Susie Green article in the Graun

I've just read that Madeleine Kearns article. Chilling. She says a mother told her that her daughter confided in staff at the school that she now identified as a boy. The school began calling the child by a new name and pronouns. The parents were not told. They eventually withdrew the child from that school, and only then discovered that during a residential trip their teenage female child had shared a room with boys because the staff believe that gender identity trumped everything else. I think this was in the US, but I wish I could be more confident that couldn't happen over here.

Green will never admit that her actions are wrong. If she did, she would have to face the harsh truth that she harmed her own child. What parent could do that?

Chilling. I had almost forgotten about DD's determination that she was a boy, but was reminded by this article. It is something that would have only come up at a point when we were showing childhood photos to a future spouse. We did have some problems with one or two school run mums, who had some strange objections to her boyishness, but largely it was cool and she was invited to the boys parties and played on the football team. Indeed several rather glamerous mums would assert that they too had been out-and-out tom-boys when little and that they enjoyed having her on play dates.

It think it would be a lot more difficult now as well meaning folk would probably start labelling her "transgender" and looking up the Mermaids guidance, putting an unhelpful pressure on her. Stereotyping when none was needed.

So my own parenting advice, not that anyone is asking me, is to watch, wait, ensure access to a range of role models rather than narrow stereotypes (girls can be engineers), and keep communicating. Susie Green comes across as very rigid, as if there is only one form of right - hers.

Spectator article 'Don’t tell the parents: the official guidance to teachers of ‘trans children’
As in so many progressive ­schooling fads before it, children are the experts and ­teachers are just there to facilitate'
by Madeleine Kearns

concludes:
"What’s worrying is that anyone who challenges the new teaching on trans issues can find themselves in trouble. So when Victoria Atkins, the Minister for Women, admitted to being ‘a little cautious’ about teenage sex-changes, she was accused of bigotry. And Dr Kenneth Zucker, perhaps the leading authority on gender dysphoria in children, was recently ousted from his clinic in Toronto after being accused of ‘transphobia’ and supporting ‘conversion therapy’ because his 40 years’ experience and research had led him to the conclusion that affirming a child’s perceived gender can be counterproductive.

Many of these transgenderism training programmes are publicly funded. Last year, LGBT Youth Scotland received more than £1 million in grants, including £350,000 from the Scottish government, £160,000 from local authorities (all but one SNP-controlled), and £75,000 from Education Scotland. Mermaids UK, meanwhile, was granted £35,000 from the Department for Education and £128,000 from Children in Need.

Something is off here. Teachers are being asked to put ideology before evidence and to exclude parents from serious welfare decisions about their own children. Parents are often not allowed to take part in the discussion. Children are being asked to make important decisions about their gender, which is a surprisingly adult notion for many to grasp. What’s clear is that the issue of gender dysphoria in children is one of tremendous complexity, both medical and moral. To suggest otherwise — to children or teachers — is a dangerous mistake."

www.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/dont-tell-the-parents-official-guidance-to-teachers-of-trans-children/

Green will never admit that her actions are wrong. If she did, she would have to face the harsh truth that she harmed her own child. What parent could do that?

The above is a 17 year old having SRS, supported by his Christian mum. I find it quite chilling actually. She sings hymns while he’s having genital surgery. Poor kid just wants to study theatre 😳

I'd like to see some of these documentaries deepwatersolo because that isn't a natural or common conservative Christian position.

What I could find for now is this for now. It very much looks like the Mom was happier with 'trans' than the relatives' suggestion of 'gay'. Doesn't mean they don't struggle with trans, too.

www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a43702/transgender-child-kimberly-shappley/

Unfortunately, I cannot find the one doku, where the Christian mom insisted, her kid is hetero not homosexual, because it is a 'female brain/soul' thing. But I would encourage you to watch transkid dokus, Christian families of that kindhave been featured repeatedly.

am deeply deeply suspicious of any parent who draws such attention and a media circus to her Childs mental health problems and illness.

Though I can't see her individual renumeration from the annual report, Susie Green seems to have resigned as a Trustee to allow for seperation between governance and operations. The report does not give any figure for media and appearance income, so perhaps fees from the Guardian etc go directly to her.

Part of the problem seems to be that a whole bunch of people are making livings from the Transgender movement.

