Mermaids Can Get In The Sea
The inexplicably "on-trend" charity given public money & endorsed by celebs to promote pink/blue stereotypes & cheer on child medicalisation is finally to be investigated by the Charity Commission.
Hallelujah. FINALLY. What took you so long, Charity Commission? Child safety & women’s rights campaigners have been trying to flag this up to you for YEARS. Now, there is to be an investigation, prompted by journalists at the Daily Telegraph, who’ve been taking a look at Mermaids’ own forums, due to concerns about child safeguarding.
Trans Charity Mermaids Giving Teens Breast Binders Behind Parents’ Backs
Trans Charity Mermaids To Be Investigated By Charities Commission
The Times: Trans Youth Group Faces Scrutiny By Charities Commission
The Times: Trans Charity’s Chatroom For Children Condemned as Irresponsible Free-For-All
To which Mermaids have responded in their usual defensive way thus:
These are the exact types of concerns that organisations like Transgender Trend have been shouting about, with evidence, for many years now, only to be rebuffed, demonised and ignored, with the help of the notable silence from the self identifying “progressive” media outlets who could and should have helped get the ball rolling on this scandal in terms of public awareness years ago.
I think Mermaids should do more than get in the sea. I think some of their management should be prosecuted, frankly. The reasons are numerous, but here are my big five.
1. Their CONSTANT Promotion of Regressively Sexist Stereotypes As Traits “Innate” To What Male and Female is, & Pushing That In Schools
Any indoctrinator worth their salt knows that “getting ‘em early” with whatever doctrine or belief system they wish to push and doing so with the help of “trusted adults” is a key part of getting an ideology embedded across society long-term. Mermaids have been no different. Along with their promotion of scientifically illiterate “Born In The Wrong Body” rhetoric, the idea that kids can somehow “Play With The Wrong Toys” for their sex, and that the mark of true maleness or femaleness is based on a bunch of regressively sexist sex stereotypes is what we see pushed consistently, although they of course deny this, despite the mountain of evidence.
“It’s not about sex stereotyping,” they and their acolytes will claim. Oh, really? Because here in one of their key training materials, they’re not attempting map the full, beautifully diverse range of human personality traits, likes, dislikes, on a scale of “girl” to “boy”, female to male at ALL, are they?
A few years ago, campaigner Michael Conroy, of Men At Work attended for himself a Mermaids training session… and asked the trainer some awkward questions. For those who are interested, these are his recordings of the whole session.
While it starts off okay (“We impose ‘pink/blue’ on boys and girls from birth” - yes, we do, or rather, a sexist society does), it become clear as the training goes on that it simply hasn’t occurred to these people that those limiting pink/blue categories of what makes a “girl” and what makes a “boy”, a woman or a man, could be a lot wider than they are promoting. They believe in those stereotypes. They don’t think they’re wrong or need challenging. No. They’re fine. It’s just that the kid doesn’t fit. It’s the kid who needs to change.
Even this week, one of their senior board members still seemed to think she was delivering some kind of clever “gotcha” when she posted this about the fact Maya Forstater founded anti pink-blue-toy group Let Toys Be Toys, claiming that she’d “changed.”
No, she hasn’t, Helen. You just don’t understand what Maya, Let Toys Be Toys and your other opponents have been and still are arguing. Never did.
Maya & LTBT argues that companies gendering toys in this way and saying that some toys are for girls and some toys are for boys restricts children and their freedoms. It also leads to sexists in general, especially the likes of Mermaids, claiming that any child who doesn’t play with the “correct” toys isn’t the “right” sex and is therefore transgender.
Mermaids are a prime example of an organisation suggesting that the toys kids’ play with are what ‘makes’ them girls and boys. It’s why EVERY SINGLE TIME a “trans child” is reported in the press, the most notable markers of their supposed transness is the failure to fit with exactly those ‘pink/blue’ stereotypes about what boys and girls should wear, play with or, be interested in. Some examples:
BBC: “I First Came Out As Trans Aged Eight” (2019)
Back then, my parents tried to give me one of my sister’s old Barbie dolls but it held my interest for less than a day. I preferred to play football, or mess around on a guitar or with a drum kit. As I got older, I had really short hair, liked wearing boys’ clothes and always hung out with ‘the lads’ in my street.
