Mermaids being investigated by the charity commission

[MajorieEks]

“hoisted by their own petard” never seemed more apt, if true

Surely journalists are scrutinising the backgrounds of all of the trustees now? Does Mermaids even know the concept of 'due diligence'? Just reading this guidance from gov.uk to see what the plain-talking advice is. Was Jacob Breslow even DBS'ed? (I know, it might not have shown anything given the shortcomings of the process)

Mermaids is a charity that as part of its core mission introduces sexual themes around children and then seeks to break down established safeguarding in relation to sexuality and sexual development.

If you do this, who on Earth do you think is going to be drawn to the organisation?

It's "if you build it, they will come" put into effect in the real world.

If you're going to do then this safeguarding you put in place has to be ironclad. Mermaids, with an eye on Queer Theory, goes in completely the opposite direction.

Mermaids have not given any statement, other than they had no idea he was involved with working with/on/about paedophiles?

What are all the TRAs saying about this? Are they defending Breslow? Is this all seen as totally fine and standard for a children's charity?

I would like to know if Breslow had opportunities to access children as a result of his trustee role.

Was he invited to any events with Mermaids “beneficiaries”? Did he use the Mermaids trustee role to get access to other children’s organisations?

Ignorance is no excuse when safeguarding is part of your role.

This is the abstract from JB's paper "They would have transitioned me: third conditional TERF grammar of trans childhood" in the December 2021edition of Feminist Theory. I can imagine someone connected to Mermaids read this, thought, this is our kind of person, and just invited him without many further checks. It's like Mermaids bingo... "find ways of embracing trans childhoods unconditionally"

'The livelihoods of trans children'? So being a trans child is a career? Interesting Freudian slip there. Children as commodities, resources etc.

seems a lot like DARVO - later life transitioners (insert the forbidden 3 letters here) have been retconning their childhoods for donkeys years before adult GNC women started worrying about ROGD girls.

From looking at his social media output, Breslow seems to have been a very active and virulent anti-women activist.

Women do seem to be a terrible inconvenience to most paedos/paedo-adjacent academics.

what with us being the gatekeepers to children…

So they didn't do their due diligence on this one point, and completely ignored everything else on his CV? Reassuring.

This is the thing, we had never heard of this guy til a few days ago, a few Google / twitter / research gate searches later and we all know he's totally unsuitable for being a children's charity trustee. This isn't hard. they just didn't care.

I read that and immediately googled "a means of securing the necessities of life."

TERFs are literally creating a political landscape that is taking away what "trans kids" need to survive.

+1 - a very clear explanation.

I am increasingly coming to the view that -

(1) 80% of the country know nothing about queer theory and those of us who do know too little

(2) We should all educate ourselves ASAP.

(3) It is not that Mermaids didn't care, it is that destroying and any boundaries between adulthood and childhood is a good thing

One wonders if Ben Cohen's husband, who stopped being a trustee "years" ago knows/knew about some of this hence trying to distance himself.

it is that destroying and any boundaries between adulthood and childhood is a good thing

In a week where a political party actually voted a motion in support of Inappropriate Story Time for small children as a political ambition/Good Thing.

It's "if you build it, they will come"

Probably all over your shoes (the alternative doesn't bear thinking about).

And didn't report it?

Still culpable then.

I wonder if one of the current or former trustees suggested him?

Meanwhile families have been conditioned to think its trendy and the height of being inclusive cos its lgbt and has rainbow colours.

It is interesting how everything goes as long as it is rainbow coloured. Try removing the "queer" element and things seem a bit more obvious.

Drag queen story hour - think adult entertainers performing to children.

BDSM etc on pride marches - think straight men showing off their sexual preferences to the public.

and so forth. It even seems to affect how people see safeguarding their own children. A person I know has a 17-year-old "trans son". This young person is "a gay man" in a "queer polycule" with two supposedly gay men over the age of 30. And apparently this is fine. Now remove the queer element and you have a duo of thirtysomething men being sexual with an underage girl, which is SO OBVIOUSLY not okay.

Someone posted a link to a YouTube video upthread about the release of Ambivalent Childhoods. I started watching (glutton for punishment) but I can't find the link anymore or the video on YouTube. Has it been removed or is it just me being dozy?

looking for it now - it was embedded on Breslaw’s blog, right?

Oh perhaps that's why I couldn't find it again.

Has anybody written up a history of Mermaids? My understanding is that it started as a tiny family support group for children and teenagers with gender identity issues (as shown in the image above, in Clymene's 08:06 post. I assume most of those children would have been patients at GIDS and that's how the parents met. Their strapline now is 'Helping gender-diverse kids, young people and their families since 1995'. The emphasis now seems very much on the children, not on the family as a whole, though. Is that since SG took over?