woman loses residency of son she was raising as daughter

I would also remind you that bthe people in this group are not just putting Mermaids down but they are also against you and I as parents who allow their children to live and be who they want to be.

Thats not true at all. Its great that people let their kids be kids. No need to try and scare some people out of letting the truth out about Mermaids

cool

BlondEbby...one of the things I have always been told by members within Mermaids is to go at your child's pace and focus on what they want. Many, many of the children want to go faster than us as parents and we have to say slow down a little. But often holding a young person back leads to great distress. As someone who also see all the messages it is nearly always the case that it parents broaching the subject of how to go private and then others post what they know or their own experience. As to the subject of self harm and suicide, well you only have to see the number of parents who are concerned about their children self harming or worse. I myself asked the Tavistock about this at a family day and they confirmed the much higher levels in our young people and this is very clearly documented in many areas. The research shows that young peoples with gender dysphoria are 10x more likely to self harm than the average population. This drops when supported by family and peers but can rise when the young people undergo bullying, rejection and isolation at school. So actually when this is talked about it is not scare mongering it is fact. You are very blessed if your child has never felt like this way. The only way that any of this will change is when our young people are totally accepted by the society we live in. A society that is governed by others norms. I would imagine that you have been receiving support within the Mermaids forums even though you paint a bleak picture. Yes there are parents there who are fighting for the rights and freedoms for their children but without people fighting the fight over the centuries we would not have the freedoms we now have and your child will benefit from those who carry.on that fight. I would also remind you that bthe people in this group are not just putting Mermaids down but they are also against you and I as parents who allow their children to live and be who they want to be.

Well I shall remain genderless then..... As I prioritise my multitasking 😂

(only as I see myself as genderless really, unless choosing to insult my husband about men being able to multitask )

A favourite riposte to this, is that women multi-task, men prioritise.

I'm going to echo BlondEbby somewhat here, for both the fact I was not aware the CEO had gone to such extreme measures, I had no idea she thought her child was gay at 18 months either (I think someone mentioned this earlier on) and that I am somewhat surprised how quickly child's names and gender are changed so early on/so quickly. But then I'm not in a position to know why or why other options are explored first, unless of course they have.

However, thankfully whomever I have spoken to adviced a slow pace of movement and just go with the flow. Ultimately I personally would not head in any extreme route and have infact pushed my child to find hobbies that can define them as an individual and grow their own confidence to whom they are. Yes my child dresses as a "boy", but then so do I. I think if we dissected me, I think you'd find a mass of confusion and yet I am confident in who I am, and my gender (only as I see myself as genderless really, unless choosing to insult my husband about men being able to multitask )

I don't and won't let my child become fixated on the gender issue, nor define them but think because I have other children that have special needs, I won't let their disability define them.

PrawnofthePatriarchy, no I wasn't aware that the CEO had taken her child to Thailand. I'm not saying she keeps that secret, when you join Mermaids it is a bit overwhelming with all the info, so I may have forgotten! What surprised me also is how quickly the parents go about changing their child's name and gender on all things official. My child is living as a different gender to their birth gender but we are working at a slow speed and I'm taking my lead from my child. My child is happy at this gentle course. After our first Tavistock apt my child told me afterwards that they wanted to move slowly and certainly would not want to go anyway near cross sex hormones until they were absolutely sure this was what they really wanted. This is in line with the Tavistock's guidelines.
I'm all for supporting my child but the Mermaids parents seem to run before they can walk.

and doing what is best for the child is what we like to see

What's best for the child in almost all cases is to let them be kids. Not taking a normal stage in their life and mutilating them and making them sterile. Not to mention the adverse MH effects to this has on them.

Good points, SomeDyke. I particularly like your last paragraph. It seems to met too that it's very troubling that no one is allowed to ask the real questions. Alice Dreger, the historian of medicine and science, covers problems faced by researchers in this field in her book "Galileo's Middle Finger."

She writes: "Many sex researchers told me—without wishing to be named—that trans activists... have behaved so crazily, the entire population they “represent” has been marked by researchers as being too unstable and dangerous to bother with."

Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology, told her: "...graduate students, post-docs, and other young researchers will not touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, starving the field of new talent. Only tenured professors who have decided to change fields—a tiny number—would take it on.”