'Dempsey has been gender non-conforming since the age of eighteen months old, basically since she was able to express herself. She always gravitated to dolls, dresses and sparkly objects,'
There are numerous other examples. Check out every “trans child” narrative you see reported in the press and media for yourself. The “played with the wrong toys” “wanted to wear the wrong clothes” element is always glaring.
But the truth is that a girl—who is a ‘girl’ purely because she is a young female in a sexually dimorphic species— a girl who plays with trucks and wants to climb trees is still a girl. A boy who wants to wear a pink tutu and get a Barbie is still 100% a boy. Because he was born and observed (no, not “assigned”) biologically male at birth; that he is a male and not a female runs through his DNA, and it will do so for as long as he lives.
“Boy” is not a “blue” personality trait, outfit or set of toys. “Girl” is not a “pink” personality trait, outfit or set of toys. Neither is “Man” and “Woman”. They’re body types in a sexually dimorphic species (and no, DSDs don’t “prove” that we’re not in any way. Show us the third gamete and you might have a point.)
The fact of a boy’s maleness has NOTHING whatsoever to do with personality traits, likes, dislikes or toys, although it will impact what a SEXIST, PATRIARCHAL society deems is okay and appropriate in terms of how it will “permit” him to be and behave. And that impacts on what it teaches him about “boy” and “man-ness”. What he’s allowed and not allowed to do, what he should aspire to. Or not. Likewise with girls and women. What society indoctrinates our kids with about this and their “roles” has big impacts down the line.
For that matter, a girl who wants to wear a pink tutu is also still a girl. And she’s not somehow “more girl” than one who doesn’t. A girl who wants to climb a tree, play with her truck, her Barbie AND wear her pink tutu is still a girl: it doesn’t make her “non-binary”. That would assume that “all normal girls” are “binary”. and into pink designated “girl” stuff only. A boy who wants to play with his truck AND his Barbie, AND climb a tree while wearing his pink tutu is… what? You guessed it, he’s still every bit A BOY. Why wouldn’t he be? Why is he “less boy?” if he wants to wear a pink tutu, or play with Barbie dolls, as Mermaid’s CEO Susie Green’s small son indeed did, much to the consternation of his (clearly homophobic) father? Susie Green details this herself in her infamous TED Talk, linked to below.
Susie Green Ted Talk: A Mother’s Story
These regressive ideas about “natural” girl and boyhood, are essentially what sent SG’s own child down the path to medicalisation, to puberty blockers, and then finally, to having his penis removed and “transitioning” to his supposedly “true self” at the age of 16, in Thailand. After which, the Thai government changed the law to prevent it happening again in one so young. Here’s Susie and a friend laughing about her child’s micropenis. Those puberty blockers had meant that it “didn’t give the surgeons much to work with.”
Another demonstration, too, of why puberty blockers aren’t exactly “just a pause button,” or irreversible, as is constantly claimed.
And who was making the rules about what’s “normal” and “allowed” for boys and girls here? The child, even if they do say “I think I’m really a girl, Mummy”? Sorry, I really don’t think so. SG’s child was desperately trying not to make the adults in his life angry, his father in particular. This shit is built on adult ideas of what “girl” and “boy” should mean. Wholly sexist, conservative, regressive ideas, with an undercurrent of homophobia, and of the type that most of us thought had gone out in the 1950s. “Girls”, in this ideology, are deemed to be “naturally” interested in homemaking, in softness, in fashion, in looking pretty, in pink, in dolls. So any girl who doesn’t fit that apparently moves away from being “ a proper girl”. Likewise, this ideology’s idea of a “proper boy” is one who is assertive, who plays with trucks and trains, climbs trees, likes fighting and so on. “A boy who doesn’t fit with that? Who wants to play with Barbies? Outrageous! He can’t be a real boy! Hide his toys!” (as SG did to her little boy so as not to anger his father who, as the talk makes clear, was clearly furious his son might be gay). And then put him on puberty blockers and castrate him to turn him into the ‘girl’ —and we know this from his supposedly ‘incorrect’ natural choice of toys— he must really be.
