated to contested beliefs about gender identity.
This is not compassion. It is institutional failure. Women are 51% of the population, children deserve serious safeguarding, and residents deserve a council that listens, follows the rules and tells the truth. What is happening in Brighton and Hove is shocking.
Thank you. I couldn’t agree more. This council will never listen to views other than their own. Just a constant stream of dodgy consultations trying to give the impression of openness.
What a wonderful woman. Clear sighted about the needs of women and girls as well as vulnerable children. What a sad situation that she feels she has to resign.
Jackie O’quiin, Leslie (due to “ill health” which didn’t stop him get himself a coshy job) and Tristan Burden also left the party
Very unfair and bitter comment. He was very unwell to remain as a councillor but he got better and became CEO of Pride foundation. He had all qualifications needed. He was a graphic designer before totally normal.
8th Labour Brighton & Hove Councillor resigns
This triggers the 8th by election since Labour took office in 2023. To put this in perspective, Conservatives, Greens & Independents have triggered 0 by elections.
Another £20-£25,000 of council funds will be wasted on another unplanned election. Why couldn’t the councillor wait till May?
Dying days of this Labour Council.
Roll on May 2027 when the whole council is up for re-election
The Tories wasted £131,000,000,000 of taxpayer cash in five years of being in government. People in glass houses, Councillor…
So sorry you’ve stepped down, Milla, but I can quite understand why you felt you had to.
Thank you also for being so open about your reasons for doing so: the electors of Queens Park – and across the whole council area – need to know what’s going on.
The council’s record on safeguarding gender-confused children does appear to be absolutely appalling, and the official findings against WellBN should have been the reddest of flags. Not the kind of red flag that anyone should want flying here!
Looking forward to another Green win here! I know Greens in Brighton & Hove will always stand up for Trans rights
Because cluelessly ignorant Greens are always quick to jump on populist bandwagons to get votes without considering all the facts and the implications🙄
Labour seems to be getting very careless about its Councillors. As the eighth one to have resigned, that’s one fifth of their elected total in 2023. It does suggest that they are doing a Starmer in not listening to their elected members. Perhaps Labour should be reminded that when a Councillor gets elected their first duty is to the people and not to the Labour Party. Councillors are also individuals who possess values that govern their behaviour. Those values most probably influenced their political choices in the first place so it might be a good idea to consider them before dismissing a Councillor’s views.
Ah but that’s where you’re wrong. It’s party FIRST and residents second. Or in Bella’s case – last on her shopping list of naked ambitions. We are just a stop gap until she climbs the slippery pole to the top in politics and it shows. Probably got her eye on Kyle’s seat next, but then so has Angie, allegedly.
Tracy’s asinine comment aside, it’s important to consider the reasons for resigning, the majority of resignations were for valid reasons, like declining health unable to keep up with the demands of the role, and conflict of interest being incompatible. We also need to consider that the Conservatives did overwhelmingly badly after their complete, objective failure in government, allowing a lot of easy wins throughout the city.
My hope is that with a more competitive landscape coming up in the locals, the quality of candidates will also increase, those that want to stay more than one term. Regardless of party, that can only be a good thing for the city.
Looks like it’s all going the khazi for Bella and her wokester chums! Wonder how she’ll pitch this on next social media love-in? The bad news is, it will probably let the Green idiots back in come next May, which will be a disaster for ‘our city’. What does Boring Benjy think?
One of the last Labour Councillors with a conscience has now left the building, seemingly after a great deal of bullying from colleagues without a conscience and with no regard for child safeguarding in the face of fashionable ideology, which has no place experimenting on children. I had high hopes for Alison Thomson, but she appears to have just buckled down to do their bidding after an earlier suspension for daring to take a stance on gender identity. A Queen’s Park by-election, it is then. Dear oh dear, how many Labour defectors is that now?
The council’s stance over women’s rights and access to genuinely safe spaces is profoundly retrogressive and deeply shameful.
History will look kindly on her. She has made a difficult decision but the right one and an important one which means at least she can hold her head high.
https://pshebrighton.org/in-the-news/milla-gauge-resigns-after-months-of-unanswered-safeguarding-questions/
I am sorry that Milla Gauge feel she had to resign because the issues she raised were cast aside. I hope the Labour group feel ashamed.
As one of her constituents, I first approached Milla in September 2024 with what I believed were straightforward questions about the Council’s understanding of equality law and its safeguarding responsibilities. I have since followed every route suggested to me by the Council in an effort to obtain democratic scrutiny.
Before retiring, I worked for many years as both a teacher and later in education with Brighton & Hove Museums. Throughout that time, safeguarding was built on an overarching principle: ‘safeguarding first’. If several people independently raised concerns about children’s welfare, the response was never to say, “Come back when you have proof.” The response was to listen carefully, ask questions and establish whether there was anything that required further enquiry.
That is why I find the Council’s approach to the NHS/WellBN findings (and parents calling for a review) so difficult to understand. The issue is not whether every concern proves to be well founded. It is whether recurring concerns from parents, teachers and clinicians should trigger organisational curiosity and learning. In every other safeguarding context I worked in, the answer would have been yes. I’ve voted Labour for most of my adult life. Where on earth has this warped thinking about safeguarding come from?
There is no such thing as ‘trans children’ under law, just children. All children are entitled to protection from all adult grooming, no matter what it calls itself. Remember how PIE campaigned for the ‘sexual rights of children’ in the 1980s? No grooming is good grooming. Children are children until the age of consent, which is there for good reason. Who they are or choose to be after that is up to them.
