Conflicting approaches to transgender healthcare will be showcased in Killarney next month as the town hosts two separate international conferences featuring mutually exclusive ways of helping people suffering with gender dysphoria.

Genspect, an organisation that aims to highlight the potential dangers of medical transitioning, will be hosting a “counter-conference” to the European Professional Association of Transgender Health (Epath) conference booked into Killarney’s convention centre between April 26 and 28.

Founded by Irish psychotherapist Stella O’Malley, Genspect said its conference will “challenge the evidence base for gender medicine, and describe the widespread damage that gender identity ideology has wrought.”

Among Genspect’s speakers are people who have detransitioned — Ken Zucker, a Canadian-American sexologist, Helen Joyce, the author of the book Trans, and Maya Forstater, an English researcher who won an employment case over her gender-critical views.