Mermaids - helping children & teenagers to deceive their parents

I haven't seen the MN thread (yet) but will say that it's very difficult for companies to make a stand on these issues (or has been until now). They risk prosecution, mud-slinging and boycotts for speaking out, as the trans lobby is vicious when rattled.

As we keep saying, however, the tide is finally turning, and when it finally does, more companies and platforms will be able to relax and allow free speech.

MN (and GN under its umbrella) is one of the few places where people can speak fairly openly about trans issues. Of course they are careful about not being sued - who can blame them?

Read this this morning. Says a lot really. Sorry it’s long.
Poor old Mermaids.
First an investigation finds they give medical advice, just after testifying in court that they never give medical advice, thus perjuring themselves.

Then an investigation finds they send kids binders behind their parents backs, which is at best a massive safeguarding abuse.

Then the same investigation finds that Mermaids still recommends to parents and children, Gender GP, the organisation run by Helen and Mike Webberly - the former who is still suspended for medical malpractice for their treatment of children with blockers and hormones and the latter who has been struck off after a child died also because of his treating them with hormones.

Then an investigation finds they tell kids on their forums what to say in appointments to get puberty blockers and hormones - the same forums that you have to provide an email address you guarantee your parents can’t access to be able to join them.

Now it transpires that one of their trustees writes papers on things like (and I apologise as it’s quite grim) how cumming in or on a child should be thought of as no different to cumming in or on a shoe. Now why on earth would a) mermaids have not done due diligence in properly vetting their trustees as his papers on noncing are public, and b) why would a man who thinks kids are sexual props want to be part of an organisation that encourages kids to keep secrets from their parents? (And even better, be part of an org that encourages kids to take puberty blockers, so you get adults with kids sized genitalia.) I mean, gosh! It’s a mystery isn’t it.

It’s almost as if that when you create an environment that grooms children to keep secrets from their parents, predators will jump right in and take advantage of those safeguarding loopholes to access their victim pool, and undermine safeguarding even further.

Mermaids. I’ve had your number for years and I hope this sinks you. I suspect it may not as people are still way too invested in ignoring anything that may change their worldview as being the good guys.

. . . . people are still way too invested in ignoring anything that may change their worldview as being the good guys.

All of that article (where was it published, please?) is shocking, but I think this is very relevant.

There are those who persistently hark back to race relations, gay rights struggles and feminism whenever Mermaids or Stonewall are mentioned. They clearly see themselves on the side of the angels, and try to frame the argument so that anyone disagreeing with them, or anyone who has concerns about those groups is 'unkind', or prejudiced or intolerant - either by saying so outright, or more passively by positioning themselves as kind, tolerant and open-minded, so that disagreers are, by definition, the opposite.

This has gone on for years, and often these people are not the types who can easily admit that they were wrong, or even that others just might have had a point, so dig their heels in further in the face of more evidence and scrabble about looking for tiny holes in arguments or anything else that they think might discredit their 'opponents'.

This is not a 'some people' post, incidentally. I am not just referring to people on here, but to people on Twitter, in workplaces and (particularly) to people whose jobs depend on defending the trans agenda.

So many institutions have been indoctrinated
People want to be good. So they are easily convinced.
Then there is the fact they will loose their jobs if they object.
Then as above there is the virtue signalling, whereby they may not be a 'believer' but need to be seen as such.
And so it goes on.

Namsnanny frightening isn’t it.

It really is 25Avalon
For me, one of the worst situations is how the police force has been politicized.

Notwithstanding vulnerable (any) children are being used as political footballs.

I think that there has been a lot of 'reframing' over the last decade or so.

Language has shifted so that people mean different things by the word 'woman' (and many people even refuse to define it, or see the question a some sort of trap). Words like 'mother' are similarly politicised.

The notion of so-called 'gender' has crept in, so that many people are confused about the difference between biological sex and a concept that seems to be based on feelings, but again, nobody can properly define, and can be seen as a trick question.

