Mermaids given £500,000 by National Lottery (Sunday Times)

what is so wrong with transgender people?

Nothing. They’re perfectly fine as they are and no child needs to be given hormones to conform to gender stereotypes.

DietCokeIsBae

Oh shut up. Who are you to come here and tell us what does or does not belong here? Or what should concern us. Not feminism? Ffs nothing is more feminist than preventing child abuse and sterilisation of young girls. No, nobody here will need this dangerous woman’s ‘services’ because nobody here would contact a completely unprofessional organisation which sends vulnerable children to a convicted doctor who ignores the law and medicates healthy children.

Madmum I repeat - what is so wrong with transgender people? Why is everyone fearing that their children may become trans?

Needmoresleep If your child isn't trandsgender and has never questioned their gender in any way then why would they be influenced to become transgender just because someone comes into their school assembly to do a talk.

What is so wrong about transgender people anyway? What does it even matter?

I can't understand why people who are not involved feel the need to stick their noses in to campaigns like this. Do you all believe that there are people out there who want to see all our young people transgender, even against their will?

1. How do you know it doesn't affect them directly?
2. Mermaids don't like Safeguarding Norms. Why should they be above them?
3. Why SHOULDN'T anyone be concerned about ANY organisation which is seemingly above safeguarding norms, as this has implications for ALL safeguarding, not just particular charity?

If the lottery are not properly scruntising where money goes, the public have every right to question this.

As for the feminism comment, stop spouting utter bollocks. See above points or perhaps read the thread.

Dietcake, with all due respect if mums on here are worried about what is happening to their children in schools re: certain minorities coming into influence them, it does not make them bad parents but loving concerned parents imo. If they thought the family needed advice they would go to the NHS for advice I would have thought.

Stand by and watch an organisation with a dangerous agenda? Oh that’s ok then. Let them create havoc the pick up the pieces.

Exactly.

The Stonewall reach within Government is huge and unacceptable. They are a lobbying organisation ffs. Lobbying to take away womens rights and protections for the vulnerable. Without any obvious form of democratic accountability. (Aimee Challenor is Secretary to their Trans Advisory Committee whose members are alowed to remain anonymous.) Plus they write policy for schools.

The journalist who shines a light on Stonewall's role in Government will be a very brave journalist. As will any editor who allows such an article to be published.

But Mermaids can be, and must be, stopped.

Moderate and reasonable voices, if there are enough of them, can do it.

So write!

No one thinks that mermaids wants to make every kid transgender. What concerns people is that the 'service' they provide is affirmative only and might lead to improper medicalisation of children. They work in schools, pushing an ideology that allows no investigation into what is going on. It is an actively harmful view of gender that they promulgate and I don't want my kids to be able to be influenced by it.

I find this thread absolutely disgusting and highly doubt that any of the people posting here will need the service that this organisation provides.

I can't understand why people who are not involved feel the need to stick their noses in to campaigns like this. Do you all believe that there are people out there who want to see all our young people transgender, even against their will?

You have a nerve posting this in the feminism thread. This is no kind of feminism - it is no kind of equality activism whatsoever and you should all feel ashamed that you are actively trying to discredit a service that provides mental health support for young people and their parents.

It's not in the Government's interest to let this fall. They are at the heart of this. Due to one or all of the words listed at the foot of this message.

What dirt does somebody have on our elected political representatives?

This is why the likes of Bercow won't allow questions, why Stonewall has unfetered access to schools (despite being a pressure group) and Susie sits among them. As does Ruth Hunt et all.

Sex. Money. Power

The accusation of 'transphobia' and 'terf' no longer has the power it once had.

TRAs will have to come up with something better - like making a fact-based rational case for the Big Lottery to take a safeguarding risk in the face of public disquiet.

As someone pointed out on Twitter, the the accusation of terf is as meaningless as 'One Direction hater'. It just doesn't stop the grassroots from growing and spreading anymore.

I assume it is worth people who have not yet written to do so.

My gut feel is that there are some many connections that they are dominos. Mermaids can be questioned because of links to Dr Helen. If Mermaids does not stand up to closer examination, Stonewall and its #nodebate support, can be questioned.

There are too many jobs at stake. Stonewall/TRA lobbying will step up. The more ordinary mums, with their own experiences and testimonies explain why the Mermaids approach worries them sick, the better. I am so so glad that my DC got through childhood and adolescence before this gender bollocks started. They at least had a chance to become the young adults, happy within their own skins, they were destined to be without being pushed stereotypes and the medical interventions.

Don't forget Susie frequently accesses Govt influencers, stakeholders and funders. A typical tweet:

Excellent news. The pressure will be on now. They will be subjected to emotional blackmail/gaslighting and threats.

Have you notice how Susie steps back while the minions do the bidding? When is she going to get her hands dirty?

I have seen some successful grant applications which have been rather embroidered shall we say. The due diligence isn't what it might be.

Seems to me that the trigger words for these funding bodies are 'children' and 'suicide'. They don't look any further than that.

Makes you wonder how many other grants they've given out without bothering to do their due diligence, honestly.

That's fabulous news. Makes you wonder why they didn't do their research properly before deciding on the grant, though.

Is enough to give them pause. Missed some words out.

I am sure the FOI requests will have had a big effect. Somewhere, there are minutes of the panel approving this grant.

Good. The connection to Webberly alone should be enough to raise alarm bells. Mermaids is a lobbying organization led by people with no medical expertise in the area they're giving "guidance" on. They are actively undercutting the work of the people who are experts, such as the Tavistock. It's questionable that they should be allowed to keep their charitable status at all, much less be given more money to do ethically questionable things with.

grant application and the deliberations from BLF

this is precisely what I've asked for in my FOI request (among other things). Let's see what they come back with.....

When I've worked on charitable grant applications, they want evidence. I think there are sufficient questions now being raised about some of the false statistics that Mermaids throw around plus the Kids Company disaster (which was primarily down to a charismatic leader who people didn't dare question) to give Big Lottery pause. Green's highly questionable tweets from the WPATH conference don't do her any favours.

I hope some of the parents who have written so eloquently on MN about how they were excluded and shunned for wanting to take a watchful waiting approach get in touch too. Their testimonies are very powerful.

They've done the right thing.

They simply cannot ignore people raising concerns about the safeguarding of children. Well, they can, but in five years when Mermaids is bankrupt, then ex-clients of Mermaids will look to sue BLF instead. And rightly so.

And BLF need to investigate their own procedures. Alarm bells should have been ringing from the start. Mermaids has always been controversial; BLF should have investigated them thoroughly from the get go.

Mermaids promoting the services of a private GP who has been suspended by the GMC should have been enough on its own to disqualify Mermaids from a grant.

A High Court judge ordering Mermaids to stop contacting a family should have been enough on its own.

And Mermaids to set up 45 clinics? From a controversial charity that has no medical expertise and has a track record of attacking the NHS? Again, that should have been enough on its own to disqualify Mermaids.

The application should have been dead in the water from the start.

I would also love to see the grant application and the deliberations from BLF. Doubt we'll clap eyes on those.