woman loses residency of son she was raising as daughter

Yes ageing, me too

There's a woman on their twitter who says she's a parent of a trans teenager who's saying 'think you might have got it wrong this time'
A couple of others as well basically saying 'look, have you read the judgment? It doesn't sound like transphobia'
I had to check the spelling of ageing/aging then aging! Apparently both are correct. Thought I'd got it wrong!

It may be that the judgement made clear why Mermaids are not supposed to contact the child. If that part of the judgement is confidential, we will never know. It serves their purposes to portray themselves as victims of injustice.

Mermaids are unwilling to accept that they might have made a mistake in this case. Incredibly dogmatic, surprisingly (not)

It wasn't in the judgement. but the public judgement may not be the same as the one given in Court (made clear in red at the top).

I either missed this bit in the judgment, or it wasn't expressly stated in such bald terms. Did anybody else see it ?

From their own public facebook page (image)

Is it usual for a judge to expressly forbid a charity from having any contact with a former beneficiary ?

Or is this quite a notable expection to the way things usually work ?

But I might be right, in which case it's another reason the amateur blundering of this organisation really needs to be checked

Certainly there appears to be a rather large (and growing) question mark over how well they adhere to an appropriate safeguarding process for vulnerable beneficiaries of their services.

After the Camila debacle, are entities that keep an eye on charities a bit more proactive in the face of red flags ?

Elsa, thank you so much for your perspective on this. You are not a hypocrite, you are dealing with an incredibly difficult situation and just want to do the best thing for your child. It shouldn't need to be all or nothing. Most critical people here don't hate transpeople or think that they shouldn't exist. They just have concerns about damaging elements of transactivism and how they are unthinkingly promoted by people in authority without considering the impact on women and children.

And they have succeeded, so far. The Commons Select Committee, the NHS, the NSPCC, all kinds of other august bodies, all now accepting their bullshit claims to any sort of expertise on this, with no-one looking too closely at all.

I think the NSPCC sort of bowed to it quite grumpily. I don't think they were that happy about their debate having to be cancelled. Which is nice chink to have in the amour when turning things back around. You want bodies to be harbouring resentment and a good dose of "Emperor's New Clothes at play here in my private, silenced, opinion" when shit hits fan. Cos it speeds up the 180° turn required.

It is notable who DIDN'T accept their bullshit claims. If the court system thinks you do not meet the standard required to make submissions, despite having one of the highest profiles in terms of contact with the mother/child in the case... it casts doubt on how experty your expertise actually is. And raises the spectre of "oh wait, did we check this lot out properly ? How come they were left out of people called to the hearing ? Fuck ! ARSE COVERING ALERT - DELETE DELETE DELETE ALL LINKS AND CONNECTIONS !" happening amoung other bodies/entities.

I'll leave room for a shedload of self importance colouring their reaction to not being invited to give evidence. But I reckon the spectre of being shoved back into the cold, now they are used to basking in the sunlight of expert status and media attention, is also providing fuel for the agitation and flapping.

'Deviant' is such an old-fashioned, conservative thing to say about LGB isn't it? Just more proof that although trans ideology is painted as being very progressive and ahead of its time, in fact it is quite the opposite

iPost I think you have hit the nail on the head. Mermaids may have started up as a mutual support circle, but they position themselves as the authority on trans children and teens. (Not that I think there is any such thing as a "trans child", because they aren't bloody fully-cooked yet and don't know what they will be. "Gender non-conforming child", sure, but not "trans child".)

And they have succeeded, so far. The Commons Select Committee, the NHS, the NSPCC, all kinds of other august bodies, all now accepting their bullshit claims to any sort of expertise on this, with no-one looking too closely at all.

I can't believe Fox "we don't want to be lumped in with those icky deviant gays" Fisher has managed to make such a name for themselves amongst supposedly progressive types, either. It's just amazing. Anyone else who came right out and said that on video would have been torn apart on social media by now.

iPost - I look forward to reading it!

Mermaids are preparing a statement in response to the judgment. Given the high level of outrage (from them and their supporters) that they "the only ones with the right specialist knowledge, who knew the mother and child bestest of all!" were not asked to give evidence at the hearing.... I am not going to fall over in shock if they go for a Camila Batmanghelidjh style of self defence.

AKA - when in deep deep hole .... hire half a dozen of the most powerful diggers money can buy.

