Mermaids given £500,000 by National Lottery (Sunday Times)

[crsacre]

A transgender charity that campaigns for children to be given prohibited sex-change treatment has been awarded £500,000 by the national lottery.

The payment to Mermaids has angered MPs, feminists and women’s organisations, who accuse the charity of bullying doctors, promoting falsehoods and using “emotional blackmail” to pressure parents to support life-changing medical interventions for their children. Mermaids will use the money to create a network of 45 groups nationwide.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/child-sex-change-charity-handed-500-000-by-national-lottery-dvbt7t2kb?shareToken=cd8d6faad97cd9dd3fe3f16eb3810f45

From the Mermaids website:

www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/parents-support-forum.html

Parent Forum

"We have had people trying to access this group for their own reasons, when they are neither parents or carers. This includes men claiming to be widowed mothers with transgender children, individuals with pornographic content linked to their names, journalists, and individuals who do not believe that transgender children and young people exist".

So Mermaids are publicly stating that predatory men are trying to access their website.

Presumably because these predatory men can spot a wide open Safeguarding Barn Door when they see one.

So Mermaids are publicly stating that predatory men are trying to access their website.

Presumably because these predatory men can spot a wide open Safeguarding Barn Door when they see one.

Indeed.

Good to see Andrew Gilligan says he has plenty of evidence to give to the Big Lottery Fund.

One of Mermaids' other bankrollers fails to recognise the irony in their tweet that they believe in facts over the baying mob. Yes because that's just what MDAs are known for, evidence and peace, whereas parents and women are known for mumbo jumbo and wielding baseball bats.

So Mermaids have predatory paedo men trying to access their service? I wonder why that might be?

As for other parents who don’t believe trans kids actually exist, well not sure why they would be there then, if what they’re interested in doesn’t actually exist.

Green et al are a brain cell away from a realisation. Oh for that illusive brain cell.

I haven’t seen anyone say that trans kids don’t exist. Just that from what was a very rare thing to become an epidemic is a worrying trend, possibly encouraged by social media and the whole rainbow movement.

Strangely enough no TRAs on twitter can come up with a plausible reason to support Mermaids-other than hateful transphobic bigots filled with hate are lobbying to prevent money helping suicidal children.
They really don’t have a leg to stand on or a coherent argument to make.

Wes Streeting MP wades in. Bindel corrects him.

Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) Tweeted:
@BigLotteryFund What is the point of having a proper grant decision-making process if you simply get pushed around by e-mail campaigns? How can we have confidence in the independence and effectiveness of your decisions? twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1074682139684282369?s=17

I think this is being argued on the wrong front:
Do you want laws based on opinion or facts?
Do you want medicines and treatments based on evidence, or a child opinion?
What is the defition of trans? It is now so wide and nebulous that actual trans people are being thrown under the bus.

I agree Biologifemini

I'd add to that, do we really want to abandon safeguarding, regulatory protections and carefully created ethical and professional standards in favour of optimism, hope and a belief that it's more important to give people whatever they want quickly and nothing can go wrong with this? Or might there be other agendas beneath cutting corners and avoiding scrutiny that vulnerable children and families need protection from?

Reposting what I said on the other thread:

If you haven't written yet, it's important to stress all the issues with regard to safeguarding that apply across the board and not just to trans issues. Information sharing is an important one: almost every Serious Case Review highlights a failure of information sharing as an important contributing factor in a disastrous outcome. Any charity that encourages confidential disclosures and not informing parents, and discourages multi-agency involvement should be regarded with extreme caution

Wes streeting mp ilford north- is he often involved in this kind of thing? He’s getting some love.

Streeting was on the member list of "Labour Against Transphobia" secret Facebook doxxing group targeting gender critical women. ISTR he claimed it was accidental.

twitter.com/MrsMeadowsweet/status/978229481314881537?s=20

In the spirit of always being open to learning, hearing what is being said from all angles, I listened to this interesting recording of a Mermaids training session (thank you, whoever you are Man in a Box, for recording it - not sure if it's Michael or someone else). Apologies if it's been posted elsewhere already.

twitter.com/MichaelConroy68/status/1074723166923182081

Man in a Box asks salient questions at key points through the presentation. Jan, the trainer, finally gets fucked off at Man in a Box asking salient questions and accuses him of 'putting words in her mouth', despite the fact that he's picking up on a statement she'd clearly said around suicide facts earlier on.

After being bombarded by 'boy jelly baby' and 'girl jelly baby' brains, etc, and GI Joe (seriously, what UK child would even know who GI Joe is, let alone 'identifying' with him) I can't believe Man in a Box is the only person in that room to ask any questions.

So much to unpack from this recording, but none of it new or surprising, and it's Christmas, so no time!

I've also listened to a secret recording of a Mermaids session (in a school). It was enlightening and in places quite comical (unintentionally).

How very dare the people in that training session ask question! It's as if they don't even realize that they're being generously gifted with the holy Word of Susie at all...

Haven’t they heard of #nodebate? Listen to the great minds in the subject and be educated.

Fuck me ...

twitter.com/parislees/status/1074762455316881409?s=19

Is telling Big Lottery if they pull the grant they will be responsible for children killing them so really going to make them change their minds?

LOL! "So you dared to question the holy Mermaids, eh? Well then we demand that you give them DOUBLE the money! Better not ask any more questions or we'll demand triple."

Yes but this proves the point-Paris has not had children-they can't see the problems regards safeguarding of children.....their arguments don't stack up.

Haven’t RTFT and am in haste but if anyone is contacting BL using FOI then I would advise asking for the following very specifically:

• Application and all supporting material
• Name of grant funding scheme this application was applying to including criteria for funding
• Assessment and all supporting assessment material
• decision making process including panel membership
• Decision making panel minutes
• Recommendation comments

If you FOI you get only the minimum they can get away with sending and some decision panel minutes are deliberately pretty thin. Asking for all the above material should get you the full picture.

Outside of Gendertopia I believe that's what's commonly referred to as "extortion".

1. Lees had no contact or experience with Mermaids cos it didn't exist. This means Lees is talking about a fantasy of how they think life would have been with Mermaids. This is important. It's a fantasy not an experience.

2. Lees fantasy includes the idea that if Mermaids had been there it would have saved so much pain for them and their family. Now I don't buy into this. The family problems come from not being able to talk freely and through distortion of reality. Mermaids don't actually change this; it just provides an echo chamber. That's not necessarily good for everyone involved for a number of reasons. But the fantasy is more important.

3. The NHS is clear that in ROGD there is a high desistance rate. But instead we get some bollocks about reparative therapy.

4. Then we get some emotional blackmail and talk of mental health and nothing about comorbidity and just a bunch of anecdotes which are very sad, but not very helpful in study terms.

5. We have this ongoing myth that all trans people are the same and have the same needs and the same approach by professionals.

6. Mermaids are painted as infallible and unquestionable. How could someone come out and say their experience with Mermaids was bad in this political environment? Mermaids have tried to effectively monopolise approaches to care and support to be monolithic rather than individualised. Anyone who suggests something different is vilified and demonised as being evil. And yet that court case...

It's all yet more opinion and fantasy and propaganda and not a shred more than that.

It's unhealthy.

Can you imagine any health service getting reviews which are all 100% positive 5 star ratings? Mermaids seemingly do. Often from individuals who never used it themselves personally.

I am listening to the Mermaids training session linked previously.

It will need serious review.