Mermaids

LanceCleg
I so agree. There should be no place for pressure or activist groups in schools actively promoting their own particular ideology.
Education has (until this) been really 'hot' on dealing with sensitive issues, ensuring that political parties are presented as part of a 'balanced' topic with coverage from both sides and frankly keeping out extreme organisations pushing their own narrow agendas.
The trouble is that they present themselves as 'child advocates' educating the rest of us transphobic and hateful folk in the error of our ways. The materials they use look and feel like excellent anti bullying materials for schools - which of course superficially they are - until you delve down into the ideology behind them.

Promoting the 'rights' of one group at the expense of other groups. Ignoring safeguarding issues in favour of promote transgender ideology.
Presenting outrageous issues as facts - that children pre and during puberty must have access to untested drugs - actively stating this is important and, as the DfE fund and direct schools to them, schools just accept that these people know what they are talking about. Until of course you look at those wretched facts and statistics - what the drugs actually do to young bodies, the lack of any testing for this purpose, detransitioning rates, that this is medical experimentation on children.
Yet few politicians, medics, headteachers, those in social care etc have the courage to stand up and point this out.
Because #nodebate is such a successful threat and people want to keep their careers.

It is a scandal of epic proportions and some of the worst casualties will be children - despite all the safeguards we have (age of consent, Fraser guideline competence, safeguarding rules) in our supposedly sophisticated society, we are just abandoning these children and young people to those seeking to use them to validate their own adult decisions.

guardianfree - I truly believe that Mermaids is one of the most dangerous lobby groups I have ever come across. Even Kids Company didn't trash safeguarding in the way this group does. And they don't even hide it. Whatever position parents take on trans issues and their GNC kids, they should keep far, far, far away from Mermaids. (I know I said this already, but I can't emphasise it strongly enough.)

I am okay with them exploring that, and coming to that conclusion for themselves.

I don't think we have the luxury of this any more. We have the internet in every home, and with it are all the people who wish everyone to come to a conclusion for themselves, preferably the same one they have come to and to affirm their way as right, and will go the extra mile to help them in their hour of need. And you will never know

Since luner referenced the PACE study above, posters may be interested to read the facts about that study and what it ACTUALLY found, and the sample sizes:
fairplayforwomen.com/fact-checker/mermaids-tg-lying-unprofessional

ALunerExplorer posted these figures upthread (apologies if they've already been corrected).
"In 2016:

10 -14 yrs of age - persons 0.1%, male 0.2%
15 - 19 yrs of age - persons 5.3%, male 7.5%, females 2.9%"

Now my spidey senses went ping because 7.5% would be absolutely huge - a national scandal. When I clicked on the ONS link, it turned out they are in fact figures per 100,000 of the population, i.e. Luner was out by a factor of a thousand. That's a big mistake. Please, Luner, actually pay attention to being factually accurate (this is up there with your "revenge porn photos of a child" which were in fact publicly available photos of a 20 year old taken from their own book and twitter feed).

luner What is the difference between a butch lesbian who falsely believes she is a trans man, and a 'true' trans man?

How do you establish whether both people, with their female bodies TRULY have 'male brains' or not? Surely it's like a belief in flat earth? We don't pretend that some people are inhabiting a flat planet and the rest are on a globe just because it's rude to dispute their vehement belief?

It seems like you think identities are magical. If you say it with enough determination it must be true. If you can be dissuaded your magic was never strong enough.

The rub being that it is forbidden to try to dissuade anyone anyway.

LanceCleg
Thank you for mentioning safeguarding.
Any organisation that misrepresents suicide statistics is not keeping children safe.
Any organisation that actively promotes children taking untested drugs pre or during puberty as it's dangerous not to, is professionally dangerous.
Any organisation that tells adults working with children that they can keep the confidentiality of children who disclose any level of 'gender confusion' is breaking the fundamental rule of safeguarding - you never agree to keep a child's confidentiality, you must always share it with the appropriate safeguarding / pastoral officer. Individuals may well not be aware of the significance of a piece of information and there are dozens (if not hundreds) of serious case reviews identifying the lack of information sharing as a key factor in child deaths.

Safeguarding always takes priority - "the welfare of the child is paramount' Whatever is happening, a school's first responsibility is to ask ' is this child safe?' and then take it from there.

Examples of these dangerous practices can be found in written materials provided by a number of TG pressure groups.

No.

I am okay with them exploring that, and coming to that conclusion for themselves.

My dd was interviewed by CAMHS for a potential referral to the Tavistock Centre (very different from Mermaids I know). I would never have agreed to that except for the fear of suicide that I picked up through internet research and her subsequent threat to kill herself after a puberty talk (and after hearing the story of a friend on puberty blockers). I'm extremely careful not to attempt to direct her towards a particular identity and to affirm the identity she has. I have always been gender critical but almost buckled under the fear. Thank heavens (and Mumsnet) I didn't.

ASC is associated with a life expectancy of 40 years

Are there any sources for this? Given many women aren’t diagnosed until after 40 I’d question this.

And there's the assumption.

Suggesting that a child be left to decide and discover these things for themselves is neither new, nor radical.

There will always be butch lesbians. There will also be trans men.

Identities, like rights, are not like a pie. There is not a finite number of either.