Why have we allowed these people to go into organisations all over the land including SCHOOLS, to push the idea that “girl” and “boy” “man” and “woman” are the limiting set of stereotypes THEY call “gender identity” as if those things are somehow innate and the terms “girl” and “boy” can’t possibly accommodate diversity and difference outside of those stereotypes? As if the “pink and blue” they CLAIM they’re opposing, are actually in reality innate?
Mermaids Training: Their Website
Transgender Trend on SG’s comments re: trans kids
Transgender Trend: Teaching Gender Ideology in Schools
While I agree with the Mermaids trainer’s initial assessment in the training that adults DO impose “pink and blue” on kids on the basis of their sex, I think most actual progressive people would see the solution to that being to FIGHT those stupid “pink blue” stereotypes and their association with what makes a girl and a boy. Not to do what Mermaids have been doing in recent years (they didn’t always, interestingly), which is then to assume the stereotype is correct and the child who doesn’t conform is therefore somehow “the wrong sex” or was “born in the wrong body.” Because we all know what comes next.
2. Their Pushing Of Child Medicalisation - Despite Scientific Illiteracy, Lack of Knowledge And Categorically NOT Being “Experts” In Any Way
Notable during Mermaids’ ill-conceived and spiteful court case to divest the LGB Alliance (a group who, despite the constant defamation and lies about them, are actually made up of veteran gay rights campaigners) of charity status was their “star” witnesses’ complete and rather astonishing lack of medical expertise, or even anything approximating curiosity.
It soon became clear that NONE of the witnesses appearing for Mermaids had even bothered to read the Interim Cass Review in full, for example. Here is lawyer and equality rights expert Akua Reindorf questioning Mermaids’ “star witness”, Paul “not an expert” Roberts of the LGBT+ Consortium, on the Cass Review & GIDS.
AR - now the Interim Cass Review. Have you read it?
PR - only in brief.
AR - you'll agree with me it's a devastating critique of the service
PR - not without having reread it
AR - you'll agree the service was closed because of it.PR - not sure.
AR - referring to staff reporting pressure to affirm. Do you see that? Also, diagnostic overshadowing, referred patients have complex needs, once trans diagnosis, no further attention to other mental health needs. Do you remember that.
PR - I only skim read it.AR - complex interaction between sex & GI, societal pressure, etc. Do you remember reading that?
PR - only having skim read the report and its not my area of expertise.
AR - it's a bookmark for what's coming isn't it in the final review?PR - Yes, apparently so.
AR - longer term f/u data is limited, including those who have received physical interventions. Including desistance, and detransition. Explains difference between the two. Truth appears to be that the numbers of regretters, desisters and detransitioners are simply not known.
PR - inaudible response
AR - we don't know how many people actual regret and are actually gay and lesbians
PR - I don't agree.
AR - Do you know how many there are?
PR - no.
AR - then you do agree with me.
Yes, the report by actual child paediatrics expert Dr. Hilary Cass, on GIDS, which was until its impending closure ON CHILD SAFEGUARDING GROUNDS, the only Gender Identity clinic in England. Don’t you find that peculiar, given that Mermaids’ entire focus is on childrens’ gender identity? They should know the Cass Report and its findings inside-out, surely, even if they want to robustly disagree? But no. All the other witnesses showed similar lack of curiosity or knowledge.
You can check out the transcripts on Tribunal Tweets’ substack for more.
Then there were the glaring discrepancies around Mermaids’ claim that “We are not medical experts and don’t give medical advice” (“What?” I hear you cry “IT consultants like Susie Green aren’t actual medical or child development experts? Surely not!” )
Now, SG didn’t testify in this case, but their Chairman of Trustees, Belinda Bell, did. Here she is being interviewed by Karen Monaghan KC, for LGBA:
BB - You are reducing sex to genitals, boys have penises and girls have vaginas. I'm not sure that is true. Raises intersex.
