woman loses residency of son she was raising as daughter

[BombadierFritz]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3859618/You-caused-son-great-harm-insisting-raising-girl-Boy-seven-sent-live-father-mother-raised-daughter.html

hmmm. ok so its daily mail reporting but I am conflicted
perhaps good if child was being pushed into something he wasnt
but wtf with the boringly stereotypical insistance on the type of toys played with

The child in question was NOT diagnosed with gender dysphoria, despite the mother saying he had been.

The mother insisted he was a girl based on...?

She didn't say he was a gender non confirming boy she said he was a girl.

Thank you for the copy of the press release.

I'm afraid I'm going to end up with splinters on my backside from fence sitting.

I think the press release is a little blinded, In respect of the overlooking of worries raised by professionals and the current outcome, of the child being free to express themselves fully now they are with what has been deemed as a very passive father.

However, I do see where their worries lie. It has been deemed as a transgender issue that the child has been removed, I mean the DM headlines were pretty narrow minded with "Transgender Child removed From Mother", and that in itself will cause huge worry and upset to parents of children with gender dysmorphia currently going through the worry and struggles that are associated with this, that may be now seen as child abusers.

Without the knowledge of what has been said between the mother and Mermaids, I cannot be in a position to comment on why they feel strongly to overlook the other issues that have been raised in the report but I suspect it is because of the confidential information that was between themselves and the huge support that have given that drives them to continue to support the mother. It may well be she was acting in what she believed was right for her child, but based upon clearly lots of other issues, has become very narrow minded in her views. I think it needs to be said that this is perhaps a very rare case and perhaps Mermaids should clarify this.

The absolute hypocrisy of this thread astounds me on a number of levels. Firstly many of you talk about confidentiality and about someone mentioning Tuba's real name, that comment had been removed before I joined in the conversation, and yet you support Tubu in her discussions around things that happened when she says she was on the board of trustees at Mermaids but surely if she was a trustee then she signed a confidentiality and data protection policy and she would still be bound by this even though she left. I myself have worked for a number of high profile charity organisations in the past and even now I am still bound by the policy I signed at the time. Then Tubu goes on to discuss Susie Green and her daughter in detail and yes I know a lot of the information is public knowledge but is all of it?

Many of you talk about Mermaids pushing their own agenda but my goodness from what I have seen here you really push yours and appear to be quiet virulent in your hatred of an organisation that says they are there to support families of gender variant children. Whenever someone has commented who says they are a parent (as myself) then someone hits back with how brainwashed they are or they must be a trustee or put up to it by a trustee. My goodness don't you think that, just as each of you do, individuals are capable of voicing their own opinions based on their experiences. I myself have an academic background, am not brainwashed, do have my own opinions and like nothing better than a good healthy debate but you cannot debate when the feelings of hatred are so profound. Many of you make assumptions about individuals you know nothing about based on the fact that they are loving parents trying to do the best for their child.

Hundreds of parents have belonged to Mermaids since 1995 and out of those you have heard the two voices of dissent and in the case of one she appears to have left with bad feelings. If this person was so unhappy why did she not take it through the proper channels at the time instead waiting another two years to jump on the band wagon because I know that if I had those concerns about any organisation I would have done just that. Surely even the most ardent of you can see this point?

And so I press the post message button and wait for the attacks back.

In response to the incorrect 80% quoted on News Night yesterday

http://www.brynntannehill.com/the-end-of-the-desistance-myth/

This article, with all the associated referenced articles, is a far better resource than the ones that link to horrific advice from idiots on Reddit:

everydayfeminism.com/2015/03/i-think-i-might-be-trans/

The primary advice is 'you have time, explore, take small steps and keep reevaluating'. Not 'you must get hormones now - go lie to people'.

There are something like 50 linked articles throughout that are also relevant. I personally found it very useful but feel free to tear individual sentences apart because that is what I expect.

The thing is Hanora50 that of the number of gender non-conforming children, the large majority of them won't have gender dysphoria. Those with GP are very likely trans. Those without, aren't. It's not whether transgender children grow out of it, it's confusing trans with gender non-conformity. No-one is suggesting transgender people don't exist for heaven's sake !

This child didn't have gender dysphoria, so why are Mermaids claiming the case as a seminal point in their narrative? By any medical definition he's not trans.

I don't think Mermaids is a totally bad organisation, just one that is acting beyond its remit. I can see from posts on this thread that it has helped people by connecting them to others in the same situation. However, when you find yourself disagreeing with people in the same situation as you, you either keep quiet so as not to lose the support of the group or you risk being ostracised. When my dd started having reservations about transitioning she lost all her friends in the same social group as they turned against her for not being True Trans.