The argument there is we don’t treat the age of consent as a fixed point. Children can consent to medical treatment if they are deemed Gillick competent, meaning they have sufficient understanding and intelligence to fully appreciate what is involved.
That’s where the interesting debate is. I do agree in their being a strong resistance to certain treatments, especially if it’s non-reversible. The argument that children have a lot of changes in life, and what might be a phase versus true gender dysphoria is a very strong one, and if there is any reasonable doubt, decisions should lean towards non-invasive interventions.
However, I think people claiming it is grooming is ultimately unhelpful. It just polarises what needs to be very thoughtful discussion.
‘Certain treatments… non reversible’? So are you acknowledging the known dangers of cross sex hormones, testosterone for girls and oestrogen for boys?
How do Allsorts charity (council funded) or teachers or social workers or WellBN find out for which child their distress might be a ‘phase’?
And how are council policies (all affirmation without discussion from what I can see?) supporting your very sensible proposal of non-invasive interventions, where there is doubt?
Absolutely, no treatment or procedure is ever completely risk-free. You pose a very good question too regarding differentiating between what is a phase and what is dysphoria. I don’t have the answer. Lots of discord in my experience so far, even on here, has been around defining that question.
Regarding council policy, we have to look at the toolkit, currently on it’s fifth or sixth revision? In answer to your question, I would point to how it supports a cautious approach, using the best available evidence. That aligns with non-invasive interventions where there is doubt. Because this is a rapidly growing field, I also think it’s a policy that will need frequent improvements as our collective knowledge grows.
Do you think that’s a healthy approach? Some people on here have articulated some very clear inflexible lines, what are your thoughts on some of those?
No one can give informed consent without understanding all the options and potential impact- that is the critical requirement for any legitimate consent alongside capacity, which for children means Gilleck competency. The suggestion that these children and young people consented because they were deemed Gilleck competent is fundamentally flawed, and ignores the extensive ideological capture, including the harmful and unproven narrative people (children) kill themselves when not affirmed and that puberty blockers are harmless. Sensational narrative that, along with calling anyone (primarily women) who questioned trans ideology vile, bigots, transphobes, hateful and wanting to ‘disappear’ our gender questioning youth (hey Benjamin) has only helped silence parents, differing opinion, legitimate debate and groom and harm a generation. Sadly effective tactic and lessons to be learnt. It is of course understandable why those who are/were captured and enabled and promoted this harm including the people that enabled the GP at the centre of the BTN wellbeing scandal now want to ignore and defect that responsibility and any accountability, the likely cost of payouts for the harm caused is going to be astronomical. In the meantime well done this councillor for highlighting what is still an ongoing scandal in Brighton and the Labour Party by making a stand.
Not quite. Gillick does not require exhaustive knowledge of every possible option, theoretical alternative, or remote risk. What matters is that can a child make a reasoned, voluntary decision based on the information that is materially relevant to their situation. Holding consent to an impossible standard can be used to deny legitimate agency to young people who are capable of meaningful participation in their care. At the same time, we must ensure that consent is not undermined by misinformation, coercion, or inadequate support; which is where safeguarding and professional judgement come in.
You’ve clearly misread what I’ve said, because I’ve directly challenged the idea of “disappearing youth”, citing we need to engage more with supporting children with trans ideology. I’ve also introduced that the evidence-base shows that those who are gender curious, and not just transgender, are inherently at a higher risk. The study I linked speaks to “disappearing youth” as one of those aggravating factors.
Nope I understood you clearly, and your comments don’t need back peddling or further ‘interpretation/justification’ 👿.
I have said informed consent means being fully informed- risk benefit. These gender questioning youth had no chance because people like you did and clearly continue to present untruths such as suicide is a consequence of not affirming gender identity and medicalisation is harmless. You have argued it was ok because they were gillick competent, pushing responsibility anway from professionals onto those CYP, regardless of the information given to them, or the agenda of those giving it. Shameful at the time, even more shameful that you perpetuate this narrative and attack and undermine any challenge or counter argument just because someone doesn’t adhere to your agenda or how to communicate. As you have already stated no response necessary.
Unfortunately you have indeed misunderstood, your response is clear evidence of that, so warrants a response. I will put them in a list to make this easier for you to understand. It is my fault for not articulating it robustly in a simple enough manner.
1) You have claimed that I have presented “untruths such as suicide is a consequence of not affirming gender identity ” – this is objectively untrue, in my discussion with Kath, I have provided additional peer-review studies that do show there is an additional risk when there is a lack of access to supportive measures, which may include medical intervention, with additional nuance that there is a complexity on top of that. Your constant misrepresentation of this fact is an insult to anyone going through that trauma. Shameful behaviour you should personally reflect on.
2) I’ve never claimed that “medicalisation is harmless” – quite the opposite. Quote above: …no treatment or procedure is ever completely risk-free”. Yet another false claim.
3) You make some bizarre claims of an “agenda” yet say nothing on what this is supposed to be. Considering this is a discussion across multiple organisations all independent from each other and linked in different ways, claiming that they are all working together to achieve some vague notion you’re trying to imply is a very illogical thing to say.
4) It’s an even more bizarre claim to say that some random person on the internet has an agenda in a comment section in a local news outlet. Conspiracy at best.