Thanks, BlondEbby, that's really interesting. Were you aware that the Mermaids CEO flew her child to the US at age 12 to obtain medication and then to Thailand at the age of 16 for gender reassignment surgery? Is that something people in Mermaids ever mention?

I've heard of pressure/encouragement to put your child on cross sex hormones from someone else who has been involved.

Hi, I was recently a Mermaid parent and whilst I don't know (nor should I) the story behind the mum whose child was taken away, I thought I'd give my experience of Mermaids. When I joined it was a relief to find a group of parents going through the same thing. I originally found the forums a great place for support and advice. I have also met with quite a few of the parents also. What I would say is that I have found Mermaids to be a very friendly bunch, however, when I look back at things that have been said to me it does start ringing alarm bells. One of the first things ever said to me by Mermaids was about the high rate of self harm and attempted suicide in the transgender community. I have brought that up in front of different health care professionals (inc the Tavistock) who have actually said that this is not correct. If a Trans person is not receiving support then yes, there could be a risk of self-harm and attempted suicide but this risk is no greater than a non Trans person. The other thing I got from some of the members is how bad and how slow the Tavistock is. The CEO almost frightens you about going to the Tavistock and encourages you to go private if you can afford it. The Tavistock takes things slow because changing gender should be a slow process. I was also told by another member to put my child on to cross sex hormones. My child is under 16. At no point did Mermaids ever talk about 'what happens if your child changes their mind'. I have found that there is a large group of parents who do want to help you but there's a group who seem to think they must fight with everyone. It is a shame as members have left Mermaids and others are talking about leaving. I think the success of the charity and its many awards may have gone to their head. It would be nice for everything to calm down again and for it to be a safe place. But essentially they have to remember they are a parent support group. They are there to support and share experiences but they are not professionals.

Some of this reads so sad. I don't conform to being a feminine woman but so what happened to feminists from the 60s who four against all those stereotypes?
It is also news to me that people's bodies and brains are now separate entities.
Obviously people and particularly teenagers question life but providing them with inaccurate information isn't going to help them either.

Gidds as far as I know the NSPCC are taking their advice from Mermaids - or at least, they are featured on the NSPCC site.

And we're back to circular validation in an area where there was no official advice, so an organisation could step in and make a name for themselves: SmallOrg offers itself as expert, August Body #1 accepts SmallOrg with no close examination as no organised alternative and they don't hold relevant expertise in-house, other august bodies see August Body #1 endorse SmallOrg and think well, August Body #1 must have done their research so SmallOrg must be OK. SmallOrg cite August Bodies #1, #2 and #3 on website, other august bodies think, well, they must be expert, and so on. Funding follows, and here we are.

Still haven't heard from one parent who says that after starting to get "support" from Mermaids, their child decided they were "cis" after all.

Still waiting.

I expect I'll be waiting forever.

How can any rational human being listen to what the head of mermaid has to say about her own child (felt they were gay at 18 months old!!!) and really think they are giving the whole picture?

See for me, approaching Mermaids, I found the few I have spoken to to be very sensible and open minded to other options. I certainly haven't found them to push any idea upon me, but just explained things when I asked questions. To be totally honest, I would have made a run for the hills had they been anything but giving what I would deem sensible advice. As I've said before, I'm pretty laid back about most things but the quick pace that my child was finding out about gender dysmorphia, binders, hormone blockers, surgery etc made me reach for the phone for advice - and not just mermaids but the NSPCC too, who actually gave me the same kind of advice as Mermaids. I'm trying to steer my child away from stereotypes and just want her to be who she is without pigeon holing

Society always believed in gender, we all know that. But 'innate gender' or 'brain sex' or 'born in the wrong body' only became the 'standard' trans story relatively recently. Actually, it was a bit of a rehash, given that 'born in the wrong body' used to be an 'explanation' (okay, even I'm getting tired of all the inverted commas here!) for butch lesbians (who should obviously have been men, really, rather than inverts or the damned third sex. As opposed to femme partners who were confused ordinary women, see 'The Well of Loneliness'.....), or for effeminate gay men. Other than the 'weird hormones' explanation, or hormone washes in the womb, or how many elder siblings (did you go measure your finger ratio?).

But now this innate gender/brain sex line is so much the norm that it is twisting what little research has been done in the area. So, for example, those brain region size papers, who of course compare female on this end of the spectrum, male on the other end, and then find that trans is somewhere in the middle (and closer to the sex they identify as rather than their birth sex). Apart from the fact that the stats and the methodology of the papers is nonsense, just the fact that they are projecting their data onto that simple male/female axis and expecting trans to be somewhere in between speaks volumes. They aren't questioning that this is the sort of comparison to be making in this case.

