JK Rowling's has written another post

[MilleniumHallsWalledGarden]

calling once more for a more nuanced debate around gender identity and women's rights. It's here https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/statement-from-j-k-rowling-regarding-the-robert-f-kennedy-human-rights-ripple-of-hope-award/.

JKR

Hang on ... is this award by the same people who are antivaccers and speaking in Berlin later or am I muddling Kennedy's ?

Robert Kennedy Jr. is the anti-vaxxer (www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-30929463.html) so son of Robert F. Kennedy who the award is named after and brother to Kerry Kennedy who wrote the statement scolding JKR

[quote Lisz]Word leaking out on Twitter that they were going to officially strip her of it and this is just her way of doing ‘You can’t fire me because I quit!’.

No idea if true but that’s pretty damning if so

twitter.com/sharpkristopher/status/1299399955845705732?s=21[/quote]

How dense would one have to be, to believe that shite?😂😂

That tweet from Mimmymum sums up the mindset of Mermaids, i.e. they are the undeniable experts on transgender kids by virtue of being either parents or trans themselves.

Sadly a quick glance at their website show how totally clueless they are. Nobody has any previous experience of working with children nor any qualifications in anything like child development, psychology or counseling. They also display little awareness of their legal responsibilities relating to child protection and safety.

Yes they have policies but they don't highlight the fundamental principles in the way that other organisations do. They do however warn about the serious consequences of outing someone.

There should be an explicit statement that they can't always keep things confidential and that they have a duty to at times share information with others that are more experienced, e.g emergency services, CAMHS, social services. Example:

www.childline.org.uk/about/confidentiality-promise/

www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/our-organisation/our-safeguarding-policy/

When Mermaids make mention of these other organisations it always seems to be in relation to Mermaids providing them with training, not the other way round.

I would also expect to see some kind of pathway that should be followed when a Mermaids volunteer/employee has concerns. The only detail in their policies is speak to SG (the Safeguarding Lead)

If the children approaching Mermaids are even slightly as vulnerable as they would have us believe, then surely they should have highly qualified people working within rigid and stringent guidelines. Instead if someone contacts Mermaids they will be advised by a volunteer who has had two days training.

How dense would one have to be, to believe that shite?😂😂

I don't think anyone does believe it. I guess it's more about how dense one would have to be to think anyone would buy it.

It's like they don't operate in the real world. Where obvious bollocks Undermines one's credibility, not enhances it 🙄

This is brilliant:

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1299658215563710465

That is a fantastic twitter thread.

Jane Clare Jones is fantastic.

@Lisz

“Interesting” would be if anyone can produce anything to this effect from before JKR’s latest statement. “Leaked” info circulated by randoms after the fact is not interesting, it’s cowardly, pathetic and embarrassing.

Of course they’d have mentioned this before if it were true, FFS. A “gotcha” like this would have been the icing on the cake of that self-serving statement by Kerry Kennedy, only of course she didn’t mention it because it’s utter bollocks.

Jane Clare Jones nailed it as ever. I really hope Samaritans takes this seriously and comments on it. Mermaids have been blatantly ignoring those guidelines for years, and they exist for a very important reason. If they truly cared, they’d stick to the expert guidance when discussing such a sensitive issue. But they never ever do.

JCJ brilliant as ever:

"You are an abusive, coercive, manipulative, emotionally blackmailing morally bankrupt bunch of fraudsters.

The sooner young trans people actually get an organisation that stops using them as a political battering ram and stops imposing ideology on their care the better."

Say what you really think, Jane...

Could have sent the award back quietly of course.

She is engaged in a campaign to raise awareness and draw as much publicity and attention to the issues as possible, why on earth would she send the award back to them quietly?

@calllaaalllaaammma

Could have sent the award back quietly of course.

She is engaged in a campaign to raise awareness and draw as much publicity and attention to the issues as possible, why on earth would she send the award back to them quietly?

Because women should not make a fuss

I would also expect to see some kind of pathway that should be followed when a Mermaids volunteer/employee has concerns. The only detail in their policies is speak to SG (the Safeguarding Lead)

SG's expertise lies in IT. Which is why Mermaids inadvertently publishing details about their clienteles, and their work with EHCR to find a 'test case' is particularly disturbing. Goodness knows about their expertise in other areas of safeguarding.

I thought better of Mumsnet than ‘how dense would one have to be to believe that shite?’. Especially as the tweet I posted was from someone who actually works for the foundation in question. Sounds a bit unnecessarily aggressive to me tbh.

That particular ‘shite’ is gaining traction too, it’s pretty grim to be stripped of an award. Sort of thing that usually happens to criminals and.. much worse.

twitter.com/catespice/status/1299607854064623616?s=21

[quote Lisz]I thought better of Mumsnet than ‘how dense would one have to be to believe that shite?’. Especially as the tweet I posted was from someone who actually works for the foundation in question. Sounds a bit unnecessarily aggressive to me tbh.

That particular ‘shite’ is gaining traction too, it’s pretty grim to be stripped of an award. Sort of thing that usually happens to criminals and.. much worse.

twitter.com/catespice/status/1299607854064623616?s=21[/quote]
Sorry it doesn't matter 2hoots where the tweeter works

I'll ask again, if it's true why not put out a public statement? Why use Twitter, the home of uncorroborated gossip and leakages?

