Here’s a Mermaids fuck-up to brighten your Sunday morning...

[AngeloMysterioso]

So in a tweet yesterday Mermaids (shock horror) MISGENDERED non-binary Owen J. Harcum, saying that HE had been elected Mayor of Bangor.

A while later they deleted the tweet, reposted it using “they” instead of “he” and issued an apology, basically blaming their accidental hate crime on Grammarly, which I believe is a proofreading app.

Grammarly then responded calling them out on their blatant and quite possibly libellous lie, and so Mermaids deleted that tweet too.

Hope Grammarly sue their asses.

[toffeebutterpopcorn]

Little Red Guards.

[Cailleach1]

So many are now gleefully using this sort of stuff to attack and bully people. They are no more than little tyrants; delighted at the abusive power they have to malign others under this new religion. It is akin to a descent into the dark ages.

[kidsatuniemptynester]

@OldCrone

This article tells you everything you need to know about Owen Hurcum.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/owen-hurcum-is-a-vicious-male-bully

And probably more than you want to know. Hurcum has written a book called "Don’t Ask About My Genitals" (yes, really).

Oh god, reading this is like something out of Orwell, or falling down the rabbit hole with Alice and meeting the Red Queen who cuts off your head for calling her a Queen and not recognising that she is identifying as a dormouse.

[LostToucan]

Nah, they is a real person. Born and brought up in Harrow, which apparently is no barrier to being able self ID as Welsh.

[toffeebutterpopcorn]

Sounds like one of those ‘That’s Not My xxx’ kiddy books...

[OldCrone]

This article tells you everything you need to know about Owen Hurcum.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/owen-hurcum-is-a-vicious-male-bully

And probably more than you want to know. Hurcum has written a book called "Don’t Ask About My Genitals" (yes, really).

[Nonmaquillee]

[quote ChattyLion]Just for anyone else not already aware of this back story, which I just noticed on the BBC news website, probably nobody will be surprised to see that a middle aged female Plaid Cymru Senedd politician, called Helen Mary Jones, got it in the neck over her querying of aspects of GRA and speaking up at an A Woman’s Place meeting. And that she has now committed publicly to her own ‘education’ on this area and left her personal social media account.

It looks like the person who is now Mayor Hurcum made a resignation after this to become an independent candidate. At the time, Hurcum spoke out about this, I’m quoting from BBC article linked to below)

‘Trans activists say Helen Mary Jones used transphobic tropes when she spoke at an event by campaign group, Women's Place UK. At the event she questioned whether a rise in the number of "women and girls wanting to transition to the opposite sex" has been caused by pressure to look a certain way fuelled by social media. This is an argument many trans people find offensive.

A Woman's Place UK campaigns for women only spaces and a "respectful and evidence-based discussion" on proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act, which aimed to make changing one's legal sex simpler.

Owen Hurcum, who uses the pronouns they and them, was on the party's north Wales regional list and said the party should begin a disciplinary process against Helen Mary Jones.
They added: "I want Helen Mary Jones to apologise in a way that is not 'I'm sorry you're offended'.
"I want a sincere apology and I want her to make an effort to learn about the community and understand why she's perpetrating transphobia.
"If she doesn't resign, she at the very least needs to make it very clear that she's sorry and very clear that she's learning and Adam Price as the leader of the party needs to make it very clear not just that Plaid have a great set of policies for if they're in government, but are also tackling transphobia within their own party immediately.
"If Adam Price can make a public statement that disciplinary procedures are starting, that would be appreciated."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56352615

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56276997[/quote]
Just a thought: could this they/them person actually be a huge joke??
Owen (first name of that annoying virtue signalling journo)
Hurcum ( just say the name in your head...yuck...do you see what I mean??)

In addition, his words about her need to make an apology just sound like pure piss taking.

Maybe I am wrong....

[MarieIVanArkleStinks]

@WorkingItOutAsIGo

Am I right in thinking that I should report Mermaids to West Yorkshire Police and they will check their thinking and harass them?

To see them hoist by their own petard would be absolutely delicious.

