Susie Green article in the Graun

Mirror had a similar article.
No reference to Samaritans.
Irresponsible discussion of suicide.
(I think the issue with Susie Green tbh, does she not understand the guidelines and reasoning behind them?)

www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/mother-transgender-jackie-explains-moment-13355068

They’ve FINALLY added links to the Samaritans, 48 hours after it was published and with it no longer being linked to the main opinions page. What an appalling lack of standards.

Yet schools/Local Authorities seem to be "hiring" Mermaids or GIRES without carefully reviewing the background and qualification of those running these organisations.

Susie Green is a mum. A school will know lots of mums, but would not have them in to advise on teaching, curriculum or MH/welfare. Ditto the people behind GIRES. The fact she appears to disagree with the views, evidence, and experience of experts at the Tavistock should serve as a huge red flag.

James Kirkup Spectator May 2018:
(extract)
"Despite its influence, it is worth noting what Mermaids is not. It is not a research body. Its activities are support (for families) and advocacy: based on its contacts with those families, it argues for what it sees are better policies and practices by the NHS and others. It does not carry out or commission clinical or academic research. Its most recent annual report lists among its charitable activities “campaigning and advocacy” and says: “Mermaids has also become more active in lobbying”.

There is regular dialogue between Mermaids and the GIDS, but the two sides do not always agree. An example is on the time the GIDS team take to give referred children the hormone-blocking drugs that stop their bodies developing the physical characteristics associated with their birth sex.

In evidence to another Commons inquiry in 2015, Mermaids argued that GIDS should make such drugs available much more quickly. The GIDS team has generally resisted that call, more than once saying that “any decision around hormone treatment needs time and considered thought.”

And in evidence to that earlier committee, Dr Bernadette Wren of the GIDS said this:

“I know that Susie and Mermaids would like a fast track so that young people who are already well into puberty and feel that they know that they want to move forward into physical intervention would bypass our assessment process and move straight into physical intervention. We feel that is not an ethical way to practise.”

Here’s another summary. A transgender charity that says it is engaged in lobbying lobbied politicians and doctors to change the way children are treated by doctors. The doctors declined to make that change because it would be not be ethical to do so." (continues)

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/why-are-some-mps-trying-to-shut-down-the-transgender-debate/

Schools take great care in recruiting teachers. Many would not consider, or be able to recruit, teachers without appropriate training and qualifications.

Yet schools/Local Authorities seem to be "hiring" Mermaids or GIRES without carefully reviewing the background and qualification of those running these organisations.

Susie Green is a mum. A school will know lots of mums, but would not have them in to advise on teaching, curriculum or MH/welfare. Ditto the people behind GIRES. The fact she appears to disagree with the views, evidence, and experience of experts at the Tavistock should serve as a huge red flag.

Come now. Schools owe it to our children to carry proper due diligence.

DrEm long Twitter thread with thorough referencing:

"A detailed look at the U.K. Serious Case Review National Repository suggests to me that Susie Green of mermaids is making up statistics and in my opinion behaving unethically and in contradiction with the Samaritan guidelines around suicide.

This has come out of work @ AlfredBelpaire has done and privately shared with me. The 'stats' Susie Green and another Mermaids mum are pushing, the sensationalist Guardian article do NOT agree with the research by GIDS of the Tavistock and Portman.

GIDS evidence base is here: gids.nhs.uk/evidence-base

GIDS at Tavistock & Port: 'suicide is extremely rare', Serious Case Review National Repository evidence shows suicide is very rare vs. GIRES: 84% trans youth attempt suicide, Guardian 84% trans attempt suicide, Susie Green: trans children or they will commit suicide

The methodology of the GIRES study is extraordinarily weak - an internet survey - it hasn't even bothered with control groups or exploring other factors, also it is over 18s only so why is mermaids & the Guardian using it to make claims about childhood mental health?

In GIRES own report it appears that they state they have done no analysis of the data and are presenting inaccurate figures - rounding up and down at will, or am I misreading it? With a topic such as youth suicide surely one would do everything to try and ensure good data sets?"

twitter.com/PankhurstEM/status/1047870548968189952

No one reported Jimmy Savile.

Until it all came out.

Thats the problem with saying because no one has reported something, and there isn't an issue.