5) It’s not undermining a challenge or counterargument if it is logically flawed. That’s not being contrarian, or trolling to coin your term, that’s pragmatism. The nuance and accuracy matters, emotional rhetoric does not. I would have hoped you could tell the difference, alas, your comments suggest you do not, which is disappointing.
You have some reflecting to do, I feel, regardless of what your opinion is of me.
Nice attempt to back peddle Benjamin, it would be a pain to have to go through ALL of your comments, perhaps you’ve written so much nonsense you have genuinely ‘forgotten’ what you said and when/where/how, including that you said- only a couple of days ago, and I concurred, we are done (from my perspective a long time ago in fact). You are exposed as a dangerous, biased, literate BS-er, with a massively over inflated sense of self importance, a pseudo professional, and fundamentally a TROLL 👿. Your mask slips increasingly frequently and your comments speak for themselves. So while I understand 👿s feed off the attention, how about, if you have an ounce of integrity and self awareness you stop and educate yourself before trying to dominate, dismiss, and ‘re-educate’ others in future.
So you can’t point to anything to back up your fabricated claims…
…I see. Good luck to you.
‘Sigh’, Benjamin, you’re just not getting the message are you? ‘disapointing’ and ‘sadly just further proving my point’ with even more misrepresentation and deflection, because your prolific, ignorant, dangerous narrative, and when it suits rapid backpedaling, is plain to see by your own hand (or are you in fact an AI troll bot?), so there is no need to trawl over it repeatedly.. As I have said before I’m not engaging in your demands to feed your pseudo professional 👿ing to stroke that massive ego of yours. Again ‘sigh’ and how ‘disappointing’ Benjamin… ‘you can do better’.
Yet, you’ve not been able to name a single instance, despite multiple attempts to try to squeeze some form of coherency out of you.
I see. Good luck to you.
Still trolling away? It’s getting even more boring than usual Benjamin the 👿 (Bt👿). Are you capable of really seeing? Being able to and being willing to engage with Bt👿s nonsense demands are two very different things. I choose not to and really don’t need to- you do a truly incredible job of prolifically exposing your opinions, grandiosity and ignorance yourself, including all over this particular comments page. How about you back pedal to your very own ‘we’ve reached the limits of what we’ll achieve here’ comment and do me a favour and troll off.
I see, you’re just choosing to be incorrect and misrepresentive? Interesting.
On a similar note, I wonder if the council will be commenting on the popular central Brighton secondary school that is being taken to court over allowing trans identified male students into the girls’ changing rooms. I gather the council is using the controversial Good Law Project for its defence. Rather an odd choice for a public body.
What a brave women. The leadership team of Brighton and Hove are treating its residents so appallingly. Bella Sankey lawyer and human rights campaigner! I have never heard of something so ridiculous. Under her regime along with Elizabeth Culbert and Jess Gibbons there will never be a place for any councillor who is seen to work for the people in their ward they will be silenced and their wings clipped. The cover up continues…..
Public inquiry…BHCC…Sankey, Emma Daniel’s etc.
100%. What is Emma Daniel still doing in post? Is she earning any money from devising the School Trans toolkit and rolling it out to schools around the country?
A principled decision by Milla. If only the council had her integrity and were prepared to honestly reflect on their many failings in respect of women and girls in the city.
Many young gay men and women were confused when they were children, thank goodness they were not given puberty blockers. We have come a long way with ensuring gay children get the support they need , we need to build on this and guard against the Right wanting to take us back to the 1950s
Well said. Plus conversion therapy for gay adults is now outlawed. Why are children not being afforded the same protection from conversion therapy from whatever they might naturally grow up to become by “activist” teachers, who seem to see schools as some sort of trans-recruitment hunting grounds? Children have enough anxieties and confusion about who they are naturally. What they need is unbiased and loving support to navigate their own way through these tempestuous teenage years and to be reassured that it’s totally normal to go through a number of identity phases – some very intense. Children must be allowed and supported to make their own journeys to adulthood, uninfluenced by those with sinister or political agendas. Grooming needs to be called out for what it is.
Gender dysphoria ≠ tempestuous teenage years. Suggesting such a thing, and going straight to calling it grooming or sinister or that it’s someone with a political agenda really points out how ignorant you are and how little you actually know about it, Tracy. Hardly ” unbiased and loving support” when you are making such a biased and sinister stance, is it?
We need to do better than get caught in such pathetically unhelpful opinions.
Sadly transition increases the risk of suicide in young people. We need to support those with gender distress but medication os not the best way to do so, the evidence shows. Even NHS England have acknowledged this.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-020-01663-9
It’s an interesting article, because it highlights the risk of inaction, but I’m not entirely convinced that it supports the notion that transitioning increases the risk. Austin et al (2022) seems to suggest it’s a multifaceted risk with aspects like supportive measures at home, and that those who are gender curious are already at a higher risk inherently. The Cass Review suggests a limited evidence of benefit of medication in gender-affirming care; which means more research is required.
Considering the risks and the limited evidence-base, I agree that the recent restriction by the NHS does seem sensible until a stronger evidence-base can be achieved.
Children need to be protected from the trans ideology. If children were not exposed to any of it i bet you all so called trans children would disappear. Leave the kids alone.
I’m going to be direct here. Hold that opinion when you’ve had to announce a child dead, after they slit their own throat, and proceeded to bleed out, staining their bedsheets, carpet and their toys, because of their feelings of gender dysphoria that was never attempted to be addressed and were “left alone.”
