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Original poster

Mermaids and the evolving understanding of gender identity.

313 replies

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 24/09/2020 20:11

Given recent events, I thought it would be interesting to trawl the Wayback Machine and see how the organisation has developed over time with regards to diagnosing children as transgender.

What is Gender Dysphoria?

2009
Gender Identity Disorders in infancy, childhood and adolescence are complex and have varied causes: in the majority of cases the eventual outcome will be homosexuality or bisexuality, but often there will be a heterosexual outcome as some gender issues can be caused by a bereavement, a dysfunctional family life, or (rarely) by abuse. Only a small proportion of cases will result in a transsexual outcome
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090307015630/www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/gidca.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20090307015630/www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/gidca.html

2010
Gender dyphoria, also known as Gender Identity Disorder, applies to someone who is unhappy with their biological sex and who wishes to belong to the other one.

Gender Identity is the sense of belief that "I am male" or "I am female". A child becomes aware of its gender identity before or around the age of five years, in many cases as early as 2 or 3 years of age. In most people their gender identity is the same as their sex, i.e. a woman or girl feels she is female and a man or boy feels he is male, but in a few people their gender identity and their sex do not match, and this can cause problems.

Gender Identity Issues vary considerably, some may be transient in nature, and some may not. They may arise when a child exhibits cross-gender behaviour to some degree or other. Some may be boys who prefer to take the female role or vice versa; others may have a compulsion to play with toys mostly used by the other sex (for instance, a boy who predominantly plays with dolls or a girl who always plays with action men and 'army toys'). Some children may only feel comfortable when playing with peers of the other physical sex, or may cross-dress from time to time.

Some children may be unhappy about their own biological sex and either wish to belong to the other one, or feel that they actually do; some adolescents may experience a crisis over a problem of gender identity or sexual orientation, or both. These situations can lead to considerable concern and distress for all those involved.
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100718215911/www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/New%20Mermaids/whatisgid.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20100718215911/www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/New%20Mermaids/whatisgid.htm

2012
For example, your daughter may say that she wants to be a boy, or your son may identify himself as a girl. Or perhaps you are worried about your child's cross gender behaviour, but they won't discuss it with you, and instead are isolated and withdrawn.

Or it may be you, as a young person, and you feel that your body is wrong, and that you should have been a girl if you were born a boy, or a boy if you were born a girl.
(Added to 2010 description)
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121109215055/mermaidsuk.org.uk/index.php/what-is-gender-dysphoria" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20121109215055/mermaidsuk.org.uk/index.php/what-is-gender-dysphoria

They seem to have removed their page about gender dysphoria sometime after 2016. However, we can glean some information about how to diagnose children from their parent testimonials

2019
"Kelly"
“From the age of two we started to notice that Evie didn’t quite fit in. I thought that my son was going to be gay, but it became apparent that there was something more than that.

“Evie always wanted to play with dolls, and never had any interest in traditional boys toys, like cars or dinosaurs. We had an older son and the two could not have been more different.

“Evie loved bracelets and constantly wanted to wear one, and when I bought the children Guess Who? to play she unclipped all the female faces and put them in a handbag to carry around with her.

“Evie would look longingly at other little girls who were wearing dresses or skirts, and every time I picked her up from the childminder she would be have raided the dressing up box for a princess costume. She would come to the door to meet me in a sparkly pink dress and a tiara with a big smile on her face.

“At other children’s houses she would love putting on the princess outfits, and would have a meltdown when she had to take them off as it was time to leave.
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190301090129/www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/parents-voices.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20190301090129/www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/parents-voices.html

"Denise"
“We didn’t notice Sally having any particular problems or issues as she was growing up, but her primary school was very small and the classes were mixed together in infants, so there was no real distinction between boys and girls or age groups.

“But looking back I can see there were pointers. Sally always wanted to play with the dressing up box, and she always wanted to be a princess. She always wanted long hair too.
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190301090129/www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/parents-voices.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20190301090129/www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/parents-voices.html

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15
Siablue · 25/09/2020 18:48

*HPFA I am sorry to say I laughed out loud at. *The only clothes xie has to wear apart from what she brought with xir is a wardrobe of ballgowns from xir childhood.