Interestingly Mermaid's "trading activities" till end March 2017 brought in £12,294, up from £3,646. I would guess that the new accoutns will show a continued increase.

dolorsit
great minds. I also went to check that 'lying' and would like it to be pointed out. Sometimes the Times's paywall can be used, let's say, unjudiciously by people with an agenda...

Becoming the CEO of mermaids and having politicians and stonewall etc etc sucking up to her must feel SO validating of her actions

I don't blame Green personally. I bet she has spent many a night wishing she'd left her stupid husband earlier and wondering what might have been.

I do blame Green personally. She didn't have to become CEO of an organisation pushing transgenderism for children just because she's not sure if what she did was right for hers.

In fact if she in any way regrets or is unsure about what she did to her child, what she is doing now is evil. I think that she is utterly convinced that what she did was right.

The Girlguiding policy has been in place for more than two years, and there hasn’t been a single case of a transgender girl suddenly morphing into a sexual predator.

1st - the policy was rolled out to guide leaders via email (so no meetings/training/discussions with leaders) and buried in their website in Jan '17. No express communication with parents, no explanation that they'd switched from a single sex to mixed sex organisation.

2nd - has anyone asked girls about their experience of having their boundaries disregarded? Of being silenced with the threat of being labelled transphobic, in need of re-education should they express any unease about male bodied children claiming to be girls being allowed to share spaces when they are vulnerable, while undressed, showering, attending to personal care?

Do girls have to be assaulted before Susie Green thinks about their right to exert their own boundaries, to have privacy and dignity? How would any girl report or explain a male bodied child indulging in voyeurism or indecent exposure within the confines of the girls changing rooms/showers, if they're told they must be kind, that it's disrespectful of any girl to feel discomfort at a trans identifying male bodied child sharing those spaces? How do you consider this behaviour within the confines of girls changing room/showers if trans girls are girls?

Claiming there's never been a problem, never been a reported issue and never any indication that any trans identifying teenager born male has made any girl uncomfortable, when you've never bloody asked those girls affected, and when this whole set up has been orchestrated to silence & intimidate anyone who has an issue, is down right manipulative and wilfully disingenuous.

Girl Guides surveys are pretty good indicators of the level of sexual harassment and assault and abuse teenage (and younger) girls experience as they grow up - has Susie Green any idea how those girls who endure that treatment feel about their private spaces being opened up to male bodied children/teenagers? Because if she's never bothered to ask any of them, she's no authority to claim that there's never been an issue simply because no child has been charged or convicted of illegal or inappropriate behaviour. You don't need to demonstrate illegal behaviour for there to be an issue for girls.

Dr Ford was a 15 yr old teenager when she was allegedly attacked by Brett Kavanaugh and never spoke a word about it to anyone for years - she certainly didn't report it to any adult at the time.

Susie Green is no expert or moral authority on child safeguarding. And that's as polite as I can get.

Shrinking - three year girls really do seem to be more socially sophisticated than boys. My understanding is that girls often develop speech earlier, and then use it. We were actually too exhausted from looking after a very sick baby to care much, and were mainly relieved that we had got through it. So she was free to make her own choices. It was just observation that she found girl play more difficult than boy play. By chance there happened to be quite a lot of "pink" girls around.

But this is now two decades ago, similar to Susie Green's experience. I don't know if the school now allows girls to wear trousers. A lot of school policies have changed in the interim.

It is my belief that at some point Susie Green is going to have to confront her own internalised misogyny and the fact that she failed to protect her gay , gender non-conforming child from her abusive homophobic husband. However deeply unpleasant that will be for Susie if that time comes, it is not my responsibility to engage in her delusion to protect her from that pain.

Someone has posted a link saying the Times has admitted to lying about Mermaids.

This is the text of the correction.

In our article “Charity ban as boy forced to live as girl” (News, October 8) we reported that Mermaids, the transgender charity, had been banned by the High Court from making contact with a family.
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. It has also asked us to clarify that Dr Birgit Möller did not offer fast-track cross-sex hormone treatment for children; the treatment offered on a fast-track basis was hormone blockers.

I'm not sure that qualifies as lying and I don't think it invalidates the original article.

I don't disbelieve the suicide stats. I can well believe that 45% of people who suffer extreme mental anguish due to their bodies and how they see them, might reach that point.