Sorry Betty, the methodology on how transgenderism is addressed in children certainly is up for debate and refinement, but it is absolutely wrong that we ignore it completely. Our children deserve better than left to “disappear.”
Benjamin you have provided graphic detail about a suicide attempt you say was undertaken by a child here- a rare and unusual one at that ‘slitting own throat’ while perpetuating the debunked myth gender questioning CYP are more likely to commit suicide than their peers. The question should be why are they being told they can change their sex- when they can’t, instead why can’t they be enabled to accept and self care for the body they have? Because they’re being fed a lie they are in the wrong body, that they can change sex, and anyone who questions trans ideology wants them dead and to disappear (which is not what Tracy said- however much you may twist what she said to make your ‘direct’ point/agenda here). Your narrative and those repeated lies are what is so incredibly damaging to CYP and women and girls so what is your objective/ motivation in persisting with them?
Suicide completion, KL. Sigh, what a disorganised comment to make. I’m not going to get dragged into a false binary. You want to try to turn the rest of that into a coherent thought?
I recommend starting with getting the name of the person I replied to in this particular thread correct. Then what I was actually challenging them on, and then getting what I was suggesting right.
You speak of damaging narratives; you have demonstrated exactly the warning I made earlier regarding misrepresentation.
Children in Brighton deserve better than that. Let’s have an adult conversation, rather than throwing unhelpful accusations.
Yet more misrepresentation, deflection and sadly more sensitisation. Not at all sorry I can’t bow to your self inflated ego Benjamin and therefore don’t adhere to your nonsense ‘warning’. Being at a traumatic death, especially one involving a younger person is incredibly distressing, life changing, but using it to fit your agenda is unforgivable. I ask again ( it’s a rhetorical question) what is your agenda Benjamin. Nothing you have ever said suggests it is about supporting our gender questioning CYP, or indeed our women or girls.
Again, further proving my point, I’m afraid.
It’s a shame you are unable to have a mature conversation, choosing to disingenuously claim deflection whilst deflecting everything that has been said so far with your incorrect use of rhetorical and random ad hominems.
That is exactly the mentality we should be avoiding.
The thing is this isn’t your paper or personal platform Benjamin and everyone was having an adult conversation before, yet again, you step in and dominate, tell everyone what they should think and, the language they should use, and you clearly don’t like anyone calling you out on your behaviour. This time you made an irresponsible and sensationalist post that does not serve anyone- except perhaps your ego. I’m not interested in a conversation with a biased, arrogant, egotistical, sensationalist like you, but given you post publically and regularly push your opinion on everyone else I will call out your harmful narrative and behaviour when I think appropriate. And I couldn’t care less if that is spelt right etc. you get the message. There are much more important things in life Benjamin.
Doubling down, and further proving my point, I’m afraid – now with childish insults. Really disappointing behaviour on a serious issue.
You speak of misrepresentation, yet present several back-to-back; no-one was correcting your spelling, you were saying something that has a completely different meaning. You’re referring to people who don’t exist in this thread and whom I was having a completely different conversation chain.
As I said initially, it’s incoherent. And once again, you’re creating a strawman here, so I’ll repeat myself for clarity because you’re appearing to struggle with this:
The methodology on how transgenderism is addressed in children certainly is up for debate and refinement, but it is absolutely wrong that we ignore it completely. Our children deserve better than left to “disappear.”
Betty’s claim that “if children were not exposed to any of it I bet you all so called trans children would disappear.” is fundamentally flawed. It absolutely should be challenged. You can’t just ignore an issue away. Unfortunately, your attempts to turn this into an narrative about…whatever you’re trying to put together, is ironically more damaging than anything else. Mature adults don’t just sit there writing a paragraph of ad hominem. You are clearly passionate about this subject, but you’re doing yourself and the challenge at hand a disservice.
Yadda yadda yadda. Note you still don’t apologise for posting sensationlist, graphic detail about a child supposedly because they werent affirmed …. If you had an ounce of professionalism you wouldn’t have done that- but you don’t and maybe you aren’t a professional despite the facade. You respond to soooooo many posts imposing your righteousness I did loose track of who you were preaching to on this occasion but not on your arrogance, and occasional mask slip exposing your often harmful and ignorant position. Carry on picking on any ambiguousness, spelling mistakes, non acceptable language according to the world of Benjamin etc. to deflect, feed that superiority complex of yours. It still doesn’t change the facts.
Ad hominems don’t mean anything to me I’m afraid. If “yadda yadda yadda” the best rebuttal you have to any point I’ve made…then that is disappointing. Sorry you couldn’t have an adult conversation. Maybe next time?
Very sad but unsurprising that BHCC is unwilling/incapable of responding to these very serious issues that affect their women and children. What is Andy Burnhams stance on encouraging the mutilation of children and young people who are gender non conforming and/or groomed, and obliterating women’s and girls rights to their evidence based, necessary separate, protected spaces, on the say so of a few ‘confused’ or ‘predatory’, vocal and often aggressive men? Hopefully better than greens even more nonsense and damaging stance.
What a transparent saving face resignation. She can see the writing is on the wall with the Greens looking to take the council next year a so before getting booted out she grabs a life vest and jumps from the sinking ship that is the local Labour party.
Untrue. If you knew Milla you would not write this.