From the link supposedly debunking the 80% myth, gender critical people are called transphobic and homophobic concern trolls. There is no debate, just insults at people who disagree.

It's hard to put a balanced gender critical view to a teenager with gender dysphoria without being called transphobic TERF cis-scum, etc. I forgive a teenager who's still learning the art of debate and listening, but adults - no.

tubasinthemoonlight

Just read the full thread, sorry this happened to you.

Posted before I finished..

Hanora50

Tubas has not given any personal details out, has spoken in very broad terms and about noone in particular, but the company and issues she noticed while working there. All information on Suzie Green that has been mentioned in here is already available on the internet, I know this as I read it all a week or so ago..

As for the influx of mermaids posts..I am slightly skeptical. Great timing. Quite why a charity such as mermaids would either 1) send a bunch of parents onto a forum to argue or 2) set up a bunch of sock puppet accounts is beyond me. What happened to professionalism?

I have no doubts that Mermaids is a big help to many parents of gender questioning children. However the lack of any kind of statements about Mermaids saying, for example..'actually in our opinion this child is not transgender' speaks volumes. This is why it appears that the transition route is always used. The fact that Mermaids continues to argue that the child in the news story is trans is a disgrace. The whole world (and the tavistock..apparently) is transphobic. Accepting that you got this case wrong would have been a much stronger position than trying to discredit the court and professionals and burying heads in the sand while continuing to support an abusive mother.

Whenever someone has commented who says they are a parent (as myself) then someone hits back with how brainwashed they are or they must be a trustee or put up to it by a trustee.

If you don't want to be perceived as probably inauthentic, or using a group script then don't employ the well known "comment bombing" strategies of niche "communities" when they are reacting to extremely bad press.

It's not new enough to work anymore. Long ago the curtain was pulled back on ....

-The non public discussion of who should focus their efforts where.

-The sharing of links to forum threads and articles with the covert, or overt request for members to create one or more accounts and flood said link with their voices.

-The joint enterprise of post writing.

-The direct and indirect instruction of what the internal elite want the bog standard members to say.

-The currying of favour/sit up and beg for headpats as members report back with links to their contributions.

It's as old as web 2.0. And this exhibition is about a decade too late not to be seen for what it more than likely is.

And if we are wrong. If you all here off your own bat, utterly coincidentally and not because of Mermaids' off piste link sharing + "shock horror somebody should SAY SOMETHING THERE !" ...then you need to take on board that if you choose to lecture here in the same manner that gets rave reviews in the echo chamber, you are not likely to enjoy the same level of engagement that poster like tubas gets.

You want to be accepted as an authentic, original voice ?

Then develop an authentic, original voice.

Yy iPost!

I'd love to be a starfish on the wall at mermaids, listening in on them dissecting this thread!

I have to say, I am genuinely here off my own back, being part of mumsnet for quite some time. I'm more an observer than a speaker unless I feel opinionated on the situation.

In all fairness, whilst I have joined Mermaids, I'm not overly active there either, as I say I'm more of an observer. However, I am a massive news reader and this story struck me as quite an interesting read. To then read the full court papers was horrific and quite frankly far more deeper than what the news portrayed it as, a poor parent trying to protect her transgender child.

I honestly felt that whilst I could sit here quietly reading the thread and say nothing, to read mermaids being called a cult and brainwashing organisation, I felt that I needed to balance it somewhat and explain my personal experience.

Like anything, there are going to be situations where things go wrong, there is a long list of ones where Social Services got it wrong and children have died. I can think of another situation whereby a lovely agony aunt was supporting someone who's children had been take away etc, was blindly supporting of them Only for it to turn out that the abuse the children had suffered was horrendous. Even recently when that child was taken off her parents, who then went on to fool daytime TV shows, for the child to be sent back to them and dying not long after. It doesn't make organisations overall bad, just misjudged and sometimes by people that are good at manipulation, as seems to be the case of this particular mother.

Overall, from what I have experienced with Mermaids so far, and as I say quite limited, I have to say that they have been nothing but supportive and In my case especially, very open minded

Gidds, did we read a different judgement? Where are the parts that show "a poor parent trying to protect her transgender child"? How do you explain the boy independently correcting a teacher who asked him if he was a girl? What gives Mermaids the right to insist this child is a girl when the child himself does not?

Like anything, there are going to be situations where things go wrong

I don't think anyone here would dispute that, however, Mermaids have responded in an unusual way to the court case.

Usual responses:
Apologies
Admitting that on this occasion they had got it wrong
Reassuring service users that they were going to carefully examine their involvement in this case, learn from it, and out in procedures to try and minimise the risk of a repeat.
Update and make clear on their website their safeguarding policy.

