Buzzfeed slagging off Transgender Trend and pushing Mermaids today

[catgirl1976]

Here

www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/trans-kids-should-be-outed-to-their-parents-says-a-group?bftwuk&utm_term=4ldqpgm

I'll complain when I summon coherent words

This gives me pause

"Asked how many transgender people she has consulted since Transgender Trend’s launch in 2015, she said “about 10”, including those who have contacted her with concerns about how trans issues are handled...

Davies-Arai is not qualified in medicine, law, or teaching, and does not have professional experience working with trans people. She described herself as a sculptor and a “credited instructor in communication skills”."

Buzzfeed is the standard-bearer for the Speshul Snoflake Woke Olympics and is good only for a laugh. Anyone who takes it seriously needs to re-evaluate their ability to think.

And yet people will take what it has to say seriously.

The allegation that Davies-Arai and TT are unqualified to deliver the resources they putting out into the world is a serious one, and one they have not disputed since the publication of the article. The 10 transpersons consulted figure is bound to raise eyebrows, particularly since TT is a key source for the Littman RODG study which has been heavily criticised for also failing to solicit input from transpeople themselves.

Buzz feed followed up with article - to be fair, it doesn’t make Transgender Trend look good...

www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/the-group-behind-these-anti-trans-stickers-has-apologised

no, it make them look great tbh

NicolaHare wrote: This gives me pause

About TGT or Susie Green as well?

Somebody upthread notes that those critical remarks were limited to SAD:: Cos Susie Green for mermaids was quoted uncritically - and isn't her only qualification having a child who transitioned and who had surgery at 16?

Yeah. I wondered what Susie Green's qualifications were as they pointed out Arai-Davis's lack of formal qualifications.

Yeah. I wondered what Susie Green's qualifications were as they pointed out Arai-Davis's lack of formal qualifications.

I think the same could be asked of all of the staff, trustees etc at Mermaids.

The last time I looked, there was a noticable absence of people with experience and/or qualifications in child / adolescant health, welfare, safeguarding etc.

sorry meant to bold your comment Terfsup!

Anyone got an explaination for why the likes of the NSPCC and NHS and various government bodies which have a safeguarding duty, haven't checked references / qualifications of Mermaids people?

Thought not...

Its a smear.

Noting here that if you are a whistleblower against a system, qualifications are not necessary anyway. The point is you are demonstrating the lack of proper safeguarding which is getting past people who should know better.

The last time I looked, there was a noticable absence of people with experience and/or qualifications in child / adolescant health, welfare, safeguarding etc.

For what that's worth, sadly. On the Savile thread, a member wrote:

In the vein of ridiculous people, the woman running a charity's safeguarding course I did around 4 years ago was friends with Rolf Harris and was SURE he didn't commit those crimes. It just couldn't be true and she stood by him. She told us this on a SAFEGUARDING COURSE for her charity.

Sadly I can't comment without it automatically linking to my FB account. Anyone know how I can fix this?

There's a lot of comments claiming that of course parents should be kept out of the loop as it's well known that trans kids in the UK are often abused and even killed by bigoted parents.

I don't think there's ever been a case in which parents have been charged with harming their trans child. I'm certain none have been murdered.

And then so many of the comments refer to the made up suicide claims. These suicide and abuse/murder lies, it seems, are too well established to ever be dislodged, and they're established because those who promote them need them to be true.

There's a kid in the comments claiming "if anyone told my mother im nonbinary right now while im in school i would actually die".

Whereas, given that none of us is a walking stereotype, her mum probably wouldn't even notice. Just say absent mindedly "Yes, dear. That's nice."

Log out of Facebook.

aranfan Given the known vulnerability of chidren and young people questioning their gender identity and that there is a helpline etc. It is significant.

I have just been posting on the thread about women's gyny cancers. The majority of the charities were set up by women who had been diagnosed. As they have expanded all have health care professionals involved.
Compare the staff / trustee lists.

Its very notable.

Those who have been advising sports, girl guides, NHS etc are bringing their transgender experience with backing from trans-rights groups but with often no previous experience in the area they become 'expert adviser'.

In some cases there seems no other possible reason why the individual is involved in shaping policy eg Aimee Challenor / Philip Bunce / Jane Fae & Girl Guides

Rowantrees wrote: aranfan Given the known vulnerability of chidren and young people questioning their gender identity and that there is a helpline etc. It is significant.

Then what I wrote has been interpreted in a way that I didn't intend - I had no intention of minimising it. I thought it worth noting that a member elsewhere had had that experience in a safeguarding workshop and I am deeply troubled by the credentials of these people.

Thank you, WrongKindOfFace. I'll try that.

The article says: The National Education Union's guidance to teachers makes clear that "it would be a criminal offence for someone who has been told that someone is trans in the course of their professional role to disclose this information without the consent of the student".

I'm guessing this information is incorrect in this context. It would be illegal to tell some random - the kid's classmates for instance - but as I understand it, it would not be illegal to share the information with others caring for that child, including their parents. Rather the opposite, in that keeping secrets is well known to be dangerous.

Can anyone make the position clear? I've never worked in a setting where safeguarding was an issue so know only what I've read here.

I agree aranfan.
The issue increasingly is that some 'trainers' just like the 'policy makers' have never actually worked front-line and Safeguarded.