It’s the difference between resigning versus going independent or defecting to another party. Milla choosing to do the former, should inform people a lot about what her long-term intentions were. Was she planning on standing at the local elections for another term? It seemed doubtful, even before today.
Why would she go to another party? She is a Labour member. If she wanted to raise concerns, this is surely the best time to do that? Not waiting, frustrated and blocked, until May when the next elections are scheduled. Now is when observance of the Supreme Court ruling is supposed to be implemented, something that the Council will resist, if she stayed as a councillor she would be implicated in their illegality, too.
Because she clearly doesn’t agree with the party’s actions? Because being a councillor gives her a foundation to challenge if she feels that strongly about it? Because she was elected to serve the city and the people of Queens Park, so is a massive disservice to them?
There’s quite a few reasons and more why she’d switch or go independent, rather than resign. Which is why I suspect she just didn’t want to continue anyway.
https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2026/08/06/council-leader-accuses-departing-colleague-of-breaching-promise-to-labour-party/
The article ‘Council Leader accuses departing colleague of “breaching promise” to Labour Party’ has comments switched off so I’ll comment here:
Cllr Sankey’s response completely misses the point of Milla Gauge’s resignation. Telling Milla that she should have taken her concerns to HOSC is an evasion when HOSC has already been asked to scrutinise the wider safeguarding implications of the WellBN findings — most recently by a member of the public at its July meeting — and has yet to commit to doing so. Other scrutiny questions have similarly been redirected or left unresolved.
This is not a new issue: for three years parents raising safeguarding concerns have too often been met with dismissal, deflection or assertions that their concerns are baseless, rather than the professional curiosity and scrutiny that safeguarding ordinarily demands. If HOSC really is the “correct forum”, as Cllr Sankey says, then the obvious question is: when will it actually do the scrutiny?
An excellent question
Thank you, Milla, for standing up for women and girls in Brighton. We have been badly failed by our female council leader and her band of gender zealots.
Reality matters, pretending people can change sex does not make it true. Enormous harm has been done to young people in this city through social contagion linked to council policies, then kids are pushed on to cross sex hormones, which cause irreversible harm. This has to end.
People can change gender though, there’s nothing pretend about that. Gender does not always have to equal sex.
Transgender ideology does have to end as it is currently being presented. I think it needs to be redefined and categorised. Thankfully (most) people now recognise and accept sex and gender are different, understand the difference and the why that is important. But ironically this ideology relies heavily on the binary gender stereotypes it says it wants to breakdown. Is gender presentation fluid over a lifetime and a choice- almost definitely. But are there attributes that determine/ define trans gender? If you are a bloke that had long hair and wore a bit of eye liner as a young person, or if you get aroused by wearing woman’s knickers and high heels, do both of those make you ‘trans’? If you are a teenage girl and hate being over-sexualised when you hit puberty or by what you see online, and choose to cover up/hide, or if you are a butch lesbian, are you at risk of being categorised as ‘trans’ and sent down a medicalisation route? And what does that mean for the ideologists demands: affirmation, distortion of reality, collusion or be deemed ‘deadnaming’, ‘disappearing’, ‘driving gender questioning or gender nonconforming people to suicide’. To comply with trans ideology demands, women and girls have had to share protected spaces with confused and/or predatory men, because the narrative is still that all trans women are harmless, despite the fact proportionately more ‘trans women’ are jailed for sex related offences compared to both (non trans identifying) biological women AND men- an uncomfortable fact for those ideologists. Then we come to the medical scandal- creating and then medicalising gender questioning CYP. Giving young people hormones, mutilating them, lying to them about the need for treatment and minimising the consequences of that treatment, alienating them from concerned friends and family. ‘Professionals’ hiding and still not taking responsibility when this is exposed. Shocking and shameful.
Completely agree Bella and BHCC response is appalling, they’ve overseen and even promoted harm to generation of children and young people, and women and girls in Brighton.
If you look closely at the recent resignation of Councillor Milla Gauge and compare it with the leadership’s reaction, it raises some very obvious questions. Milla’s statement was remarkably careful—she didn’t name individual officers, she didn’t target anyone, and her track record has been about genuinely helping residents and raising structural safeguarding concerns, rather than getting bogged down in culture wars.
Yet, how did Council Leader Bella Sankey respond? Instead of addressing the safeguarding issues or opening a transparent review, leadership immediately went on the heavy-handed defensive, publicly attacking her and accusing her of breaching party commitments.
It’s a classic case of laying two Lego bricks side-by-side: on one hand, a departing councillor steps down quietly without dropping names to cause a public bloodbath; on the other, leadership reacts with disproportionate hostility and a fierce counter-attack. When an administration panics and attacks someone who didn’t name names, it naturally makes you wonder what they are so desperate to cover up, and what else might still be buried in the filing cabinets. I’ll leave everyone to draw their own conclusions on that one.
My conclusion is that we shouldn’t really be using AI to draw conclusions.
You ARE awful Benjamin! (My conclusion is that you need to draw from more than 2 minutes of research – you are so extraordinarily ignorant on the gender ideology and schools/VAWG safeguarding issue that I’m starting to wonder if you’re connected to the council in some way)
Maybe it’s not AI and maybe I am aware what documentation she held and which individuals she may have spoken to before the resignation, not everyone is in the dark.