‘ (just aside from how extremely uncomfortable I am with telling our children what their sexuality 'ought' to be’

But you’re evidently ok with telling children they’re actually the wrong sex.

Yes.

But then neither do I misunderstand the nature of the support that trans/GNC/gender questioning children and youths receive.

If a biologically female child, who is exclusively attracted to other biological females, and who rejects feminine coded gender expectations erroneously believes that all of the above mentioned characteristics mean she is a trans boy, then she deserves the truth. That she is a lesbian.

What would you tell her luner? Would you affirm her mistake? Say that she mustn't have her misconception challenged?

We also know that trans/GNC/gender questioning children are 82% less likely to attempt suicide if they have family and social support.

But support doesn't only or necessarily mean immediate affirmation and medicalisation, Luner. This conflation is what makes Mermaids so dangerous.

I am merely suggesting that listening to these children - on the basis of them being autonomous human beings.

Anything that undermines, at the very least, Gillick competence, Fraser guidelines and age of consent, is highly dangerous. It's been suggested before by some very unsavoury people. Again, a big problem with Mermaids. Ever heard of safeguarding?

3 years PACE commissioned a similar study of the rates of attempted suicide amongst trans youth. They had the % more or less the same as Stonewall, at 48%.

The rate of suicide attempt amongst trans youth is not news, its been known for sometime. (They also looked at the % who made a second attempt).

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/19/young-transgender-suicide-attempts-survey

We also know that trans/GNC/gender questioning children are 82% less likely to attempt suicide if they have family and social support. Family and social rejection - that is, when family and society deny the identity the young person is expressing - is one of the biggest contributing factors to this high attempt rate.

This link is to some Canadian research bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-015-1867-2

Nor can we ignore that many of the arguments put forward by anti-trans activists deny agency and autonomy to young people. Some of the arguments I have heard put forward which best example this:

"trans boys are really butch lesbians" (just aside from how extremely uncomfortable I am with telling our children what their sexuality 'ought' to be)

"sudden onset gender dysphoria" (which started popping up in the summer) pathologies' children, as well denying them agency with a totally made up label for which I have been unable to find any peer reviewed, academic studies on by the way. It also denies agency and autonomy to trans/GNC/gender questioning children.

"transing our children" is not a thing in the same way that the gay mafia weren't trying to turn the children gay in the 80's and 90's. And it denies them agency.

I am merely suggesting that listening to these children - on the basis of them being autonomous human beings who are not actually little extensions of us - might be a better first step than slapping narrow pre-conceptions on them.

The stonewall report had no verification or gatekeeping process to ensure the respondents were in fact school children. It was an online survey utterly open to abuse by anyone, adult or child, able and willing to complete the survey, multiple times if needed. Anyone with an agenda could submit a response, or several responses.
No one with any credibility would cite it as anything other than a prime example of how to contrive a false result.
A little like the false book reviews on Amazon for a book which has never been read.

So, do those stats from Mermaids simply confirm that rates amongst trans kids are similar to rates amongst that age group, generally?

Stats from Mermaids are not reliable and they misrepresent them.

Even so, if the stats from Mermaids are accurate, the figures they cite are comparable to those for other vulnerable groups within that age group generally.

Gah, I mean Stonewall.

So, do those stats from Mermaids simply confirm that rates amongst trans kids are similar to rates amongst that age group, generally?
Or am I reading this all wrong?

The report just linked says 45%, but as others have said:
Does not state the total
Does not eliminate other causes of suicidal thoughts (what other difficulties do these children have that are different from the general population)
Does not compare these children to those with other forms of body dysmorphia.

Any person or organisation which endorses a binary 'transition successfully or die' ideology is morally culpable for child suicides. If those are the only two options you present to children, those WILL be the only two outcomes.

When do we hear of Mermaids encouraging children to accept their bodies as they are? How enthusiastically to they talk about desistance as an option, the most likely option? What do they have to say about affirming every child who believes they are trans?

If you lie to a child and locate their entire sense of self and happiness in how they are perceived by others, you are ensuring they are destined for lifelong unhappiness on the real world, or life in a cult-like bubble where reality is not allowed to intrude.

Children need to be presented with the truth and helped to accept their bodies and minds as they actually exist.

49% of trans youth reported attempting suicide. It is disheartening that people are reluctant to believe this.

This was I believe a Stonewall report. They are very cagey about the methodology used but basically it involves an online survey being circulated and people who want to fill it in. There is no way of checking who filled it in, no control groups, no scientific rigour at all.

Plus using suicide to promote a cause in this way is against all suicide reporting guidelines.

They were ordered to stay away from that young boy in the trans case, by the judge. As he felt their influence was negative. They subsequently went on social media and called him ignorant, despite him being the foremost legal expert in transition and writing a forward for a same-sex marriage book.

Totally unprofessional. And desperate.

And is it owl or fox who represents them? He called homosexuality deviant. And tried desperately to refute the statistics on trans sex offenders, despite them being subsequently verified by the Ministry of Justice.

And they show up at pride marches with sweets and puppies. Not a good look.

She's also really stupid with regards her use of social media. (I'm not going to say how as I don't want to be accused of doxxing

I could have sworn she had made her connection clear herself, on her Twitter resume, when she used to go under her own name. It had all changed, last time I looked.