Given the behaviour pattern of the TRA faithful is make a claim, hear the problems pointed out, demonize the whistleblower, I fully anticipate the next twist to be an all out attack on the idea of safeguarding itself.

I don't think we're quite there yet, the term still has enough weight to not be an overt target, but I'll not be a bit surprised to see a slow drip of articles with the premise "Do we need to rethink our attachment to 'Safeguarding' orthodoxy?"

Link to thread collating some of the many failings, failures and threats to Child Protection and Safeguarding frameworks:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3301266-Safeguarding-girls-and-protecting-women-post-Jimmy-Saville-metoo

Apologies - Davies-Arai, not Arai-Davis.

I'll not be a bit surprised to see a slow drip of articles with the premise "Do we need to rethink our attachment to 'Safeguarding' orthodoxy?"

Funny you should say that, but I was having a trawl through something else and clicked onto this link because the title made me wonder. And the blurb underneath didn't improve what I thought.

Then I saw your post.

I haven't listened to this, so it might not be as bad as it sounds, but it certainly seems to fit with what you are suggesting we will get with a drip, drip.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bh4361
Actress and broadcaster Jameela Jamil tackles the explosive conversation around sexual assault to determine what consent in sex and relationships should look like in a modern, digital world.

The recent sexual assault allegations that have surfaced from the #MeToo movement have radically changed how men and women view consent. The invisible contracts that get passed between sexual partners have begun to feel outdated for many.

With every new story that comes out, a series of opinion articles are published overnight. Broadcaster Jameela Jamil joined the conversation - and her concise, blunt and cutting article spread like wildfire across social media. In this two-part series, Jameela asks if our legal and moral interpretation of "consent" is no longer fit for purpose, particularly for a new social media and sexually literate generation that behaves differently, and expects different standards of behaviour.

In this second episode, Jameela explores what fundamental aspects of society need to change in order to bring about a form of consent that works for all. She looks at education, asking at what age consent should be taught to children, and considers whether the fact our wider lives play out in a non-consensual society ultimately translates into our sex lives.

A form of consent that works for all???

I geniunely hope its not as bad as I fear it sounds.

cf comments in May 2018 Guardian Article, 'Schools pulled into row over helping transgender children
As more teens come out as trans, experts clash over how schools should help'

(extract)
"Adele Robinson (not her real name), a head of year at a secondary school, shares Davies-Arai’s worries. The school has had 12 children, all girls, come out as transgender in the past 18 months. The majority, she says, have autism, and some have experienced sexual abuse.

When they come out, she says, they have brought in information sourced from Tumblr blogs and YouTube videos. Although her team does its best to “support every child in a loving, kind and compassionate way”, she feels that staff are too frightened to challenge what she sees as harmful practices: “We have chest binders worn in school, which is horrible. If a child was cutting, they would be straight in with a counsellor. Yet damaging developing breast tissue goes unquestioned. It’s a gross failure in terms of child protection.”

[Susie] Green disagrees, and argues for a biological underpinning to transgender identity: “If a child or young person consistently, insistently and persistently states their feelings, to ignore, punish or repress their gender identity would effectively be reparative therapy.” (continues)
www.theguardian.com/education/2018/may/15/transgender-row-teachers-afraid-challenge-breast-binding

Also from the Guardian aticle above:

Profound disagreement has arisen about what schools should do. Should they, in the words of a widely used toolkit from the Allsorts Youth Project in Brighton, “make visible and celebrate trans people”? Or take the “watchful waiting” approach advocated by the Transgender Trend pack, which warns schools to be “aware of the risk of ‘social contagion’ from celebrity trans internet vloggers who glamorise medical transition”?

Stephanie Davies-Arai, a parenting adviser, launched the Transgender Trend resource pack in February half-term, thinking it would barely get noticed. Instead, she says: “It just blew up”. The LGBT lobby group Stonewall accused Transgender Trend, the organisation Davies-Arai set up two-and-a-half years ago, of spreading “damaging myths, panic and confusion”, and advised local authorities not to use the pack. On Twitter, people piled in, with one describing the pack (which had been checked by lawyers) as a “modern edition of Mein Kampf”.

Davies-Arai says she took an interest in the subject because as a child she had felt herself to be a boy, and she didn’t think it was a good idea to label children like her as transgender because she believes that in some cases, these feelings resolve naturally by the end of adolescence.

While the Allsorts advice states that “trans pupils or students should have access to the changing room that corresponds to their gender identity” and that in PE lessons, students “should be enabled to participate in the activity which corresponds to their gender identity if this is what they request”, Davies-Arai argues that shared changing rooms present difficulties for some girls. Few teenage girls will be willing to admit that they feel uncomfortable sharing a changing room with a biologically male student, she says.

She points out that the technical guidance on the Equality Act for schools suggests offering students “private changing facilities, such as the staff changing room or another suitable space” – the approach taken at Miles’s school.

Susie Green, CEO of the charity Mermaids, disagrees, saying the debate about single-sex toilets seems “engineered to whip up fear” and is equivalent to “arguing people of colour shouldn’t be allowed to use the same toilets as white people in case they make them dirty”. (continues)

It is actually a good read. CONSENT SHOULDN’T BE THE GOLD STANDARD. That should be the basic foundation. Built upon that foundation should be fun, mutual passion, equal arousal, interest and enthusiasm. And it is any man or woman’s right at ANY time to stop, for whatever reason.