Its willfully setting a test for measuring issues in a quantative method, which does not account for reasons why things might not have been reported.

People who have the least political power or are the most vulnerable are the least likely to use official routes and measures to report problems.

And thats the mistake that people, particularly those from nice middle class backgrounds make.

Its a political blindspot.

And its easier to accept at face value, because if you say theres no problem, you don't have to address anything because you are refusing to acknowledge its possibility.

It maintains your reality, rather than challenging you to look outside your bubble of experience and think critically.

Mermaids has informed us that it has not been the subject of a court order; rather, it was told by the child’s mother that the judge had said that the child was to have no contact with Mermaids

This is because the order from the judge would have been made to the person with PR (parental responsibility) - ie, the mother.

It in no way exonerates Mermaids: the judge clearly felt its input was deleterious and so made a no contact order. The person that order would be made to in the family court would not be the third party; it would be the person with PR.

I can’t believe that article was published 12 hours ago and they still haven’t added links for the Samaritans. Unbelievable.

Thinking about it more, it riles me so much. The “trans girls aren’t a risk” condescending tone in particular. I assume Susie Green thinks that trans girls aren’t a risk because if she had her way they’d all be on puberty blockers +/- cross sex hormones and would be unable to get an erection.

bd67th thank god you were able to access female only spaces. It’s terrifying that this may not going to be available for girls in the future.

This passage sums it all up really.

'Transgender equality has received a great deal of attention in recent times. I believe that in this case the profile and sensitivity of the matters raised by the mother blinded a number of professionals from applying their training, skills and, it has to be said, common sense. They failed properly to investigate M's assertions, in part I suspect, because they did not wish to appear to be challenging an emerging orthodoxy in such a high profile issue.'

scepticalwoman
Thanks for that link.

This part is chilling.

'Not only are the conclusions of the report irreconcilable with the core information within it but it is striking that the Local Authority had moved into wholesale acceptance that J should be regarded as a girl. Once again, I make no apology for repeating the fact that J was still only 4 years of age. The conclusions of the report speak of J by use of the feminine pronoun. There was no independent or supportive evidence that J identified as a girl at all, indeed there was a body of material that suggested the contrary. The cry for investigation went unheeded...'

Then there's this, regarding the involvement and management of the case by Children's Services.

'The two remaining passages of the conclusion make very disheartening reading indeed. They combine both naivety and professional arrogance. Concerns were dismissed on the basis that it was the other agencies who 'did not have a full understanding of gender non-conforming children'. In fact it was Ms Jenkins and her senior managers whose understanding was lacking.'

I was a social worker in children's services.
I was considering going back, but not anymore.
I'm glad I'm out.
How is it that this ideology has become so overbearing that it supplants the basic job you're supposed to be doing as a social worker, assessing the risk and putting safeguards in place to protect the child? I don't understand how these decisions were made (right on up through the management chain) with regard to a 4 year old child, it's absolutely baffling.

Re the Times article. This is the original judgement about the case. It is long but well worth reading if you want an outline of how a child can be repeatedly abused when professionals listen to trans organisations pushing an ideology rather than following basic safeguarding principles and listening to the child.

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2016/2430.html

I have the impression the anti gay stance of transgenderism is funded by fundamental religious organisations, the Vatican being one that springs to mind.
Very rich, globally powerful and very influential to ordinary citizens.
After the recent scandals, they have a lot to gain from this.

This one

Someone went and looked at all serious case reviews in the UK for young people suicide:

twitter.com/GirlScout27/status/1047840065957892096

it's a thread : most interesting tweet says

"There were no suicides of trans children in UK in last 10 years in serious case reviews. The tag 'gender identity' returns no serious case reviews."

i also wonder if Susie and Jackie Green would be so influential if Jackie was less physically attractive? yes something in this, cf Paris lees, but JG has a male (very) look in a Butterfly publicity shot.

This is a somewhat different account to the one that is usually given.

www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/mother-transgender-jackie-explains-moment-13355068

That was for @naivetyisthenewblack

Ask your mp to ask a parliamentary question on the suicide rate of children and how many of those were trans. Then the stats will be on the record as either they’ll release them or they’ll say that data isn’t collected. Both responses prove the claim is wrong.

. bd67th

Agree Three
Also shows that there is something very wrong with the charity sector that one person with such a specific and niche experience can wield such influence.