[HelpfulBelle]



Don't know how many if you watched New Girl, but '29' is already a meme

[Lemmen]

I bloody dare you, please.

[WorkingItOutAsIGo]

Am I right in thinking that I should report Mermaids to West Yorkshire Police and they will check their thinking and harass them?

[Nonmaquillee]

[quote BluePorchAwning]A week in non-binary:
sheridansinclair.substack.com/p/a-week-in-non-binary[/quote]
This is brilliant - I particularly love the LNER mock-up!

thanks for posting this

[Sophoclesthefox]

Am snickering like Muttley over “virtue signalling failure” 🤣

I’ve seen the Mermaids Social Media Guidelines, the subtitle is “Rules for thee, but not for me”, so their processes are working fine. Nothing to see here!

[ChattyLion]

Thank you OldCrone for the extra background and you’re absolutely right about the Maya point. Women (especially if they’re in mid-life), can’t win with this can they? But no sexism to see here.. it’s all cool and progressive and breaking down all the barriers 🙄 and really good as a substitute for experience for some peoples CV’s.

[Puddycatfan]

I might put "29" in the box next time they ask me for my pronoun. That should confuse the fuckers!

[NiceGerbil]

On pronouns and this piece. Does that mean checking every single time you refer to someone?

There are loads of pronouns and non binary people can be he/ him etc. And they can change. Frequently.

And some people are sometimes in girl mode and sometimes in boy mode. So how do you handle that?

Also some people go she/ they etc.

I keep saying. In a massive international workplace how are people supposed to handle this? Look up the pronouns of everyone before every conversation, meeting, minutes?

And what of colleagues in countries where this is not done?

None of this has ever been answered.

[NiceGerbil]

I'm ok with they etc. It's the norm in my sector and has been for years to avoid sexist stereotyping.

EG the administrator generates the form. They pass it to their manager. The manager reviews against their records and signs it.

That sort of thing. I went to a talk a few years back that used he/ she and it was really jarring!

I'm also fine with being and using they, it gets rid of all this shit and I couldn't care less really. I'd rather do that than all this what are everyone's pronouns stuff.

And it would irritate a lot of people

[ErrolTheDragon]

Presumably the new mayor of Bangor will specify Welsh pronouns too?

I tried English to Welsh Google translate on 'they' and got nwh, but also hwy, hwynt and nhwy . 'Them' gave those plus eu and 'u and also, bafflingly, 29

[Cailleach1]

Ah! Completely MISSed the pun.

[CardinalLolzy]

I think it was a play on 'miss'gendering.

[youvegottenminuteslynn]

@Cailleach1

I took it as the poster noting that instead of misgendering the tweeter said "MISSgendering"

[Cailleach1]

@BlackForestCake

for accidentally missgendering me in a tweet

Is that when you accidentally use female pronouns?

No. They used male pronouns on a male who says 'they' identify as 'non-binary'.

Therefore the crime was using the third person singular (masculine), and not the third person plural. In short, the crime was referring to a human male as 'he'.

[Hufflepuffmamma]

@MarieIVanArkleStinks I know. I thought it would happen then.

I have been waiting yet nothing- fear probably - you can’t go against mermaids or you are transphobic - which is insane.

I wait and wait... they need to be held to proper account. I despair for the generation of children mislead by their self serving antics ..

[BlackForestCake]

for accidentally missgendering me in a tweet

Is that when you accidentally use female pronouns?

[MarieIVanArkleStinks]

@Hufflepuffmamma

Mermaids quite frankly are dangerous - I speak from personal experience and I am sick of how they get away with all they do . They are unbalanced. Vey Bias and likely co thing to do very real harm - I am glad they have been outed. I hope more comes - it is time that the truth outed.

I was waiting for the shoe to drop last autumn, when a tide of bad press accused them of dangerous misinformation at best (wilful disingenuousness at worst). At that time several high-profile organisations, the BBC included, quietly dropped their association with Mermaids and deleted links from their web pages.

The shoe's still hovering in mid-air and we've never yet heard the thud. Wonder why?