Things that women fought for and have come to expect are being lost, and those who fight to keep them are seen as unreasonable, and are persecuted and attacked. The law is used against them in some cases.

Situations that would have seems impossible years ago (eg men who 'identify' as women or even little girls are humoured and allowed to use their 'identification' in courts of law) are becoming more and more commonplace, and reporters use the 'preferred pronouns' that people are being compelled to use in the workplace, so that their employers get more points on the scorecards imposed by organisations with vested interests in getting everyone on board with their agendas.

Rape can now be committed by 'women', and there are calls from the more militant TRAs for the concept of it to be redefined, so that it no longer means nonconsensual penetration with a penis.

Sports competitors are robbed of their titles - women coming second to a man get silver instead of the gold they deserve.

Children are persuaded that they are 'in the wrong body' instead of possibly gay, or just unhappy, and are encouraged to take steps to be recognised as the opposite sex.

Homosexuality is being reframed as 'same-gender attraction', and lesbians who don't want sex with men - even when they are dressed as women - are reviled as 'transphobic', a slur which is used against anyone who disagrees with any of the above.

And if you object to any of this you are 'unkind', 'unreasonable', 'prejudiced', 'discriminatory', 'out of touch' and somehow the wrong sort of feminist.

It's scary how quickly so much of the above has become mainstream thinking and how quickly people were 'captured'. There is a backlash now, and things are shifting, but if we don't all speak up whenever we can, the current could pull us back again just as quickly as we went under the last time.

I think there is a slight questioning in society of how and why we all got to this point Doddledog. But I'm not sure how strong the push back actually is.
The Tavistock Clinic has been closed, so I presume that signals something.

And you are right speaking up is essential, but so many people have lost jobs etc., it's hardly surprising that people feel cornered.

Thank you Doodledog for that clear outline of how far down the road this has gone.
It outlines how many people who have fought for their rights, e.g. females, homosexuals, lesbians, victims of rape have been damaged by the actions of TIM and some women.
Then add in the children whose futures have been damaged by child abuse that has visible acceptance by some.
We need to keep speaking up. Groups like Women won’t Wheesht are going their best, but there needs to be more reaction against the creeping invasion.

Anyone defending Mermaids now is so morally bankrupt I cant even begin to describe it. Hiding in plain sight. My prediction is closed down by next year.

Keep writing to MPs and especially to MSPs if you are in Scotland.
I'm told that they aren't getting enough correspondence from 'our side', compared to the trans side.

Forgot to say, you can find out who your representatives are on www.theyworkforyou.com
You can also send your email/s via that site.

In Scotland, you have one MSP for your constituency and 7 more for your region.
You can contact all of them, via theyworkforyou .

Galaxy

Anyone defending Mermaids now is so morally bankrupt I cant even begin to describe it. Hiding in plain sight. My prediction is closed down by next year.

I know. Why is anyone's faith so blind that they can possibly leap to the defence of Mermaids now?

It's always been a mystery to me why people would choose to believe that so many women would suddenly become what they consider 'transphobic' when previously we had been broadly left wing, union members, feminists etc and not question it. Men, I could just about understand - this is about men's rights really, and some of them have spent their lives shouting women down. In many ways this is just more of the same, but I've never understood why women didn't at least question it. Internalised misogyny is one explanation, a sense of personal superiority another, but how women can defend first the Tavistock and now Mermaids is beyond me. It just doesn't make sense.

I see Nicola Sturgeon has said she is a ‘real feminist’ presumably as opposed to JK Rowling’s type of feminism, which imo centres women, not wannabe women. NS also does the ‘Oh look, a squirrel!’ thing.

Ms Sturgeon said there were “many, many real threats” to women such as physical and sexual attacks and the removal of abortion and reproductive rights in countries such as Iran.

