National Autistic Society and Mermaids [Title edited by MNHQ]

[GColdtimer]

My friend just posted this on Facebook this morning. She isn't on MN so I have her permission to share. She would really like more people, especially people with ASD or who have children with ASD, to write to NAS thanking them for their willingness to listen and their agreement that Mermaids is not reputable.

This is really great news so please can we keep this bumped and shared. Thank you.

If posters on the SEN board would like to share that would also be great (if appropriate).

Dear XXXX ,

Thank you for your feedback regarding the Gender and autism page on our website.

I’m writing to let you know that I’ve raised your concerns regarding Mermaids UK, one of the organisations we link to on our Gender and autism page, with a number of teams within the National Autistic Society. In light of the concerns raised in your message, and of other feedback that we have received, we have decided to remove all links to Mermaids UK from our website, while we take the time to consult with relevant professionals and to reconsider which organisations we wish to place links to on our website.

As such, our Web Team are working to remove all links to Mermaids UK from our website as soon as possible. Please do be aware, however, that, as we are currently in the process of updating our website to reflect our new branding and organisational identity, it may take a few days for this to be actioned.

Thank you again for bringing this to our attention, and I hope that you are satisfied with the actions we are taking in light of the concerns that you have raised.

Kind regards,

National Autistic Society

[Edited by MNHQ to remove personal info]

We are autistic people!

I think that as a stakeholder it's worth challenging anything that seems to have been done without due diligence.
If mermaids are still linking to the discredited GP that's not ideal to start with.

What about the small matter of the CEO illegally obtaining drugs and life-changing surgery for her underage child, and lobbying to normalise it?

I think we need to send the NAS evidence of how we are being silenced and branded as bigots. I have no doubt they have been contacted dismissing women like us as anti trans bigots. It is for this reason I have just sent them a copy of my diagnosis letter so they can see I am truly autistic. I urge other autistic people to do the same. This is something we can do that the trans activists cant. Include yours or your childrens diagnosis letters in your emails. Show them we are genuine autistic people

That's a good idea luna

How did you contact them?

And I think you'll find that we are actually the 'witches' that others threaten to burn. I've seen no threats of violence on here.

It's just another classic TRA narcissistic reversal. The more outrageous the lie in turning the victim's argument against the victim the greater the thrill.

DARVO in other words.

@placemats this is a good idea, separate thread? And I suggest, strongly suggest, GC women leave Twitter.

The DARVO is why I think it is more likely old skool MRA of the F4J kind.

Co-opting the language of the opponent to baldly make a ludicrous assertion. It turns language used to describe very specific forms of oppression into 'just something people say'.

The lack of finesse about it suggests someone young or not very well socialised.

I would suggest an SN chat thread too

[email protected] NAS contact email FYI

Co-opting the language of the opponent to baldly make a ludicrous assertion.

This tactic is incredibly common with TRAs in my experience on social media. It's a form of "Duping delight", the narcissist's excitement that they've got away with something outrageous. This one might well be old school MRA though.

I am the OP and I have had an "Oh shit, what have I done" moment.

But then I had a couple of friends who have been silent before message me to say "this is odd, is something sinister going on" so in some ways it's getting the issue out there and has raised awareness in the community. If it hadn't hit social media they could have just quietly put the links back when mermaids noticed.

I could well be just self comforting though. In truly sorry if I made things worse.

On another note Johnny best just commented on the stonewall thread. The fact these two things came at the same time has made people question what is going on.

Hi everyone
I can't say much about Alison, but we are in touch with her and she's ok. She was subjected to some appalling TRA bullying and it was just too much, too quickly. That's all I'll say for now.
Best to all,
Jonny

National Autism Society have today issued this statement on twitter:

twitter.com/Autism/status/1048511231873757184

"We are sorry that we took the wrong decision on our information about gender and autism last week. We didn’t follow our usual process and we should have.

We are particularly sorry for any impression we gave that that we don’t support autistic people’s right to decide their own gender. That is absolutely not the case.

We have apologised to @mermaids_gender and we will be reinstating the links to them next week and then reviewing the information using our normal processes.

It was a mistake to take down the links, our usual process was not followed. We will be strengthening this as a result. Thanks, Supporter Care."

So why did they take it down?

Or keep twitter locked. I know it would be really annoying for someone like myself who isn't on twitter. But I think Glinner has the right approach. A man silenced, who would have thought?

I support you OP. You did the right thing. Keep strong but also protect yourself.

What galls me is the apology to m e r m a i d s.

Oh ffs, just saw their grovelling apology.

This really is getting frightening now.

They have personally apologised to Mermaids?

Oh no!

I understand why you did what you did OP and I wouldn't have known about it otherwise.

As for apologising to Mermaids.

Oh holy Christmas.

Well they will regret this when Mermaids goes down as it inevitably will, for encouraging the sterilisation / castration of childen.

This is a long haul fight.

The TRA lobby are far more financed and powerful than we, but this will change it simply will.