However, how many people with anorexia attempt suicide? Or body dysmorphia? Or other mental health conditions? How many women have attempted suicide as a direct result of how they feel about their bodies, or after their bodies have been abused by a man? Surely the answer to high suicide stats is to increase mental health support, or to look at the factors driving this, not extensive surgery?

Needmoresleep did the school insist that girls had to wear dresses to reception? It’s that kind of stuff that reinforces gender stereotypes and leaves children with no room to be themselves without claiming to be of the opposite sex isn’t it!
I did notice though that you’d sort of reinforced the stereotypes of girls as ‘complicated’ and boys as rough and tumble and fun

twitter.com/guardian/status/1047754910840905729?s=19

You can comment on the Guardians article on Twitter. I think it's worth doing so.

So let me get this right:

Susie Green is a parenting expert on the basis of raising one child. Sufficiently so, that she feels able to advise kids to keep secrets from their own parents.

As it happens DD was convinced age 2, that she was a boy. In retrospect some of it may have been that she had been a very sick baby so missed two years of early socialisation. Whilst catching up, and she was three before she had enough spare energy to play, she found girls were already quite complicated. She had an older brother and older boy cousins and so happily hung out with the boys kicking a football. We did not push it, let her wear the clothes she wanted, only laying down the law when we needed to. "You have to wear a dress to go into reception, otherwise you will have to stay in nursery." I was actually quite proud when I was called into school when she was in year 1, to hear that she was in trouble for fighting. There was a new boy in the class and the other boys were being mean, so she took them all on. By the age of eight the other girls had stopped wearing pink, and by 10 her friendship group was entirely girls. Boys were 'smelly'.

She is still a sporty tomboy. She was very lucky aged about 16 to be playing sport in a Club that had a lovely diversity of confident and kind young women, all seemingly confident with their own version of female, from a pop star's girl friend to visibly butch. Lots of good role models, confirming that you are who you are and that as a woman it is important to feel confident within your own skin.

So that is my experience of parenting, when faced with raising a two year old who would throw a major tantrum if you so much as suggested she was a girl. Will the Guardian invite me to write an article?

Guardian Complaints:
www.theguardian.com/info/2014/sep/12/-sp-how-to-make-a-complaint-about-guardian-or-observer-content

/charlestonchaplin here’s one:
www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a43702/transgender-child-kimberly-shappley/

Guardian article has disregarded long established Samaritans' guidance with regards reporting on suicide.

This is irresponsible.

www.samaritans.org/media-centre/media-guidelines-reporting-suicide

Argh - they should allow comments. Then we could post (again and again and again) the case report where Mermaids was criticised for its brainwashing of the social services...

I give the G money (for Cadwallr's work, mostly) and this is just a crappy appeal to emotion:

Using someone else's life (and very sad death) to push their ideas : check
Using straw men to cut down debate: check
Poor me: check

Makes me so angry we can't counter it.

Current threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3382562-mermaids-want-trans-kids-to-legally-change-sex

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3383249-stonewall-encouraging-primary-aged-children-to-fill-in-the-gra-consultation

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3383512-Stop-Funding-Hate-has-joined-forces-with-Mermaids

Spectator lead article by James Kirkup,
'Trans rights have gone wrong
The new gender orthodoxy allows no room for dissent'
(extract)
"Others groups include Mermaids and the Gender Identity Research & Education Society, both frequently consulted by councils, NHS trusts, police forces and Whitehall departments for guidance on applying the law around transgender children. Both are tiny charities run not by lawyers but by parents whose children changed gender; it’s hard to think of another field of policy where personal experience is prioritised over objective expertise.

According to Michael Biggs, an Oxford University sociologist, the speed at which transgender rights advocates have advanced their cause is unprecedented in western history. In less than a decade, he suggests, the movement has embedded itself in public and corporate life and often succeeded in changing policy and practice without significant scrutiny or question." (continues)
thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3384307-James-Kirkup-Spectator-lead-article-Trans-rights-have-gone-wrong-The-new-gender-orthodoxy-allows-no-room-for-dissent

I mean, I believe part of it is parents who can't imagine a 'pink boy' (I have seen featured conservative Christian families pretty often in these transkid documentraries), presumably due to unacknowledged homophobia.

I'd like to see some of these documentaries deepwatersolo because that isn't a natural or common conservative Christian position. The conservative Christian position is that God doesn't make mistakes so the body you have is the body you're meant to have.