KM - a vanishingly small number.
BB - I don't have the data but I would dispute that assertion.KM - I am putting these questions to you because you are Mermaids witness. Have we agreed that sex and gender are different things?
BB - yes I believe we can agree on that.
KM - let's discuss gender dysphoria. The easiest way to deal with it is through the Cass Review.I'm sure you're aware of the Cass Review. Undertaken by NHS England, there has been an interim report by Dr. Cass.
BB - just to be absolutely clear, I am not a medical doctor.
KM - obviously
BB - the Cass Review is not in MM area. We do not do medical stuff, we don't treat dysphoria.
KM - MM supports youth with dysphoria, many of your participants are either referred to GIDS, or are on a medical pathway.
BB - again, we are not a medical organisation.
KM - Dr Cass criticisms of GIDS.
BB - many critical of GIDS inability to serve patients.KM - Cass critical of many of the concepts, not so much the service capacity. Cass is exploring what gender dysphoria means. I'm exploring this because you said that is one of your areas of focus.
BB - some of our children have gender identity issues, some may have dysphoria.KM - directing BB to witness statement, gender dysphoria is one of most important area of focus.
BB - yes.
So if they’re “not a medical organisation” as BB claims above, why is Susie Green listed as an advisor to WPATH and advising on distinctly medical-sounding protocols for them as she does here (where she appears to be advocating for reduced gatekeeping for medicalising kids)
If Mermaids are ‘not a medical organisation’, why have their forums been promoting struck-off gender doctors the Webberleys as contacts for puberty blockers? Why have they been coaching young people on what to say to get diagnosed as having gender dysphoria and therefore onto a medical pathway sooner? Why have they been sending children breast-binders behind their parents’ backs?
And why are parents all over the country being referred to Mermaids for advice on “gender diverse” young people as if they are “the experts” in some way?
Here’s a thread giving an example from the forums.
3. Their Homophobia
If the underlying theme of homophobia wasn’t already obvious enough from Susie Green and other gender zealots’ own comments, it came through thick and fast in their witnesses’ testimonies against the LGBA.
Being allowed to be solely same-sex attracted, particularly for girls, and to say so, is considered heinous bigotry now, going by the angry testimony of more of Mermaids’ star (male) witnesses & their (male) lawyer against the lesbian founders of LGBA. To the point this line of questioning left long-time lesbian activist and LGBA founder Kate Harris in tears, as documented in this Guardian report.
Do check out the testimonies of both Paul Roberts and John Nicholson to see examples of the lesbophobia both were displaying during the tribunal so far. Essentially, it appears that not being ‘open’ to dick (if attached to a self identifying male ‘lesbian’ ie heterosexual male) is unacceptable bigotry as far as they are concerned. “Anyone who identifies as a lesbian is a lesbian” is the take. Even if that person is a heterosexual male.
All of which made it very obvious exactly why a small organisation of gay rights activists like the LGBA, needs to exist and what the problem is with Mermaids and their ilk. (And let’s not forget that in the UK, trans issues were not force teamed with the LGB until as recently as 2015).
Not to mention the institutional homophobia already flagged up by numerous separate clinicians, the whistleblowers at the Tavistock GIDS clinic, whose approach was heavily influenced by Mermaids and others pushing gender identity ideology. Given that, according to clinicians, the majority (80%) of gender non-conforming young people referred to them turn out to be gay if left to their own devices, and that of the young female teens referred to them (a 4000% increase in the last decade) the majority are both same sex attracted and autistic, anyone not asking questions is guilty of both negligence and homophobia, as far as I’m concerned.
Tavistock Identity Clinic “Converting Gay Children”
Tavistock Clinic Putting Young Gay People At Risk By Treating Them As Trans
Much of this came out in the employment tribunal case of Sonia Appleby, GIDS child safeguarding lead, who won £20k compensation after being prevented from doing her job of child safeguarding by her employers. One of the key issues raised by both Sonia Appleby and the other whistleblowers was that homophobia was being enabled by the clinic’s approach to identity issues. It’s one of the main reasons the clinic has been closed.