What sort of childhood involves a wardrobe full of ballgowns? In fairness one that would probably leave you wanting to live a life free from gender stereotypes.

BovaryX · 25/09/2020 18:35

nepeta and Datun

Thank you for the explanations.

It's not a question of a negative feeling about their bodies, they feel very positive about them, genitals n all

That's er paradoxical. Or something.

TyroBurningDownTheCloset · 25/09/2020 18:31

Part of the reason it's so confusing is because language is constantly evolving, and with the advent of the internet in your pocket twenty four seven, the rate at which this happens has gone through the roof.

I think a lot of people round here are baffled by the idea of non-binary because we're using language in a different way. Someone says "I'm not a woman or a man" and we think "that's daft, of course you are a woman, you're female" - but they aren't using the sex-class definitions of "man" and "woman". They're not allowed to. They're using them as labels for internal subjective identities.

God knows who a self-identified gay enby actually fancies though. Under traditional, material-reality-acknowledging definitions, it'd be people of their sex. Under genderism, they're not allowed to use "gay" to mean "same-sex attracted" - that's old-fashioned and bigoted now, and gay means "same-gender attracted".

Which means logically, a gay enby would be someone who is only attracted to other enbies, and a straight enby would be someone who is only attracted to people who have an identity that's particularly associated with a sex.

It only makes sense if you've installed the horribly sexist dictionary updates in your brain.

nauticant · 25/09/2020 18:25

It's not a question of a negative feeling about their bodies, they feel very positive about them, genitals n all.

If only there were a handy shorthand term for this, maybe a three letter abbreviation...

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 25/09/2020 18:23

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I place a lot of the blame on the medical, teaching and psychological professions and on lack of decent support for new parents.

SG and her ex-husband had their first child in the early 90s. They should have had regular check-ups from a health visitor, who could have signposted/referred them to support where necessary. My HV at the same time was pretty useless, I'm afraid, so possibly they had a similar experience. They did, however, see their GP. It's clear that Jackie became extremely distressed at a very early age, partly as a result of the parents' asinine decision to take away favourite toys and the constant criticism of Jackie's personality and likes/dislikes, partly because the parents were having major marital problems. Children pick up on this kind of thing. Children also pick up on what they perceive as favouritism from parents. We know from the TED talk and countless interviews that SG's younger children, all boys, all behaved in the expected way, and my surmise is that their Dad's approval of them and disapproval/concern/bafflement over Jackie would have been obvious.

The GP should have referred them to CAMHS or family therapy. If only an intelligent and empathetic professional had managed to persuade the Greens that Jackie's behaviour was perfectly normal and acceptable for a boy and that it was the parents who needed to re-think and adjust their behaviour accordingly.

But that didn't happen. I don't know what support the NHS and social services gave the family. It may well have been a case where they tried to help and came up against a lack of co-operation. It may have been a failure of co-ordination or lack of resources. But whatever may or may not have happened, driven by terrible fear for her suicidal child (because it is clear that by the early teens Jackie was in a very bad way, bullying at school having not been sorted out) SG took matters into her own hands, did her own 'research', found a solution which to her, a non-medic, seemed to make sense, and took her child abroad for irreversible medical treatment which would not have been given in the UK to a child of that age (at that time), with nobody in authority in the UK appearing to know or act in the child's interests.

Having made that decision, there's no way back from it. How could you live with yourself after doing that to your child, if you subsequently conclude it was the wrong thing?

I blame SG. But frankly, I blame the professionals more. Why didn't anybody speak up and say 'There is no evidence to support this medicalisation of a psychological problem' and 'This is not in the best interests of any child - we should not be giving irreversible medical treatment to young children who can't give informed consent' and 'Where is the evidence for these suicide statistics you keep mentioning?'