Dear Benjamin so you know it was not AI conclusion and was email that had the the conclusions in. you will see more thing like thins in the next 2 or 3 weeks you have more to say then lol
Hi Jo, your comment from three days ago almost certainly had some heavy AI involvement, there’s no doubt in my mind on that. I’ll remain open-minded to further information as it comes to light, of course. A question I would be keen to see answered is why it was a resignation, rather than having the whip removed?
Maybe it’s not AI; but the sentence structure, writing style, grammar usage, fallacious reasoning, failure to take context into account, conceptualising, familiar patterns to LLM generations, and completely different to your established previous writing style – it’s almost certainly AI generated. Adrian and Natasha also use the same tools; writing in the same structure. The lack of a human element makes it very obvious. Personally, it weakens an argument because we can remove you both from that comment, just ask an AI to generate an overview, and nothing is lost, you see the problem?
Considering I know more about you Adrian then you do about me; the benefit of the internet, I can be confident that I certainly have more experience. But, I also don’t feel the need to call people ignorant, I simply highlight the flaws in logic – such as the multiple ones you’ve made previously. And my opinion of you remains the same, you champion a good cause, badly.
“I know more about you Adrian then you do about me” – Yeah, we’ve probably met (you’re creepy and ignorant)
Sigh…my point is proven. Disappointing.
Not ‘we’ Benjamin, you. Only you with your fixation on how people write, your ignorance, or incapability of understanding, or deliberate misrepresentation of what people say while blinkered to your own considerable flaws including (repeatedly) calling people ignorant, and attacking their style or the person while ignoring their point. I’ve come to the conclusion you are a troll, and we are just feeding you. You are certainly not the ‘professional’ you try and imply you are. But if you are real, and have any professional accountability or indeed influence, deflate that ego a bit, be a bit humble, and maybe people will have more of the respect for you that you clearly think you deserve. In the meantime how refreshing everyone else is back having that adult conversation you interrupted, misrepresented and sensationalised to suit your own dangerous self serving agenda. You are the one ‘who can do better’ Benjamin.
We doesn’t mean what you think it means in that context. And once again, ad hominems don’t mean anything to me I’m afraid. Sorry you couldn’t have an adult conversation.
Sigh. Of course it doesn’t!! Proving yet again ‘we’ in the context I mean, are feeding a troll rather than a professional with an ounce of integrity.
…I’m glad you agree that accuracy is integral to a professional discussion? Again, name-calling doesn’t mean anything to me I’m afraid. Doesn’t add anything, just attempts to get a rise out of the person, which, ironically, is what a “troll” would do.
Anyway, I think we’ve reached the limits of what we are going to achieve here, so I’ll leave you to it for now.
‘We’ reached the limits of what ‘we’d’ achieve a long time ago when I first saw your mask slip. I’m glad you’ve finally got that message – so no more responses required 👿 . Don’t think that means I won’t ‘comment’ on your pseudo professional, damaging BS, trumpian persona now or in the future though 👿.
‘Benjamin’ makes an interesting point in this discussion which I think actually gets us closer to the issue.
He/She/They says that, given the limited evidence base and the possibility that children may experience gender distress in different ways, there should be strong resistance to irreversible treatments and that, where there is reasonable doubt, decisions should lean towards non-invasive interventions. Benjamin also says that council policy should be capable of frequent improvement as knowledge develops.
I agree that this should be a thoughtful discussion rather than a shouting match. But if that is the case, why is Brighton & Hove City Council so resistant to reviewing its safeguarding arrangements and policies in the light of what we now know?
And, by the way ‘Benjamin’, your understanding of suicide risk wilfully ignores the facts (some might reasonably describe this as ignorant). Adrian is an extraordinary and brave campaigner as are the men and women of PSHEbrighton.org We all understand why many people on here use pseudonyms, but there’s no reason why you cannot make contact with PSHEbrighton and meet with us (but you won’t will you).
I first approached my ward councillor, Milla Gauge, in September 2024. Since then I have followed the routes suggested by the Council, seeking scrutiny of questions about equality law, safeguarding, school practice and the implications of the emerging evidence. Other parents have raised quite different experiences and concerns. The WellBN investigation has subsequently established that serious failings did occur locally.
My concern is not that every parent’s account must automatically be accepted as fact, nor that every child experiencing gender distress should be treated in the same way. It is that repeated concerns, together with new evidence of serious local failures, should produce what I was taught throughout my professional life in education (in B&H) to regard as basic safeguarding practice: professional curiosity, reflection and organisational learning.
That is why Milla’s resignation matters. And it is why I find the Council’s continuing reluctance to undertake a wider safeguarding review so difficult to understand.
You’re the first one who has ever picked up that Benjamin™ might be an alias!
Well, I’ve always said that safeguarding around transgender is an important topic to champion, and Adrian is absolutely right to do so. However, constructive advocacy needs both passion and precision. I’ve had quite in-depth discussions about his use of…terminological inexactitudes…with him before, which I believe ultimately detract from the core issues, not helped by his reaction to being challenged on nuance, even when we broadly agree, as you’ve noticed Julia.
My statement about ROLE on a child was a direct challenge to Betty’s assertion that there should be no education, discussion or exploration on what trans ideology is. It was to provide a clear example of what can happen as a consequence if taken to its logical extreme.
The point of tension is something you’ve made me think about. The council has no statutory role in commissioning or overseeing gender-related healthcare, so it wouldn’t have a case to answer, because it’s not part of it’s remit. Rather, it is a failure of the NHS and within their purview.