4. Their Manipulation of Anxious Parents & Pushing Of Suicide Ideation – And It NOT Being Called Out By The Many Agencies & Organisations Who Should’ve Done So
“Better a trans daughter than a dead son.” is Mermaids’ and other genderists’ well worn blackmail technique.
Here was Transgender Trend’s assessment of ITV’s Butterfly, (publicity pic above) in which this was a key theme.
Telling parents (and kids who identify as trans) that they will kill themselves if not put on medical pathways as soon as possible, when there is NO evidence of this at all (in fact, the evidence shows that suicide rates are more likely to rise AFTER transition - because it doesn’t actually solve underlying problems, perhaps?) both increases suicide ideation (completely against Samaritans’ guidance) and is deeply manipulative and deeply unethical. But if you’re told the people pushing this are “the experts” (even though they aren’t) and you’re threatened that you will lose your child (either through suicide, or in other cases, have them removed from your care) if you don’t affirm, and you everyone telling you this, the pressure is on for parents—the main group of people with the potential to stand in the way of a child being medicalised— to comply.
“Better a trans daughter or son than a GAY son or lesbian daughter.” That is what Mermaids and many gender followers mean, let’s face it. And to think so many supposed gay and lesbian organisations and celebs are cheering this bullshit on, claiming non affirmation or any exploration at all is ‘conversion therapy.’ While supporting what I and many others believe is literal gay conversion therapy. And being in complete denial that that is what they’re doing, or that it’s somehow ‘different’. When we can all see, when it’s obvious from what they SAY, for god’s sake, that it really, really isn’t.
5. Their Lack of Ethics, Incompetence, Lack Of Self Awareness and Resistance To Scrutiny
So. Mermaids, who take public money and are a registered charity, remember, promote regressively sexist pink/blue sex stereotypes, throughout society, and in schools. With the help of misogynist fox-botherer and non-equalities expert Jolyon Maugham and his self serving vanity project The Good Law Project, they launched an ill-advised court case against the LGBA, not only because of their homophobia, but because, as the testimony makes clear, they saw LGBA’s questioning of their ideological position as a threat to their income.
Despite “not being medical experts” or child development specialist they give “medical” advice, send breast binders to teens without parental knowledge, and campaign for irreversible medical pathways for the people who do send kids down medical pathways based on the diagnosis - which is heavily influenced by Mermaids ideological position and material.
The numerous issues with their forum shows they seem oblivious to even basic child safeguarding protocols (particularly online, which I’d expect even “IT consultant” Susie Green to be aware of).
And Mermaids are in such a self-referencing, self-serving bubble, held up by fawning celebs who think they’re being edgy, that they actually don’t appear to realise how incompetent they look from the outside to most sane people. Their “expert witnesses” have made complete fools of them so far in the LGBA case, just as a few years ago, Mermaids’ Helen Islan’s case against transsexual Miranda Yardley accusing him of transphobia (yep) was thrown out of court by an incredulous judge (It was mainly reported in the Mail, but here is MY’s own account also).
Up until now, they’ve been largely resistant to scrutiny, buoyed as they’ve been by celebrity endorsements and that of the supposedly ‘progressive’ media. As this excellent Spiked report by journalist Jo Bartosch back in 2020 shows, it’s been a long time coming. Note the comments from film-maker Olly Lambert, making the film Trans Kids: It’s Time To Talk for Channel 4, about his experiences with Mermaids. And his comments about Hamas are not a joke. He genuinely did have to interview them for another documentary.
Like many others before me, I learned that Mermaids cannot tolerate any questioning of their methods or motives and will work hard to shut down any debate rather than enter into it and win support.
It was easier to get an interview with Hamas and the IDF than it was with Susie Green.
Do people who react like this sound like people you’d want to entrust your kids to? Let’s hope the Charity Commission’s upcoming investigation puts an end to all this. Nobody is above scrutiny. Especially not charities who purport to be “looking after” vulnerable kids.