There has been a total lack of critical thinking and of backbone from most of the professional people who could have stopped this in its tracks a decade ago. It's a disgrace.

You can't possibly know what interventions were attempted. Jackie may well have been referred to CAMHS, or the parents may have been offered a referral and refused. If parents won't engage when children have mental health needs, teachers and GPs have very few options, unless the situation is dire enough to require SS intervention - and I imagine there was zero chance of SS involvement in this case. MN has a lot of magical thinking around HVs, social services and other professionals involved in safeguarding - on the one hand, everyone is outraged if any MNetter ever gets so much as a welfare call from them, on the other hand, they are seen as some sort of deus ex machine, able to solve any family problem. SS do not get involved because a child's father won't let it play with dolls.

I am highly critical of professionals who collude with the 'born in the wrong body' narrative, but we have no idea what visibility professionals had of what was happening in the Green household, or of what interventions were offered. The only people who are clearly to blame for what happened are the parents.

SophocIestheFox · 25/09/2020 18:21

@NewlyGranny

Echoes of Kimmy (of Kath & Kim)

"Who sayed that? I never sayed that!"

It’s noice, it’s different, it’s unyewsual 😂

Mermaids, for the avoidance of doubt, have absolutely been telling the world for a number of years that trans people are literally, not metaphorically born in the wrong body.

They’ve said this to children, who are their target support group, and cannot be reasonably expected to understand this as a metaphor.

They have leveraged people with disorders of sexual development as “proof” that sex is on a spectrum, and people’s brain and body’s genders can be incongruent, as people’s genital and chromosomal makeup can be.

They have leveraged small und unreliable studies looking at the brains of trans people, and lobbied hard on the supposition that female brains can literally be seen in male bodies on MRI.

So don’t come the raw prawn and pretend this didn’t happen, Mermaids. It did.

Datun · 25/09/2020 18:19

@BovaryX

What is 'gender euphoria?'
My understanding is that there are many men who thoroughly enjoy being trans. It's not a question of a negative feeling about their bodies, they feel very positive about them, genitals n all.
NecessaryScene1 · 25/09/2020 18:15

What is 'gender euphoria?'

Feeling good (and all that entails) when you put the lacey underwear on.

EyesOpening · 25/09/2020 18:13

@TyroBurningDownTheCloset

I don't understand how you can be "transgender and non-binary"

Dual meanings of "trans".

Under the cis/trans binary model of gender identity, either you have an identity that matches your sex, or you have an identity that matches the opposite sex.

Trouble with that is that shitloads of people accepted the premise, analysed their own experiences through that lens, and came to the conclusion that they were neither female women (cis) nor female men (trans).

So they invented 'non-binary' to describe themselves in relation to the dominant genderist ideology - which is mostly too caught up in affirming everyone's right to self-definition to consider the logical implications, and anyway isn't currently too threatened by enbyism because it's verboten to express enbyism in clear language that deconstructs the validity of the cis/trans binary.

Someone's obviously caught on though, because they've subsumed it into the wider category of 'trans' - the umbrella term for "anyone who isn't cis".

They're trans because they're under the umbrella, not because they have a cross-sex identity, basically.

Thanks, it’s all so confusing but I got there in the end! I once asked an enby who described themselves as gay, to ask them how that worked. I’m not surprised there’s a lot of confused souls
nepeta · 25/09/2020 18:12

@TyroBurningDownTheCloset

I don't understand how you can be "transgender and non-binary"

Dual meanings of "trans".

Under the cis/trans binary model of gender identity, either you have an identity that matches your sex, or you have an identity that matches the opposite sex.

Trouble with that is that shitloads of people accepted the premise, analysed their own experiences through that lens, and came to the conclusion that they were neither female women (cis) nor female men (trans).

So they invented 'non-binary' to describe themselves in relation to the dominant genderist ideology - which is mostly too caught up in affirming everyone's right to self-definition to consider the logical implications, and anyway isn't currently too threatened by enbyism because it's verboten to express enbyism in clear language that deconstructs the validity of the cis/trans binary.

