Our first 4 day Essentials in Sexual Minority Therapy course is virtually full! A new series of dates are up on the website for the second course which starts in September and you're encouraged to book early if you are interested to do it.

We do have a couple of spare places if you wanted to just attend one or two days of the course. The Sex, Gender and Sexual Minority Therapy day is full, but spaces exist on the Working with Internalised Oppression workshop with Charles Neal and the day on Coming Out issues with Deirdre Haslam.

Hopefully, you will all know about our 2nd Biennial Conference which is on the theme of sexual minorities and relationships?

Our first conference sold out, and places are limited at this event. If you want to make sure you get both your choices of workshops then please book soon. This is THE event in the calander for anyone working with sexual and gender minority clients.

London Friend the LGBT counselling and support organisation need a part time co-ordinator. Full details of the job are still being drawn up, but if you are interested to know more email them: office@londonfriend.org.uk

The theme at this year's THT conference explores the idea of insiders and outsiders. Speakers incude: Andrew Samuels, Catherine Butler and Alex Accoroni, Robert Palmer and Jack Summerside. There will also be some workshops on women and sex, body therapy, therapy for sex workers, race, sexuality and African clients.

To book a place call Ann Kitchen on 020 7835 1495 or email: ann.kitchen@tht.org.uk

This is a new free website aiming to offer advice and support to LGBT people. They have a number of American therapists already signed up and contributing articles, and they are keen to have some UK based therapists who can wrte about issues of relevance to sexual minorities.

If you would like to contribute an article or assist in their project, please contact Gray Morrisson by emailing: jgraymorrison@aol.com

A trainee counselling psychologist at Surrey University is undertaking some research into gay men with body dissatisfaction to try to understand more about the potential risks of developing eating disorders.

If you know someone willing to be interviewed (she will come to London to do the interviews), then please contact Maxine King directly email: max- king@hotmail.com

The Wellcome Trust and Central School of Speech and Drama are offering some free arts based workshops commencing on April 22nd to young trans people (under 22 years old). These workshops will explore the science of sex and gender and include film-making, photography and performance.

They can pay travel and accomodation and so it isn't limited to people coming from London. Please pass this information on to any young trans clients and anyone interested in registering for the workshop, please email: scidentityinfo@cssd.ac.uk

Penny Lenihan and Stuart Lorimer invite papers (maximum 8000 words) and commentaries and ‘opinion pieces’ (maximum 1500 words) on Trans Psychology. Commentaries and “opinion pieces” will only be reviewed by the Editors, papers will also be sent for external peer review. The deadline for abstract submissions is end of October 2006 (full papers by end of March 2007).

• Issues around DSM 1V and ICD 10 classifications
• Social representations of Trans experience
• Politics of “passing” and responding to social stigma
• Issues of sexual identity
• SM and transgender roles
• The range of gender variance
• Psychological effects of sex hormones
• Cross cultural and/or religious issues
• Trans psychology- the evidence base
• The effects of health care systems on influencing gender expression

Informal enquiries and submissions should be directed to: Dr Stuart Lorimer, Consultant Psychiatrist or Dr Penny Lenihan, Consultant Psychologist at Gender Identity Clinic, The Claybrook Centre, 37 Claybrook Rd, London W6 8LN. Email: penny.lenihan@wlmht.nhs.uk/ drstuartlorimer@hotmail.com. Tel: 020 7386 1249. Fax: 020 7386 1250

Damian McCann, one of Pink Therapy's Clinical Associates has just received ethical approval to commence his Doctoral research into the neglected area of violence and abuse within the couple relationships of gay men and he is seeking to recruit gay men who are or have been in a violent gay couple relationship.

If you know anyone willing to participate in a taped interview (full confidentiality and anonymisation offered), then please ask them to follow the link below and download the relevant documentation.