Mermaids and the evolving understanding of gender identity.

They’re really not that smart are they. Of course organisations should take time to try evaluate the ethos which underpins their organisation & question their belief systems

Had mermaids gone quiet for a while & then come back in 3 months with “we took time out to review our thinking and as a result have revised our position etc etc” Ppl might have said ‘ok fair enough’

But this frantic volte face in less than 24 hours is just embarrassingly amateur

A counter-argument from a trans activist:

medium.com/@Chican3ry/born-in-the-wrong-body-76b858cae49d

More evidence.

"You almost have to admire the chutzpah of those saying "Well OF COURSE we never said people are "born in the wrong body".

Apart from: [Thread]"

twitter.com/thespiralquirk/status/1309484475089383425?s=20

More evidence:

"Last year a gender identity lesson was secretly recorded at a school in which a senior Mermaids representative taught that some children are born in the wrong body. Today Mermaids agreed with the statement 'No child is born in the wrong body'"

twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1309199389177634824?s=20

"They are backpedalling fast. They've been talking toys and wrong body throughout their history."

twitter.com/Snarkasaurus2/status/1309331504502386689?s=20

Good thread on twitter:

"The changing narrative, a thread:

Mermaids: we're not saying children are born in the wrong body.
Also Mermaids:
mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/support-m "

twitter.com/Snarkasaurus2/status/1309400932006813698?s=20

Mermaids are seeking to respond to the events of the week with studied cognitive dissonance:

A trans person is someone having the sexed body of one sex who feels themself to be a boy gendered entity in a girl's sexed body or vice versa.

vs

"No child is born in the wrong body"

Mermaids are hoping to carry on as if nothing has changed but intend to throw up so much chaff no one can get any sense of what their actual position is.

I’m almost embarrassed for them. Do they really think this is going to work??

A lot of ppl gave them the benefit of the doubt because #bekind & because they assumed that mermaids were the experts in a sensitive subject they knew little about

People do not like to be taken for idiots (no matter how much they played their own part in it)

All this frantic reverse ferreting and rewriting of history won’t save them - I also suspect that stonewall will distance themselves from them too. Stonewall hasn’t survived as long as it has without knowing when to cut troublesome allies lose

Lots on that twitter thread seem to boil down to “people used to think born in the wrong body was a metaphor until we told them it was LITERAL now we don’t think that but they’re still wrong because they’re mainly old women eww!”

Have you seen what Haddock is tweeting on the thread sunset gave? I just, what, what's going on?

twitter.com/Mermaids_Gender/status/1309553254393548802?s=20

Well, well, well.

I feel for the trans allies here. The ones shouting at the barricades, defending the indefensible, swallowing the cognitive dissonance and suppressing the urge to turn to logic. It's suddenly gone quiet, they turn around and see only the retreating backs of those they thought they were helping.

Every woke millennial who has rounded on their mother with some choice words like TERF, Karen, transphobe or bigot when she tried to explain her concerns for safeguarding schoolchildren or teenage girls in the throes of C21st puberty. The non-trans spokespeople who are trotted out to blast indignation on breakfast TV and chat shows. And not least, all the loving parents who are trying to do their best for a child who just likes - or doesn't like - dressing up in pink sparkles or playing rowdy games of kick-around. The people who told them it was a major problem are suddenly saying it never was. I just hope not too many of them have gone too far to turn back without permanent damage.

"
Mermaids
@Mermaids_Gender
Do you still use the phrase 'born in the wrong body'?

We've been thinking about this phrase for a while and have noticed a lot of our followers have too. We've spoken to our patrons, staff and allies to see what they think!"

twitter.com/Mermaids_Gender/status/1309553254393548802?s=20

mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/do-you-still-use-the-phrase-born-in-the-wrong-body/

TyroBurning, thank you! That is so interesting and confirming my fears.

HPFA, I started reading it, it seems brilliant. I will read it properly tomorrow.

So basically

1. They take adolescences in a very sensitive stage of their lives when it comes to identity.

2. They throw out a massive red herring that the big thing to focus on is gender identity which in best case is a massive simplification and worst case completely wrong.