Someone's obviously caught on though, because they've subsumed it into the wider category of 'trans' - the umbrella term for "anyone who isn't cis".

They're trans because they're under the umbrella, not because they have a cross-sex identity, basically.

To add to the confusion, in some contexts I have seen terms such as 'nonbinary women,' while in other contexts you cannot be both a woman and nonbinary.
nepeta · 25/09/2020 18:11

@BovaryX

What is 'gender euphoria?'
I don't know if there is a consensus definition, but I have read it being defended as an alternative reason for transitioning, i.e., a person doesn't have to feel dysphoric before transition to transition. Feeling euphoric after transitioning is sufficient.
TyroBurningDownTheCloset · 25/09/2020 18:05

I don't understand how you can be "transgender and non-binary"

Dual meanings of "trans".

Under the cis/trans binary model of gender identity, either you have an identity that matches your sex, or you have an identity that matches the opposite sex.

Trouble with that is that shitloads of people accepted the premise, analysed their own experiences through that lens, and came to the conclusion that they were neither female women (cis) nor female men (trans).

So they invented 'non-binary' to describe themselves in relation to the dominant genderist ideology - which is mostly too caught up in affirming everyone's right to self-definition to consider the logical implications, and anyway isn't currently too threatened by enbyism because it's verboten to express enbyism in clear language that deconstructs the validity of the cis/trans binary.

Someone's obviously caught on though, because they've subsumed it into the wider category of 'trans' - the umbrella term for "anyone who isn't cis".

They're trans because they're under the umbrella, not because they have a cross-sex identity, basically.

nauticant · 25/09/2020 17:57

From what I can make out Mermaids are now saying that "born in the wrong body" is an umbrella term. Which is rather ironic.

BovaryX · 25/09/2020 17:57

What is 'gender euphoria?'

PronounssheRa · 25/09/2020 17:55

It's like an incoherence masterclass.

They just make stuff up as they go along. I just hope some of the burden of the lawsuits fall on their shoulders not just the NHS.

RedDogsBeg · 25/09/2020 17:54

It's getting more and more incomprehensible by the minute, and will someone please tell me who gifts this fantastical gender?

Gurufloof · 25/09/2020 17:54

It's still there,iguanadonna, but the link doesn't work. This one should work

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/12/transgender-children-have-to-respect-who-he-is

The comments are really quite good. Some have been censored but a lot of people have thought through what they want to say and crafted good questions and replies,. Theres even some critical thinking going on.

NewlyGranny · 25/09/2020 17:53

Echoes of Kimmy (of Kath & Kim)

"Who sayed that? I never sayed that!"

EdgeOfACoin · 25/09/2020 17:46

I hope the lawsuits start here.

Then American lawyers will spot the opportunity and the house of cards might finally start to fall in the US too.

EyesOpening · 25/09/2020 17:45

[quote HPFA]This is an extraodinary read. No one validates my gender because no one even has the option of invalidating my gender.

www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/lgbt-transgender-trans-suffer-lockdown-18393677[/quote]
I don’t understand how you can be “transgender and non-binary” like CiCi

AbsintheFriends · 25/09/2020 17:40

we are trans because we’re trans not because of our bodies.’

It reminds me of that satirical song First World War soldiers used to sing in the trenches and on long marches. 'We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here...'

TyroBurningDownTheCloset · 25/09/2020 17:38

No one validates my gender because no one even has the option of invalidating my gender.

Translation: In the absence of any other girls, no one is treating me as Not Like the Other Girls.

As for no-one being able to see that CiCi is trans - well, no, they wouldn't know you're trans unless you tell them, because it's not your presentation that distinguishes you from other females, it's your internal subjective opinion of what your presentation signifies.

Whatwouldscullydo · 25/09/2020 17:36

Damage control....

Datun · 25/09/2020 17:36

It's like an incoherence masterclass.

Original poster
ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 25/09/2020 17:32

It's all very yeh but no but.

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