What doesn't seem to be being looked at (or please elucidate if anyone has any info) is where dysphoria comes from, and whether the bodily gender/sex dysphoria is different in essence from other dysphorias. Instead, it seems (amongst lay folk at least), to be the obvious and logical response to a belief that the brain is sexed and being sexed differently to the body. Of course you'd have dysphoria!

Seems to me you can't ask the real questions (what exactly is trans and what helps gender dysphoria) because we are supposed to already know from the accounts of transfolk (apart from the ones like Anne Lawrence who say autogynephilia, but they are obviously not real trans or at least not the right sort of trans!), hence asking the questions is transphobia cos it's disbelieving transfolk...............

Back a long time ago, when glass was becoming more affordable for societies around Europe, there was a culture-bound syndrome called the Glass Delusion.

People thought they were made of glass or in some way contained a huge amount of glass (one famous case thought she had an entire glass piano in her body, I believe). They believed this quite strongly, believed they were so fragile and delicate that they could be broken to pieces.

If Mermaids had been around at that time, they'd hear from kids with the Glass Delusion and talk to their parents about ensuring that their house was completely padded in all surfaces to avoid breaking their child, how to cope with a child who says their glass has been chipped, and how to avoid suicidality by making sure their children know that their parents believe 100% in the glass inside them.

No one doubts these children hold their beliefs sincerely. No one doubts their beliefs are causing them distress. But when children are distressed by sincerely-held beliefs, the first question adults should have isn't "how do I appease this obviously true belief," but "is this belief actually true, and if not, how do I re-orient my child to better understand the reality of his/her situation?"

It's not kind to children to tell them their every fear is valid. It's not kind to children to tell them that every bit of magical thinking they experience is real and true. Children rely on the adults in their lives to help them make sense of their feelings and experiences, and need guidance to help them understand when their beliefs are irrational or ill-founded, not blind encouragement of whatever beliefs they seem most strong-minded about.

Somedyke, that is absolutely how it feels to me, having grown up in a religious family. People constantly trying to insist that gender identities are real, and that if I just work a little bit harder or try yet another different approach to it, this completely nebulous and ill defined thing will suddenly reveal itself to me.

Sorry I got you wrong, ATrans, but the 'we' jarred on me a bit as well - didn't realise you were royal!

I am happy for my daughters to be gender-non conforming. I will be quite chuffed if they decide to study engineering rather than beauty therapy. Currently they hate pink, wear jeans, loves climbing trees and go to Cubs not brownies. I gave them garages and tool kits and well as dolls when they were little and they have played with both. Every little boy I know has had a phase of loving to dress up as Disney princesses. Why is this even a 'thing'?

"....and doing what is best for the child is what we like to see. Letting your child explore their gender and be gender non-confirming is fine."

But what about detransitioners, who despite having dysphoria, or finding that transitioning did help their dysphoria (or not), or who may have passed extremely well etc etc, instead decided that gender was nonsense! That it wasn't a question of social reasons, or not passing, or not getting on with T, or whatever?

That is the bit that is missing here from the supposed reasons for detransitioning, or what to do about your offspring, the stopping believing in the whole (innate) gender thing........................

Maybe, being very cynical here, the issue first and foremost is believing in gender in the first place. You may then still have body dysmorphia, but maybe then you can understand it a bit differently if you stop believing in the gender part.....................Not exploring, or conforming, or not conforming, just stopping believing! What keeps occuring to me is someone trying different religions, trying different sects, swapping churches every second weekend, and no one pointing out that maybe the whole problem is wanting a religion in the first place, rather than thinking you haven't found quite the right one yet.......................

It's a Royal we. Not a royal wee.

I'm not on the Mermaids forums. Surely my opinions would indicate that...

From previous posts, I thought ATrans is an MTT parent (or has fathered children) not a mother of a trans child.

Fourormore, it's not any deficiency in your understanding, though I imagine you already know that. It's that the whole business is wholly illogical. No one is wholly gender conforming, which should mean that all of us are trans. However, in practice, it appears that only the young or cool are GNC. The rest of us are supposed to be happy with fucking nonsense "cis".