Interesting timing.
current threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3452489-Mermaids-given-500-000-by-National-Lottery-Sunday-Times
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3454658-recording-of-mermaids-training
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3455052-West-Yorkshire-Police
16/12/2018 Andrew Gilligan Sunday Times article:
'Child sex-change charity Mermaids handed £500,000 by national lottery
An ‘aggressive’ group that says under-16s should be allowed to alter their bodies medically plans to go nationwide'
(extract)
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.
The chief executive of Mermaids, Susie Green, who took her son for a now illegal sex-change operation in Thailand when he was 16, believes medical intervention is “absolutely vital” for children unhappy with their biological sex. Her view is disputed by NHS gender specialists who say intervention is not always right.
Mermaids also wants to overturn an NHS ban on under-16s being treated with cross-sex hormones, which cause permanent body changes and compromise fertility; those taking them require lifelong medical support. Clinicians say children are too young for such a step.
Green has said the refusal by the NHS to give children the hormones can make them “self-harming and suicidal”, and claimed attendees at the main clinic that treats gender-dysphoric youngsters, the Tavistock Centre, in north London, have a “48% suicide attempt risk”. The clinic says the true rate is less than 1%.
In evidence to MPs, Mermaids singled out a doctor at the Tavistock as “anti-trans” and demanded it conduct “a thorough audit of staff and their views”. The charity criticised the clinic for “media quotes that emphasise [the] uncertainty and complexity” of gender questions.
Green, an IT consultant, has no medical training. Responding on Twitter to an NHS psychiatrist who accused her of “making stuff up”, she wrote that “you need to f* off. You know nothing.”
In the absence of NHS treatment, Mermaids has referred parents to a private GP, Helen Webberley, who prescribed cross-sex hormones to children as young as 12. Mermaids recommended Webberley even after she was convicted of operating an illegal gender clinic." (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/child-sex-change-charity-handed-500-000-by-national-lottery-dvbt7t2kb?shareToken=cd8d6faad97cd9dd3fe3f16eb3810f45