I'd love her to spend a month shadowing a social work team, just to help her understand the impact of male violence and sexual abuse and how common it is.
Then maybe she could have a little rethink about why we need safeguards.

bd67th
Yours is such an important voice

There is something very wrong with Susie Green.
As other posters have said, she doesn't have a clue about safeguarding issues and she's not interested in turning her attention to them.
She honestly doesn't seem to give a shit about anyone outside the trans bubble, and that's an awful lot of people she's discounting the lived experiences of.
She's riding high as some sort of high priestess of the cult.
I'd love her to spend a month shadowing a social work team, just to help her understand the impact of male violence and sexual abuse and how common it is.
Then maybe she could have a little rethink about why we need safeguards.

Dear Susie Green,

Like your child Jackie, I also have attempted suicide multiple times, the first time at age 15, and have many scars from self-harm. Most of the times, when I hurt my body, it was in response to misogynist behaviour perpetrated by boys and men. Suicidal and parasuicidal behaviour are common amongst teen girls, with 22% of fourteen-year-old girls self-harming in the UK and LGB children, like I was, being twice as likely as straight children to attempt suicide. Trans teens are not the only children who face such harmful urges and overstating the risks to trans teens is a dishonest tactic to persuade people to prioritise trans teens over all others.

I owe my GCSEs and my life to being able to attend a single-sex secondary school. I was sexually assaulted by two bepenised children in a mixed primary school changing room in Year 4, who cornered me and groped my vulva because they wanted to know what pubic hair felt like. I use the term "bepenised" because their gender identity was and still is irrelevant to me, as was mine to them. I insisted upon a girl-only secondary school to escape from that hell. Being in a girl-only school meant that I was no longer in fear of beatings and sexual assaults from bepenised children, who, by virtue of their biology, were bigger than me, stronger than me, and had a weapon built-in to their bodies to rape me with. Had I been told that I had to share the toilets and changing rooms with a bepenised child, I know that my first suicide attempt would have come a lot earlier than 15. I would have been in constant fear that the bepenised child would weaponise their body against me. These fears are not hypothetical: the cases of Karen White and TracyXXs's daughter demonstrate that such abuse can and does happen.

I attended the Brownies and the Guides. Our camps were jointly-held with a local Scout troop and I feared the Scouts even though they were at the other end of a large field from me. The single-sex nature of Guides at that time meant that, even though some of my fellow Guides were bullies, I could cope because they were physically matched to me and they didn't have penises to rape me with and leave me pregnant. There was no inherent, sexed power imbalance between me and the other Guides, because we were all bevulvaed females. When I aged out of Guides, I was expected to go on to Rangers. I refused, because our Rangers used a RaVen model of joint activities with Venture Scouts and I was afraid of the bepenised Ventures. I'll repeat that: I was so scared of the bepenised Ventures that I left Guiding sooner than do Ranger activities with them.

I consider it no coincidence that my first suicide attempt was within weeks of leaving Guides. Having to face a choice of close proximity to bepenised people or stopping the adventurous activities I enjoyed, brought the trauma of my sexual assault up to the surface from where it had lain buried as it wasn't relevant in a single-sex school nor in single-sex Guides.

Had my Brownies allowed bepenised members, I would have left. Had my Guides allowed bepenised members, I would have left. I would have been denied the preparedness and practical skills that I learned at Guides.

Why does a girl, traumatised by a sexual assault that she doesn't even dare to disclose to her parents until her twenties, matter less than a bepenised trans child?

Current thread, OP twofalls post includes response:

"I’m writing to let you know that I’ve raised your concerns regarding Mermaids UK, one of the organisations we link to on our Gender and autism page, with a number of teams within the National Autistic Society. In light of the concerns raised in your message, and of other feedback that we have received, we have decided to remove all links to Mermaids UK from our website, while we take the time to consult with relevant professionals and to reconsider which organisations we wish to place links to on our website.

As such, our Web Team are working to remove all links to Mermaids UK from our website as soon as possible. Please do be aware, however, that, as we are currently in the process of updating our website to reflect our new branding and organisational identity, it may take a few days for this to be actioned."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3384565-Good-news-from-the-National-Autistic-Society-regarding-Mermaids-Please-help