Maybe enough letters pointing out their ridiculous Twitter feed at the moment? And does anyone have screenshots in case they delete it?

And I gather they are funded with Lottery money too...

Mermaids is a registered charity. So maybe:
www.gov.uk/complain-about-charity
You'd have to give you your real name etc. and a sentence of evidence...

It is, sadly, Flora.

Some parents, rather than allow their children to be the gay man/lesbian they might end up being, feel it's a much better idea to put their children onto lifelong drug regimes. Drug regimes that are often deleterious to health and which always have fairly horrendous side effects.

Homophobia, and especially lesbophobia is alive and well.

The CEO of Mermaids has made. Number of homophobic statements including on MN. Transing kids is homophobic conversion therapy.

It's extremely worrying, isn't it, MrsJamin? iPost has described the mechanism by which extremists morph into respected sources very clearly. The CEO of Mermaids shouldn't have anything to do with children, any children, if that's her track record.

One of the issues about transgenderism is that it's nearly always the extremists who get listened to, though there are a few outliers, like Jen Bob, a real sweetie, who has produced videos explaining why she doesn't approve of transitioning children. But we seldom hear from the gender dysphoric minority, those who empathize with women to the extent that they don't demand access to our showers and changing rooms. The loudest voices come from fetishists who demand sexual access to lesbians, who utter rape and death threats to any woman who gainsays them and who attack women's events, insisting that a vulva cupcake event is "transphobic" ffs.

The article by Helen Lewis is a very good summary of the full judgement.

The judgment gives a very different view: that the child has shown no interest in being a girl, but that the mother is controlling and manipulative, and has psychological issues — an “enmeshed relationship” — which prevent her from seeing the child as a separate being from herself

He describes himself as 'a clever child who just wanted to please people' and says how his family thought of him as the black sheep and a tomboy. It does make me think that the way his family were and his own personality must have had a lot to do with him seeing being the opposite sex as a solution to the problems he was having

How are they the ones that the NHS signpost to here?

I can't speak for trans specifically, but you'd be amazed at how easy it is to set yourself up as one of the key support/guidance points in a niche area and then get indirectly promoted via links from official bodies. And/or become the go to person for the media.

It's like a circle of constant reinforcement. Position yourself on the web as serious, established, expert mouthpiece. Person preparing "official-ish stance/lip service page" for their organisation's website skims your site. Adds a link cos they were told to find and add some helpful links. Somebody doing similar for another body sees the original link. Assumes it must be legit cos... another official-ish source linked to them. Adds the link themselves. Journalist looking for a quote sees the links on official-ish sites. Assumed legitimacy and checking out all done. Calls and turns the spokesperson into a talking head. Spokesperson does level best to keep promoting themselves as massive expert/best talking head. More links occur. Links have babies. More media calls. Baby links spawn more baby links. Establishment as Trusted Leading Expert well on the way to becoming reality. So far everybody is mosty relying on a vague "somebody else" to turn over rocks and check under floorboards (e.g. deeply dig around in their forum using history and see what they say when they think nobody is looking) for any lurking skeletons in the talking head's closet.

It's only when the shit starts to hit the fan that all the linkers and journalists start to wonder why "vague somebody else" didn't do any strenuous digging at all, back when it was just a website nobody had heard of.

8 years ago somebody explained to me how it worked, and told me she intended to use the strategy to become the national go to expert for our shared "parental choice" niche. She was a rank newbie at it. Had not actually even begun doing the niche thing when she declared her National Expert intentions.

Nonetheless she was an established media presence in two years. She talks for all of us. But in reality speaks for precious few of us. Unfortunately when the snowball has picked up speed in its rolling it is hard to stop it. By the time you realise the urgent need to make it stop before it does harm, it's too big, and just trundles massively and squishily over all your objections.

It's entirely possible that Mermaids got linked by the NHS under a similar sort of process.

That video was so sad, his/her family didn't accept him/her being a tomboy, so instead of realising that the family were fucked up...

RE the links Prawn, it appears that Fox Fisher in the video calls LGB people 'deviant'. See also @theFoxFisher

Helen Lewis has written an interesting article about this case medium.com/@helenlewis/the-boy-made-to-live-as-a-girl-or-the-girl-made-to-live-as-a-boy-e76221bb50c#.d5tcrd7fy.

She makes a lot of the same points that have come up on this thread, including the way debate is stifled and how transing of children takes place in 'an evidence vacuum'.