3. There is no thought whatsoever that gender identity in itself to a very large extent is a social construct.

4. They give the children an “analytic framework” which massively distorts their ability to make a proper evaluation of their situation.

5. The people who do this are rarely professionals, but most often volunteers with no training, no deep understanding of the issues. Instead most of these volunteers have a strong personal link to the concept of transgender.

6. When -after all the above- a child/adolescent as much as mentions that they may be trans, anything that asks any questions or makes the child/adolescent reflect upon their reality (crucial in most developmental theory), an affirmation only approach has been proposed. This has been so strongly pushed that professionals that actually have a deeper insight have been prohibited from doing anything but affirm.

Is this about right?

What is 'gender euphoria?'

I don't think we're allowed to mention it here

No dysphoria. No distress. Irritated at being asked. Just wants cosmetic surgery.

Because ...??

What is 'gender euphoria?

I don't know if this is the same thing but Mermaids did an instagram chat with someone called Mia Violet earlier today. I didn't listen but heard Mia speak to GenderGP a few days ago.

Their story is briefly is that they were born a boy, were never stereotypical girly growing up, never distressed about their body, or depressed, but just fancied transitioning. They complain about having to fit the descriptors of gender dysphoria in order to access 'healthcare' on the NHS, which means they are forced to be dishonest. Helen Webberley sympathetically agrees how wrong it is. I stopped listening at that point.

I can't see how stories like this fit with the narrative, "most marginalised community" and "research shows that 50% of trans people...."

or

How 'trans healthcare' in this situation is any different to cosmetic surgery?

The whole thing gets dafter and dafter every day.

gdworkinggroup.org/2018/11/12/how-i-work-with-rogd-teens/

Glinner and jkr get the same 'it's weird how much you care about this" treatment. Dismantling child safeguarding.....yaaaawn.

Absolutely, CoffeeTeaChocolate.

You give kids a linguistic and analytical framework, tell them it's literal truth that applies to everyone, they're going to use that framework as a lens through which to analyse and understand their own experiences.

Tell kids that any internal disquiet about their sexed body, or the gender stereotypes directed at them, or the gender expectations placed upon them as a result of their sexed bodies, are a sign of "gender incongruence" and "being trans", and just watch the number of kids identifying as trans go through the roof.

The ideology falls down because it doesn't account for things like trauma, homosexuality, and the hypersexualised nature of socially-constructed womanhood under neoliberal capitalism. All issues are reduced to "identity issues" with no analysis of the underlying societal structures and environments within which identity-formation takes place.

Plain English: our culture tells kids that woman = a) the degraded and degradable sex object and at the same time b) an identity. Any female who doesn't wish to be identified as the inherently degradable thing promptly starts questioning whether she "identifies as a girl."

Doesn't work as an accurate description of reality, because our being reduced to the cheerfully compliant site of violation and dick-pandering has nothing to do with our own internal identities and everything to do with our being observably female-sexed and treated accordingly by patriarchal society. But kids raised under genderism are denied access to the language to express that.

The version that's there now is different from the one pasted in by OP.

Mr MacLachlan did a compare and contrast:

www.diffchecker.com/UXiv5PCg

Can I ask a question of all of you who know a lot about the theory around gender (and others)?

My understanding is that a lot of development theory on identity (especially those who are inspired by Erikson) view adolescence as a period where you are faced with a period of change and where you in some interaction with your environment find (hopefully) some stability in your identity?

If so, if there is a massive focus on gender identity, isn’t there a risk that a lot of other aspects not are dealt with? And that some inner conflicts wrongly are attributed to gender confusion?

Sorry for the theoretical question, genuinely interested. Not only in the theory (although am very interested in that), but in people’s thoughts on this.

Ha! So their damage limitation of claiming that they've never said people can be born in the wrong body isn't flying so well because the TRA tiger is going to eat them for saying it. Facing both ways at once, eh? Who could have predicted that outcome?

The mermaids blog about 'born in the wrong body' was taken down then put back up. The version that's there now is different from the one pasted in by OP.

Thank you for this thread and for the HEROIC women who are trying to decode the utter bollox that is being presented as serious fact.

The fact, too, that lawyers are sharpening their expensive knives gives me a lot of hope. Let’s hope the children who have been victims of this experiment can get some legal recourse