Maybe the better discussion should be to focus on the fundamentals? Look at the policies, and make improvements by using our experiences, especially as our knowledge grows on this rapidly evolving subject. I feel we are aligned on this, but perhaps not as a knee-jerk reaction? As mentioned, HOSC is a good place to start.
My thoughts on Milla is that there are likely two sides to this. Her resigning, rather than going independent or changing parties was an interesting choice. Plenty to speculate there, I’m sure.
There is one aspect of the discussion on here that deserves much more careful consideration. I refer to the way suicide is sometimes invoked when we discuss gender-distressed children.
Nobody should minimise suicidal thoughts, self-harm or severe distress in a young person. These are serious safeguarding concerns and families need compassionate, evidence-based support.
But there is an important distinction between saying that some gender-distressed young people are at elevated risk of poor mental health, and saying that refusing transition-related treatment causes suicide — or that transition is therefore a necessary means of preventing suicide. The latter is a causal claim, and it requires evidence. It should not simply be assumed from an association between gender distress and poor mental health.
This is important because the rhetoric can have consequences. Parents in Brighton have described encountering versions of the message, “wouldn’t you rather have a living son than a dead daughter?” At a moment when a parent is frightened for their child’s wellbeing, that is an extraordinarily powerful thing to hear. It can turn a complex clinical and safeguarding question into an apparent choice between accepting transition and risking the death of one’s child.
That’s a terrible basis for informed decision-making.
A genuinely safeguarding-first approach should neither dismiss suicidal distress nor use fear of suicide to foreclose careful questioning. It should ask what is actually known about the causes of the distress, what interventions have evidence of benefit, what their risks are, what alternatives exist, and whether the young person is being given the space and support to explore those questions without pressure. If we really believe that these children deserve better, then suicide should be treated as a reason for more careful safeguarding and professional curiosity, not as an argument for abandoning either.
Except that’s a hallucinated strawman, because no-one here has suggested that. Further example of why we should avoid using AI to create arguments especially on sensitive subjects.
Oops, Adrian Hart, by coming up with/reiterating a reasonable position you only went and fed the troll 👿. Fortunately the adults in the room are listening and open to differing views and mature, evidence based, sensitive discussion. Don’t let the 👿 stop you.
A reasonable position wouldn’t create a strawman, would it? A strawman isn’t evidence-based, it’s the opposite. AI generation isn’t sensitive, it’s the complete opposite; as inhuman as you can make it. Combined, that’s the very definition of an unreasonable position, isn’t it?
Anyway, Adrian knows what he’s doing; he’s a principled person, just goes about it in arguably an ineffective way. He doesn’t have to agree with me, and I don’t require him to.
Benjamin, your silence on this new resignation is more revealing than all your previous essays combined. When the previous councillor left, you were quick to ‘educate’ us, dismissing the pattern as isolated health issues or local political friction. Now that the exodus is undeniable, you’ve gone quiet.
Is this silence because the Cabinet hasn’t held their strategy meeting to give you the new talking points yet? Are we waiting until Monday morning for the ‘official briefing’ to land in your inbox before you can tell us how to interpret this? It’s difficult to maintain the ‘rational, independent resident’ persona when you appear to be an institutional proxy who has suddenly run out of script. When the narrative you are paid to defend collapses, your silence speaks louder than your pedantry ever did.
I note you’ve ignored the fact you’ve created a strawman, and now are deflecting.
Which you’ve done again here, I’ve never said Milla has anything to do with health issues, that’s an AI hallucination. Clearly I’m right about the suggestion of local political friction, considering the latest news. There’s not much to add onto it, because there’s so little information about it. My rational, independent self likes to work from a place of reality and logic, not what AI tells me to think and feel about a subject, Jo.
AI slop, unfortunately remains as sloppy as always, following the same patterns and structures, gaslighting whenever it frequently gets caught out, which I note it’s also not managed to counter a single point I’ve made, and now just resorting to vagueposting, because – and this is something AI is very good at; ironically accusing others of the very thing it is doing itself.
Benjamin, your attempt to frame Milla Gauge’s resignation as a mere ‘choice’ is telling. You dismiss her principled stand as a career decision, yet you ignore the actual contents of her resignation letter—the very same contents that mirror the ‘procedural evasion’ detailed in the recent PSHEbrighton report.
That report outlined exactly how the Council ignores safeguarding concerns by reframing them as individual issues. You are performing that exact role here: ignoring the systemic failure she raised and instead trying to smear her personal motives.
Is your aggressive defense of the administration and your specific attempts to diminish anyone who exposes these failures because you have a vested interest in protecting the ‘procedural evasion’ that report exposed? It’s starting to look less like a random resident’s opinion and more like a coordinated effort to suppress the exact type of scrutiny the PSHEbrighton report calls for.
what do you think KL
So, here is a classic example of why AI sucks at making an argument. Every paragraph here you’ve generated here is a misrepresentation, or just hallucinated. For someone who claimed “Maybe it’s not AI” – this is yet another example of it clearing being the case.
The classic phrase structure of “It’s not this, it’s this” is a very tell tale sign. It’s also making things up. I don’t attempt to frame Milla as anything; I haven’t spoken to any report at all; and I haven’t defended anyone. AI doesn’t get nuance, and it’s clear you’ve tried to create a counterargument using it, so it’s done the best it can.
Pointing out critical flaws is not suppression.
