Mermaids is encouraging children to hide online searches from their parents

[jadefinch]

Surely this is a child safeguarding breach and is an example of child grooming?

The trans children charity Mermaids has created a button on its desktop website so that children can immediately jump to another web site if a parent comes into the room, presumably while either looking at Mermaids material or talking to someone at the charity, so they can lie to their parents that they were actually doing something else.

They've created this because more children are home at the moment during the coronavirus pandemic.

The charity has received further criticism in the last few days for not playing what could be an important role during COVID-19:

• They should be telling transboys to ditch their binders until this is over - the binders constrict the chest and lead to breathing difficulties, something that's potentially fatal during a pandemic where the virus targets the lungs; but Mermaids have refused to do this.
• They should be telling all young trans people to stay away from hospitals unless there's an emergency as non-essential treatment increases the risk of spreading the virus at the moment; Mermaids has not done this.
• They have instead asked people to buy more food on Amazon and set Mermaids up as the charity to donate a percentage of the money spent to - ignoring all charities concerned with NHS staff or the elderly that desperate need cash injections at the moment.

They have instead asked people to buy more food on Amazon and set Mermaids up as the charity to donate a percentage of the money spent to - ignoring all charities concerned with NHS staff or the elderly that desperate need cash injections at the moment.

Narcs gonna narc.

Unfortunately I think rather than being a sageguarding breach this is a safeguarding measure. Your post completely overlooks the huge degree of danger many trans children would face if outed at home.

Evidence, please, for that statement that many trans children are in huge danger from their own parents.

This is what domestic abuse services do To ensure that women can be safe at home. This positions parents as abusers.

Homophobia exists in some parents (Susie Green says in a Ted Talk that the original driver of her child's transition was the father's homophobia).

But I've not seen any examples of transphobia among parents being a thing. The biggest risk to the child is the parent affirming the delusion.

Imagine if there was a charity that encouraged anorexic children to believe they really were fat and did this. The parent's role is to safeguard the child and protect them from predators.

I may be being dense here, but if a child is in danger at home, surely that is the case regardless of whether they believe they are trans or not?

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/lgbt_in_britain_-_trans_report_final.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi55ZfjwrfoAhXaEcAKHV6GAB4QFjAHegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw1nJFKlYrLnswzRsKcaD3DZ" rel="nofollow" target="blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/lgbt_in_britain-_trans_report_final.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi55ZfjwrfoAhXaEcAKHV6GAB4QFjAHegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw1nJFKlYrLnswzRsKcaD3DZ

And also anecdotal, with the exception of one, all the trans individuals i met at my uni pride society had faced verbal or physical abuse from their parents when coming out, and many were kicked out of home.

What next - how to scrub the browser cache, get a vpn, commit card fraud to get your binder/packer?

This is irresponsible and makes you wonder why they don’t want parents knowing children are browsing their website. Btw, their website also contains an online web chat service and ‘teens forum’, so it isn’t just info and videos.

I may be being dense here, but if a child is in danger at home, surely that is the case regardless of whether they believe they are trans or not?

Well quite. There isn't a swathe of ordinarily loving and kind parents who become abusive simply because their child questions their gender.

I’m pretty sure Childline does the same thing on their website - a quick hide

Surely the safeguarding response to a child being abused at home is to encourage them to phone Childline or confide in an adult they trust? Why are Mermaids not advising this?

Hypothetical question, obviously. We know why.

I’m pretty sure Childline does the same thing on their website - a quick hide

Women’s Aid does the same thing.

But Mermaids aren’t advising children to phone Childline.

The Stonewall report doesn’t contain any information on children being subject to abuse by parents as a result of identifying as trans. It talks about adults looking back and identifying their parents as having been unsupportive, and it also looks at domestic violence from partners.

But it is silent on parents abusing trans identifying children.

As Vilanelle says, this positions the parents of trans identifying children as abusers. I don’t think this is in the best interests of those children at all.

Mermaids don’t care about children.

Maybe once people get their heads around that, they won’t be shocked by things like this.

Absolutely extraordinary. This organisation seeks to isolate children from their parents. Why is secrecy such a recurrent theme? How many Keira Bells will it take before this dangerous lobby group is exposed? And subjected to rigorous scrutiny? Why is an global mega Corp which sells cookies bankrolling this?

This organisation seeks to isolate children from their parents.

As do most cults.

TENI is doing this too.

I can’t believe these organisations are allowed to encourage children to risk permanent damage to their physical health and to lie to their parents about what they’re doing.

They should be forced to watch the documentary about Breck Bednar and what happened to him when he started lying to his parents about his online activity.

Sorry, should have said “when he was groomed into lying to his parents”.

It's our little secret

shudders

A reminder that Mermaids appointed Jake Edwards to a communications role last September - seemingly because Jake that summer made a YouTube video that went viral.

The video was mostly about kink and included Jake talking about all the different sized objects he has inserted into his anus (and has since been removed from YouTube)

Arseholes and groomers.

And also anecdotal, with the exception of one, all the trans individuals i met at my uni pride society had faced verbal or physical abuse from their parents when coming out, and many were kicked out of home.

I'm sorry to hear this, but it does make me wonder what kind of family life they had had before coming out. Is it really likely that everything in the garden was rosy before that? Some parents are abusive, sadly, and seek to control their children. (I do also wonder what the parents' version of events would be. Some adolescents make their family's life intolerable and their parents throw them out as an absolute last resort after years of stress and abuse.)

It's my understanding that before the extremely recent huge surge in numbers of children and teenagers identifying as transgender or gender questioning or nonbinary, research showed that a high percentage of those who suffered from gender dysphoria had experienced abuse or a traumatic family event such as bereavement or parents splitting up. A great many were on the autistic spectrum and/or had experienced bullying and social isolation. Most had mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.

In these circumstances, it seems at least possible that the gender dysphoria arises out of mental distress, in which case young people should be given support, counselling, therapy - not put on a medical pathway to alter their bodies cosmetically and render themselves sterile and incapable of having a normal sex life. The mental health issues are not going to magically resolve themselves because of bodily changes, especially if a child has missed out on the essential if unpleasant process of going through puberty alongside peers - brain maturation is a key part of puberty.

but it does make me wonder what kind of family life they had had before coming out. Is it really likely that everything in the garden was rosy before that? Some parents are abusive, sadly, and seek to control their children

Especially if that child appears to be non-conforming, and/or the parent is homophobic, in which case the horrible dead son/live daughter trope falls neatly into place.

It's that whole conflation of events happening because the child is questioning their self; whereas it's highly more probable that it happened as well as the child questioning their identity.

It's the inevitable result of outfits like mermaids pushing people inside a single-topic bubble and making their entire existence focus around that issue. So everything becomes related, even when it isn't.

A reminder that Mermaids appointed Jake Edwards to a communications role last September - seemingly because Jake that summer made a YouTube video that went viral.

Oh ffs