Mermaids - need help

[GoodCheer]

I’m hoping to peak trans my lovely friend who is a senior manager at a big (huge) organisation and recently sang to me the praises of her E&D manager, who is a stunning & brave TW who transitioned as a child and is pushing Mermaids as her saviour and an organisation everyone should be praising and following. Oh, how fun that was.

Friend is one of my oldest and a truly wonderful woman, highly intelligent and a good person. She just hasn’t encountered this issue before and I need to point her in the right direction.

Got very over excited at dinner the other night and I think I scared her. Now need to back up my diatribe with some pertinent facts, calmly delivered....

I wouldn't dive in with too many statistics.

I've had more sensible discussions starting from 'They must have a lot more faith than I do in medical practice! I'd want to wait and see whether this generation really come out of it well, given it's so untested.'

The sui stat is what mermaids uses to get parents to go a long with them. They argue it’s better to have a live daughter than a dead son, despite the Sui stat they use being based on around 17 people, not the 2000+ they claim. That’s a really important one imo. It shows huge manipulation. The NICE guidelines always were wait and see, I don’t know if that’s changed in the year since I checked, but any grouping advising ignoring NICE guidelines should be backing that up with serious evidence.

There are quite a lot of studies on suicidal ideation in LGBT populations, some of which consider much higher numbers of trans-people.

There's a review here (though it's possibly from a PhD student - buyer beware!): psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-31802-001

Being a "truly wonderful woman, highly intelligent and a good person" myself ( ) I think I'd not be too convinced by ad hominems. No matter what you might think of how she treated her child, most people naive to the situation would give the benefit of the doubt and believe she was acting in her best beliefs as to what would be best for the child.

I'd touch on how she has NO clinical or medical training - SG works in IT (and managed to store confidential data about their clients in a publicly accessable place online, so draw your own conclusions about her competency there) and seems to be only informed by her own experience and what she's been told by others. No non-dodgy data that I know of.

Child J was a huge eye-opener for me.
Transcript of the ridiculous training and REFUSAL to engage in honest questions at the event.
Plus the safeguarding links about.
If they were genuine they wouldn't be trying to push one single pathway at the cost of everything else and trying to shut down debate.

I’m hoping to peak trans my lovely friend who is a senior manager at a big (huge) organisation and recently sang to me the praises of her E&D manager, who is a stunning & brave TW who transitioned as a child and is pushing Mermaids as her saviour and an organisation everyone should be praising and following. Oh, how fun that was.

You don't know this trans person apart from what your friend has told you and yet you immediately add 'stunning and brave' in an obviously flippant way. They might be a perfectly pleasant person yet the tone of your post suggests that you have an issue with her purely because she is trans.

talking
The dramatic shift from support group to lobbying seems to have happened after Susie Green became a trustee... 🤔🤔🤔

From their website:
Trustee for approximately 10 years of Mermaids, Chair for 3 years, and CEO since January 2016

What I'd like from the trans activists sniffing around is links to the scientific research that backed this change in approach. Cos to me it looks ideological not scientific.

I imagine 'stunning and brave' is how the friend is describing their colleague. Do you know roughly how old the TW colleague is? Transitioning as a child, and remaining positive and happy about it, must be a really interesting (yes, brave) experience, particularly if it was some time ago - although how long have Mermaids actually been going?

I would find it hard to mentally put them in the same "category" (can't think of a better word) of gender dysphoria as say someone who wanted to transition after being married with kids, for example.

I imagine 'stunning and brave' is how the friend is describing their colleague

I'd doubt it very much. It's usually used as a derogatory phrase towards trans people on here. No one is going to describe a friend like that in normal conversation.

Ha, sorry, but we didn't make that one up. It was taken from the #transgirls hashtag on twitter.

But feel free to try and focus on that - rather than the horrific damage Mermaids are doing by promoting the medicalisation of children! Definitely more important.

How old is her E&D manager (what is that anyway?) if they 'transitioned as a child'? I thought that was a much more recent phenomenon.

But feel free to try and focus on that

Actually it probably explains a lot because someone referring to a trans person they have never met in that sarcastic way tells me they have an issue just with the fact that the person is trans.

You don't really know it was sarcastic though.

You don't really know it was sarcastic though.

Oh, I'm sure it was totally genuine and well-intentioned.

Well, be sure as you like, but OP was asking about Mermaids. Who I'm sure you believe are well intentioned - but do you think a UK charity should refer children/their parents to doctors who have been convicted in the UK, but who are still operating from overseas?

I welcome posts like the OP's because it exposes that for a large number of you the issue is just trans people... whatever 'concerns' you may try to cover up your prejudice with.

Do you think Mermaids should have referred people to Helen Webberley when she had a conviction for running an illegal clinic in the UK?

for a large number of you the issue is just trans people... whatever 'concerns' you may try to cover up your prejudice with.

It's not 'prejudice' to have concerns about a 'charity' which encourages children to believe there is something wrong with their bodies.

Do you think that the CEO of Mermaids should have taken her child for GRS in Thailand for their 16th birthday? Surgery that is illegal in the UK.

And then decide that her decision for her child is probably right for every other gender confused child - endorsing puberty blockers for minors, and endorsing a US surgeon at a conference for recommending GRS in young people? Minors? When there is an 80% desistance rate for gender confused children who are allowed the "watchful waiting' approach?

Why are Mermaids so set on the medical pathway? Why have they branded therapy that is anything other than affirming "conversion therapy"? WHY can GIDS and Mermaids not provide any evidence based studies to support their insistence that gender confused children must be put on the medicalised pathway? They admitted as much on Newsnight. Don't call us "prejudiced" for pointing this shit out.

They're not interested zebra
Anyone who could come to this thread, see all this evidence (I doubt they've even looked, they certainly haven't countered) and pick on a phrase, is just derailing, in a brave and stunning way.

There has been a terrible EVIL perceived slight, that must be re-educated. Forgiveness, of cause is impossible, but the OP could thank snow for their emotional labour, whilst on their knees, chanting:
TWAW
TMAM
and NBP are valid etc etc

So I'm still asking where's the scientific evidence for the shift in mermaid policy 2009 to 2011 ?

Thanks x

They're not interested zebra
Anyone who could come to this thread, see all this evidence (I doubt they've even looked, they certainly haven't countered) and pick on a phrase, is just derailing, in a brave and stunning way.

You don't get it that no trans person or supporter is going to engage with discussing issues when the overriding message they get is that, whatever those issues, the OP also has a major problem with the fact that someone is trans. It would be the equivalent of a black or Muslim person being asked to engage with the BNP. It's basically sending out the message 'even if there were no issues we disagree on, I'd still have a problem with you as a person'.

Utter bollocks. The very major issues are staring everyone in the face, they are very serious issues for women, for children, for society as a whole. Nothing to do with random moral disgust, you're borrowing historical issues totally out of context to try and validate your agenda.

If you want to make stretch comparisons its less like asking a 'black person to engage with the BNP' than asking a parent where there are possible concerns to engage with social services. Because however offended or threatened or upset or criticised that person may personally feel, there may be issues that can't be left alone to do harm, and wider responsibilities involved than to just protect that one person's feelings.

you're borrowing historical issues totally out of context to try and validate your agenda

Rubbish, it's clear as daylight that the OP has an issue just with the fact that their friend's colleague is trans.

That really isn't what the OP says at all. Or what any of the thread says. Because words mean things. But whatever.