Hi Jo, I have questioned how much ‘Benjamin’ really is involved in labour or the council. Is ‘Benjamin’ a council lead/spokesperson and/or someone working in the fringes of ‘health’, as ‘Benjamin’ would have us all think, with a pedantic focus on language, while misrepresenting what people are saying (and how) to suit ‘Benjamins’ agenda and deflect from any uncomfortable truths or scrutiny at any cost? But I think that is giving ‘Benjamin’ far too much credit. I think ‘Benjamin’ is just a BSer, a grandiloquence, with very little insight or depth and a hugely overinflated ego that is imposed on anyone commenting on BHN. ‘Whoever/ whatever ‘Benjamin’ is ‘Benjamin’ is clearly unsuited to public service, and ‘Benjamin’ has proven themselves, repeatedly, to be nothing more than a common 👿 whose primary target is women who dare to speak up and then ‘justifying’ this by declaring that woman/person has made a ‘critical flaw’ or similar.
I mean, that really doesn’t make sense, because you have to also assume that the reporters on here are complacent in that to make that work, which is clearly not the case. Continuing with argumentum ad hominem isn’t actually engaging in points made, unfortunately, it’s often employed by people who don’t have anything substantive to say, so they resort to basic insults.
It’s also not just declaring a “critical flaw” when there’s also an explanation where I think you’ve made the critical flaw. It’s then incumbent for you to either accept that you’ve made a critical flaw, or counterargue that your critical flaw isn’t a critical flaw; it’s the crux of healthy and mature debate. Not to gaslight, deflect, or use AI to ignore – otherwise, the critical flaw you made, is just that, a justified and articulated critical flaw.
I get you’re upset, but there’s a more productive way to have a conversation, and ultimately, at the end of the day, these are just words on a website, you can choose to reject them.
That wasn’t an invitation to re-engage, Bt👿. I was responding to Jos direct question- to me. Didn’t your mother teach you it is rude to interrupt (no need to answer). Appreciate any attention is good attention in the trolling business, and you demand plenty of that on BHN. And no I am not assuming or suggesting the reporters are complacent. Sigh, try and do better next time
Just further proving my point, I’m afraid – as you’ve done multiple times throughout this comment section. A real shame that you’re so full of hatred towards me, you’ve completely abandoned what the conversation was about.
A pitfall I warned about several weeks ago, made manifest.
Looking at the timeline of discussions on Brighton Hope News, it feels like we’ve been debating these same administrative issues for a long time. Does anyone else feel like we’re missing the bigger picture?
It seems like we’re still waiting to actually get to the heart of ‘then’
There more to come i think.
Certainly a wait and see moment, for sure.
Given your consistently legalistic and highly structured debating style, many readers are likely left wondering whether this is a personal hobby or if your contributions are part of a broader professional brief. Rather than engaging in another back-and-forth about ‘debating strategy’ or ‘fallacies,’ I think the readers are perfectly capable of judging the context themselves. We have reached the point where the questions regarding transparency and accountability have been laid out clearly; further attempts to deflect them with academic posturing will only serve to reinforce what many already suspect
Certainly, however, that doesn’t negate the value of highlighting when there’s a flaw in the argument, like fallacious reasoning, as part of that discussion. KL clearly rejects what I’m saying purely on who I am, or at least who they perceive me to me, and hasn’t engaged on the points themselves – that itself is a textbook genetic fallacy.
Of course people can make up their own minds, but taking that to its logical conclusion, why bother having a comment section at all? Why bother using AI to generate comments? Why bother having a discussion at all?
‘Sigh’, how ‘disappointing’, and an even bigger ‘SiGH’ for some extra emphasis of my displeasure of being deliberately and ‘pathetically’ misrepresented to serve Bt👿s (ie your) over inflated ego yet again Benjamin. To be clear Bt👿 I only reject what you say because you talk a load of BS, scratch below the surface and you present a very shallow level of understanding on your many topics (AI being a new one I see), you compel thought and speech, you dominate discussions, you can be very creepy (as demonstrated in your response to Adrian in this thread), you have shown yourself to be misogynistic, and you promote a lot of harm. At the end of the day hard as it may be to accept I just don’t respect you or your opinions enough to invest my time and energy debating with you, or colluding with your terms of engagement. I will still call you out though. SiGH’ again and how very boring this is getting Bt👿, I do hope you can ‘do better next time’.
“I only reject what you say, because I don’t like you.” – so…what I just said? Okay, thanks for agreeing with me I guess?
It is telling that you’ve retreated into a lecture on logical fallacies rather than addressing the actual substance of the issues facing our Council. This confirms exactly what I suspected: you are not here to engage with the community, but to treat this forum as a ‘debate club’ where you can distract from real-world governance failures with academic posturing.
The residents here are interested in transparency, safeguarding, and accountability—not in a tutorial on rhetoric. Since you appear unable to discuss the former, and I have no interest in the latter, there is nothing left to say. I’ll leave the floor to you, should you feel the need to have the final word.
Because, as I just mentioned several times, if the substance of what is being argued is fallacious, then it’s a doomed argument, because it is opaque, doesn’t represent safeguarding, and damages accountability. Accuracy is important because otherwise we end up in conspiracy and ultimately you end up self-defeating the very topic you’re interested in promoting.
Maybe you’ll reflect on that, and be better in the future. It’s a worthy topic to delve into, it deserves a better standard then what you’ve demonstrated here.