I cannot believe Mermaids' egregious, manipulative, and downright cruel behaviour. Do they not understand that they have a duty to apply the highest standards of care to the children who look to them for support? Why have they completely gone against everything we know about speaking of suicide and self-harm? Why would they risk these children's lives like this? It's so horrible.

it’s pretty grim to be stripped of an award. Sort of thing that usually happens to criminals and.. much worse.

If it actually was true, then I'd agree it's exceedingly grim for a woman to be treated on a par with criminals for defending women's rights, our very ability to name ourselves.

@Floisme

I'll ask again, if it's true why not put out a public statement? Why use Twitter, the home of uncorroborated gossip and leakages?

No announcement by the organisation at all, whether on Twitter or elsewhere, either before or after Kerry Kennedy's partially retracted statement or JKR's thoughtful and considered statement means these claims by various nobodies have zero credence.

It would, of course, require a massive suspension of disbelief or lack of intelligence to believe them.

[quote Lisz]I thought better of Mumsnet than ‘how dense would one have to be to believe that shite?’. Especially as the tweet I posted was from someone who actually works for the foundation in question. Sounds a bit unnecessarily aggressive to me tbh.

That particular ‘shite’ is gaining traction too, it’s pretty grim to be stripped of an award. Sort of thing that usually happens to criminals and.. much worse.

twitter.com/catespice/status/1299607854064623616?s=21[/quote]
Surely it went like this -

Dec 2019 - RFK Award given to JKR
June 2020 - JKR tweets cause massive backlash
June-Aug 2020 - trans activists etc lobby RFK to denounce JKR. Kerry Kennedy ‘speaks with’ JKR. Implied threat that if she doesn’t recant they’ll take the award back. JKR says no, won’t recant. KK publishes ‘disappointed’ public letter and JKR says publicly here, have it back, I don’t want it if this is your opinion of me.

I don’t think it’s damning of JKR in any way. If the RFK people had wanted to use the courage of their convictions to ‘strip her’ of the award they’d have done it swiftly and publicly back in June. They were pressured by their own internal lobbyists and they made a hash of it, and now they’re looking for a better explanation to make her look petty.

I'm delurking - I've been hovering on this board since JKRs article back in June.

If it actually was true,

It's entirely possible that it's true. Reading JKR's latest post on her site, it does make more sense if there had been some quiet rhetoric of the "If you want to keep our award, then change your tune" sort from Kennedy. No doubt "more in sorrow than anger"!

Rowling's reply can then be more clearly seen as a "Take your award and shove it!" response.

This can in no way be seen as jumping before she was pushed. And does not in any way diminish her integrity.

Implying that someone will take an award off someone else as a basis of coercion, is not stripping them of the award to uphold your principles.

It's the opposite of upholding your principles. It's coercive control.

Telling them to shove their award up their arse because you refuse to compromise your integrity, is upholding your principles.

There is only one party here who acted out of conscience.

And continues to act in the same vein.

That particular ‘shite’ is gaining traction too, it’s pretty grim to be stripped of an award. Sort of thing that usually happens to criminals and.. much worse.

Going from pretending something is 'interesting', to implying it might be criminal sounds rather desperate to me.

But then, I'm in the 'that is a load of old shite' camp.

[quote Lisz]I thought better of Mumsnet than ‘how dense would one have to be to believe that shite?’. Especially as the tweet I posted was from someone who actually works for the foundation in question. Sounds a bit unnecessarily aggressive to me tbh.

That particular ‘shite’ is gaining traction too, it’s pretty grim to be stripped of an award. Sort of thing that usually happens to criminals and.. much worse.

twitter.com/catespice/status/1299607854064623616?s=21[/quote]
Last night I saw a tweet saying that Laura Pidcock (ex Labour MP and a candidate for the NEC) wanted trans people to "lose their rights". So I asked them when Laura Pidcock had called for the execution of trans people because I was surprised that such a statement had not been on the news.

Five minutes later my tweet questioning this was retweeted with something like "Here's a transphobe who thinks trans people shouldn't be allowed to live".

So no, having an award taken away would not make me think JKR Rowling worse than a criminal. This whole debate has gone far beyond anything that can be called rationality. Here's someone who thinks World Rugby's decision to possibly bar transwomen from playing women's rugby is "extermination " and equivalent to what the Nazis were doing.

twitter.com/KirstiMiller30/status/1299446001602711552

I've had plenty of vigorous exchanges with people on Brexit, with Corbynistas and it can get very lairy. But I've never been accused of being a murderer before.

Oops, in the above the person was claiming Laura Pidcock wanted trans people to "lose their lives"!! Oh for an edit button.

That tweet from Mimmymum sums up the mindset of Mermaids, i.e. they are the undeniable experts on transgender kids by virtue of being either parents or trans themselves.

And yet here I am the mother of a gender distressed daughter who hasn’t been fussed at all by JKR’s stance. However, Mimmymum blocked me some time ago on Twitter so I guess my child’s lack of reaction doesn’t count. I’m sure some gender distressed youths have been upset by the misrepresentation of JKR’s words, but to validate it by saying, Oh yes, she’s definitely a transphobe is emotional manipulation and no responsible adult should be doing it.