Mermaids are running the metaphorical shredders.

Here's something interesting

Fair Cop put out a tweet regarding withdrawl of Mermaids from NSPCC but have not allowed any further tweets and have deleted some that were there yesterday. I just love a good old conspiracy theory.

I know there is more to come ..... the thick plotens

Nice wee haiku on twitter this morning:

Mermaids, sat on rock,
Drying out in heat of sun,
Everyone can see.

twitter.com/MonoZero6/status/1293799777038209026

Only because it has been noted that they are being dropped left right and centre. So we're still at the stage of feeling something brewing. I think following the Australian article, organisations are finally beginning to see that this shit show is going to implode.

They're trending on Twitter this morning.

Lurking on this thread too. I have been waiting for this to all blow up and the sooner the better. I hope that is what's going to happen.

I would contribute to a crowd funding effort for this legal case when it comes about.

Me too. The sooner the better. Troubled children need reassurance, practical help, someone sensible to talk to. Not Mermaids.

There’s also the consent angle to all this, which Keira Bell’s case will open up. As I understand it, consent requires risks to be explained properly to patients so that their consent can be properly informed. Doctors have to explain material risks of a treatment they are offering, in an individualised way to each patient. So in GIDS‘ case, you wonder how they can explain risks adequately to their child patients and to parents, when there is so little evidence around risks from blockers, but there is evidence of lasting harm from blockers, and seems to be little available evidence of lasting benefit to patients from taking blockers? (As detransitioned women point to from their own experience).

The Medical defence union points to GMC guidance in place since 2009 that would require this approach to consent:
www.themdu.com/guidance-and-advice/guides/montgomery-and-informed-consent

This BMJ article argues that this standard discussion of risk should have been be applied to consents taken, as far back as 1999: www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2224

Even if they don't succeed though, the law suits will bring welcome publicity to what has been happening, and should make it much less likely that any more children will be harmed in the same way.

NHS can never put this on anyone else. It’s going to some lawsuit!

The lawsuits will hit the Tavi and anyone else who has actually prescribed to minors - including GPs who have been pressured into it by the GMC/BMA/Royal College of GPs telling them that it's conversion therapy to question use of PBs/hormones in children.

I was prescribed GnRh analogues for endometriosis as I had an aggressive form of it.

I took 2 different ones due to a supply issue with one of them 2 months into my 6 month treatment. I was also prescribed HRT to combat any bone density loss. I was 27 years old.

Obviously leaflets change for medicines but the way I believe it was told to me was "most women" go on to ovulate again shortly after stopping the medicine. Which at 27 was a huge concern as Dh and I wanted children.

The next drug they could give me was an androgen and my gynae said that there were huge risks with irreversible side effect such as facial hair and a deepening of my voice, so we refused that next step.

I took Synarel as a nasal spray and Buserelin.

And I believe there's some discussion about whether it is in the best interest of the child in that case sometimes.

If puberty blockers are irreversible wouldn't we know that from their use to treat precocious puberty?

I believe one reason for using PBs in children with pernicious puberty is to allow them to grow more (as growth ceases at the end of puberty and can result in short adult stature). This might be seen to be a desirable intervention but it is not a reversible one.

The other thing to consider is that the nhs technically follow the watchful waiting approach, where as international / US approaches are confirmation, which mermaids supports.

The us don't have the same laws protecting discrimination against gender reassignment which adds to the ferocity of views about what is transphobic or not amongst tra groups.

pressure groups have influenced GIDS/Tavi who have influenced the NHS, who have assured patients that blockers are entirely reversible.

I don't have the Times link but one of the first whistle blowing to them around the Tavistock in 2018? Described how mermaids residentials had clinicians from the Tavistock visiting them to give talks but would also be pressurised by parents who could unofficially spend time with them. The residentials are extremely concerning to me, as are the forums and private email/ chat facilities.

I wish I'd book marked a lot of threads where this stuff was discussed a couple of years ago.

@Datun. Ah, I see what you mean. It's a complete mess. When the shit hits the fan, they will all be pointing fingers at each other.

Mermaids talk about GIDS and "a body of international research" consider PBS to be physically reversible. No indication who has done the research and no mention of brain development and psychological issues.

It's the bare minimum information.

Wow I've found the exact clip... "it's like a pause button" - Polly Carmichael, I don't know what to say to you but you'll find out from lawyers soon enough.

Mrs Jarmin, in the first 'I am Leo',(that is no longer up on iplayer) Polly Carmichael told Leo that PB are a just a pause button.

I don't know much about all of this tbh, suffice to say I'm horrified that drugs with such severe side effects were being recommended for use in children.
I've read some stuff by Transgender Trend on twitter and they seem to talk a lot of sense regarding trans.
Those poor children.

It's very concerning that the BBC still have this up on iPlayer: Leo: Becoming a Trans Man - Leo's mum is shown injecting her 15 year old child with puberty blockers, declaring that they aren't irreversible. Who told her this? GIDS?

• SheWhoMustNotBeHeard

Datun
So who is it who is responsible for saying that they are reversible?

Who advised the NHS? Was it Mermaids? And if so who advised them? GIDS? Where did they get their information?

The Newsnight documentary implied that the Tavistock was coming under pressure from trans lobby groups. Does that translate to misinformation about puberty blockers?

Where has the buck actually stopped?

@Datun

It's GIDS advising NHS.

NHS website says

Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.
Although the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) advises this is a physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the psychological effects may be.

(My bold)*

And GIDS are part of the Tavistock, who have come under pressure from 'activists'.

quillette.com/2020/01/17/why-i-resigned-from-tavistock-trans-identified-children-need-therapy-not-just-affirmation-and-drugs/

My question is, where did this all start? It seems as though pressure groups have influenced GIDS/Tavi who have influenced the NHS, who have assured patients that blockers are entirely reversible.

This is just such a scandal that we all foretold but were told we were bigots about. I really recommend watching for Kellie-Jay Keen's analysis of the infamous Susie Green TED talk. It fills in the background of the Mermaids CEO. It sounds like her child's preference for "girls toys" and thus insistence that they were a girl was in relation to the homophobic and misogynistic way their dad handled the toy preference. All the lawsuits in the world won't get back these young people's full adulthood, it's so sad and frustrating that this didn't happen sooner.

Thankfully, when it comes to a civil claim, if the NHS's defence was "we simply didn't know they were bad", that would not hold because the evidence was all there, they just chose not to look.

Have a look at what happened in the contaminated blood products scandal:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_blood_scandal_in_the_United_Kingdom

There was awareness of the problem in the early 80s, if not earlier, and it's only now, decades later, that victims are finally being allowed to properly pursue their claims in the UK courts. Obviously much of the evidence to help their cases has been destroyed over those decades. Also, many of the potential claimants have died.

This is quoted from Transgender Trend.
"The UK endocrinologists at GIDS prescribe the GnRH analog called Triptorelin. Although slightly different to Lupron all these drugs are in the same class of GnRH analogs and all have the same mechanism of action. The mechanistic safety issues will most likely apply to the whole class of drugs."