Mermaids responses:
Stating repeatedly that they were right and that the courts were wrong
Trying to start a social media shitstorm
Supporting a petition for the child to be returned to mother.
Have service users posting to defend them blindly, without any consideration of the issues raised by the court case
Have no safeguarding policy

I have to say, I am genuinely here off my own back

7 years ago I sat with increasing levels of eyebrow raising as my off piste, private, niche group co-ordinated a comment bombing.

As soon as it was called out as comment bombing the off piste group started advising people to start commenting by saying they were genuine independent posters, were not co-ordinating with a group or other posters, and ... to introduce a greater degree of nuance in their posts. To add some half agreements with some stuff the forum members has been discussing prior to the invasion. Not cos they believed it. But because nauance/half agreement muddied the waters in the face of being called out as Flying Monkeys.

Which must be really annoying for genuine posters who have just started posting here.

They are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to making the case for their authenticity. Because "activists" have been using the most obvious "but I'm genuine !" strategies for so long that they tend to raise, rather than lower, suspicion of joint enterprise.

Fourormore

I think you have misunderstood my postings, I was saying that the mother perhaps was misguided in her sense of trying to protect her child and based upon the information provided to Mermaids, they have supported her. From the judgement, it appears that the mother has manipulated the situation with relevant agencies and indeed has given herself such a narrow view to the child's gender, that she forgot to let him decide who he was, and honestly think this was actually based on her dislike of her ex opposed to what her child wanted. If you look at my previous postings, you'll see I have a youngest who wears makeup, nail varnish, high heels, princess dresses etc etc, but has absolutely no gender identity issues. For him, he has autism and doesn't see male/female conforms and quite rightly so. (I did put load more about my personal life a couple of pages back, I believe )

In this instance from what I've read of the report, I think the judge has made the correct decision. It was heartbreaking reading, if I'm honest.

I wasn't referring to the judgement when I said about the poor parent, I was merely stating that if the mother was posting on the forum that that was what was going on, the mermaids would have had to take that at face value when they are there to support in a non judgemental way

Hope that makes sense - I do have an incredible ability to waffle

Lol ipost. I agree, it sometimes is hard to separate the wheat from that chaff, but my forever pinging of my email box for mumsnet job updates or newsletters would qualify me as being an oldie. Trouble is, once I find a topic to debate, you can't get rid of me and have to endure my wafflings . Normally I'm a thread killer, so am grateful for the opportunity to continue my waffling!

Actually I am a parent who does belong to Mermaids and I have not denied that. What I do deny though is that I have been asked to comment here by anyone from Mermaids as I have my own mind and will use that when I feel the need to do so. I have been on mumsnet, under a different name, for many years now and have followed many conversations like this and even commented on them so have not joined with just this purpose. Yes I have changed my name so that none of this leads back to my family, and in-particular my child, but I don't need to hide behind an organisation or be the voice for them. My words are my own and I stick by them.

OK, so can anyone who is a Mermaids service user tell me where I can find Mermaids child protection policy?

Are all Mermaids trustees DBS checked?

How does Mermaid check the identities of those requesting to use either the parent or teen boards?

And as this child isn't trans, why are they involved ?

I think you have misunderstood my postings, I was saying that the mother perhaps was misguided in her sense of trying to protect her child and based upon the information provided to Mermaids, they have supported her.

I can understand them taking the mother at her word at the time. What I cannot understand is the continual insistence (even after reading the judgement, as they have claimed to do) that they were right and the judge, and the professionals involved, and even the Tavistock were wrong. That this 'poor child' is now being 'forced' to live as a boy. And so on.

I can't answer the first 2 questions, as I'll be honest I've not looked into it. My child also has not joined the youngsters side, but do know that as a parent/guardian/foster carer, you have to join first before your child joins. I also know that all posts are moderated first, and that is for both child and parent.

With my experience, I found mermaids from googling as was at a bit of a loss with my child's situation - it's most bizarre and has every agency scratching their head at the min.

Anyway I called them, explained my situation and we just talked about it. When i requested to join, I had to provide some personal details and more importantly a landline to which they called me on a couple of days later. I provided my email address and when I wrote about my predicament, it was moderated before it went live. It doesn't work like this forum, where what I write is published before it is moderated

mermaids? ( sorry for ignorance)

WankingMonkey (this seriously makes me giggle every time I read your name lol). I do agree with this sentiment, but as I said before I may get splinters on my butt from fence sitting. On the face of it, it does seem quite incredulous based on the judgement that they are supporting blindly the mother. However, without knowing what conversations went on confidentially between the mother and mermaids, I am not in a position to understand and have considered that maybe there is more to it than what the judgement states. I do however think that they should state something on the lines of this particular case being a very rare situation, as I can understand them wanting to be seen to support their members through thick and thin.