“There are no shortage of attacks on women that feminists, real feminists as I consider myself to be should be focusing on right now,” she added.

“The threat to women in our society today is not from trans women. It is from abusive men and from lawmakers who want to take away our rights and that is what we should be focusing on.” From R4 via the Telegraph.

Men. Of the sex category that transwomen belong to.

And of course no abusive man would self ID as a transwoman for easier access to women would he? It's pure coincidence that half of the transwomen in prison in Scotland began their transition after they were convicted. Another coincidence is that the percentage of sex offenders in the transwomen prison population in the UK is greater than that of male prisoners. Why won't NS accept that it is the abusers who will falsely claim to be transwomen that we object to, instead of just denying it as even a possibility. A "real feminist" who won't even meet with the women who hold a different view to her!

Exactly Galaxy it's like she believes they do change sex with the magic words.

And I am sorry but there is zero evidence that transwomen cant be abusive. In the way that short men can be abusive, tall men, ginger men, men with or without beards. It is just a category of the Male sex.

FarNorth

Keep writing to MPs and especially to MSPs if you are in Scotland.
I'm told that they aren't getting enough correspondence from 'our side', compared to the trans side.

Perhaps that's because there aren't so many people on "your side" as you think there should be are?

Before the shaming starts, I have no opinion on Mermaids, don't know any trans people and think the whole thing is ridiculously overblown. There, you can start now

Why won't NS accept that it is the abusers who will falsely claim to be transwomen that we object to, instead of just denying it as even a possibility.

NS evidently doesn’t consider biological fact sufficient evidence that Trans-identified-males are males. Evidently females who have committed crimes deserve everything they get; even the double punishment of being housed with TIM who have committed crimes against females. It’s difficult to argue with ignorance like that.

A "real feminist" who won't even meet with the women who hold a different view to her!
A real feminist? No. That’s why she won’t meet with real feminists.

Yes, that post is completely "hinged". And entirely balanced.

We're the real feminists, we're the real feminists.

(Comment stolen from Twitter this morning )

I am just reading the list of safeguarding failures with regards to Mermaids. I am always interested in what leads people to ignore red flags with regards to child safeguarding, I have seen it happen a lot across a range of organisations.

From The Critic
*It is not reactionary to protect children
Progressives must police themselves*
ARTILLERY ROW 6 October, 2022
By
Josephine Bartosch
As a general rule, any adult who tells a child it’s okay to keep secrets from their parents ought not to be trusted with the care of young people. Yet child transition charity Mermaids has been accused of doing just this.

From the Guardian to the Daily Telegraph, column inches have been filled with allegations and testimonies from angry parents, which have now led to an investigation by the Charity Commission. Reported safeguarding failures include that the group gave reckless advice to children about puberty blockers, and that a help centre moderator arranged to secretly post a breast-binder to a thirteen-year-old girl, in the full knowledge this was against her parents’ wishes. In response, Mermaids accused the media of making “false claims” as part of “a targeted, cynical attack”.

Most recent in the growing list of less than edifying stories, is the resignation of Dr Jacob Breslow from the board of trustees following reports that he gave a speech to a paedophile support group. In response to this, Mermaids told news outlets, “Once notified we took swift and decisive action to investigate”. Yet Breslow’s views on paedophilia were reported by the magazine 4WPub six months before his appointment to the charity in July this year.

Mermaids has taken a defensive stance, positioning itself as the real victim.
Rather than apologising for these repeated lapses in safeguarding, Mermaids has taken a defensive stance, positioning itself as the real victim. This approach is common within the LGBT industry, where the argument that transphobia today is simply 1980’s homophobia rebooted has become a favoured method of deflecting tough questions.

Anyone criticising Mermaids or expressing concern about the harm they have done is automatically labelled “transphobic” by those who continue to support Mermaids, even in the light of recent revelations.

I hope they recognise however that it is an lgb charity that has been at the forefront of highlighting the safeguarding concerns.