Mermaids being investigated by the charity commission

[MajorieEks]

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

That has always been the Marg paradox.

The hypocrisy of their posts must cause such a dissonance but they still continue.

@BirdinaHedge social transition was what she chose and then stopped. I never objected to the names, the friends, the political agenda. I refused the medical intervention. I would love to say what happened but I am unwell at the moment and I am vulnerable.

It depends. If your job is safeguarding, I'm afraid my sympathies are very, very limited. There is no excuse for the lack of curiosity. I think most of the professionals who've been happily cheerleading this on, whilst not necessarily evil (though some clearly are) were using this issue to feed their own self righteous egos - with zero concern for the children and young people they were sacrificing along the way.

I do however have a lot of sympathy for many of the parents who were lied to and caught between a rock and a hard place.

using this issue to feed their own self righteous egos

Yes. There's been a whole lot of this, it's a cheap round in terms of being able to signal virtue without having to be buggered with any real effort or care for anyone in the process.

I am grateful this has all come out before their Autumn residential weekend.

Residentials are twice a year. According to their website they are also attended by staff who would not usually be in client-facing positions (such as Director of Operations), Patrons and "volunteers". I can't see any references to Trustees attending, but would imagine at least some of their new intake of Trustees would have been invited to attend and partake in the Saturday night disco and "late-night glitter tattoo sessions"

Their organisational naivety and lack of safeguarding controls make this a very worrying prospect.

This thread is well worth a read

twitter.com/FemmeLoves/status/1577428941199257600

@ Annacorp, one of my follows, provided me tonight with some research. This thread is based on her work.

In alphabetical order, no less, I have some questions of the following people, all of whom have endorsed @ Mermaids_Gender, or funded them.

This house of cards has to fall.

it’s a very long list and I think she’s still going!

Is is wrong if I have my fingers crossed that this house of cards is about to be razed to the ground?

Sorry to hear of your difficult situation @WendyWagon

Jeez, their residentials, I had completely forgotten about those. Who knows who the hell was allowed to attend and what lack of safeguarding there was. Please, please don’t tell me Breslow has been on one.

5 days ago, the Head of Amnesty in Scotland retweeted Benjamin Cohen's post denying the CC was investigating Mermaids. The tweet was liked by the Chair of the Scots Human Rights Commission and the Head of Stonewall Scotland.

That list of quote tweets and likes includes many refuting any suggestion that there was any grounds to investigate Mermaids, using BC's denials as proof that the talk of investigation was lies or fantasy...it's full of other organisations, charities, people with letters after their names. So many people in positions of responsibility unable to pause and listen and think. They leap to the defense of the indefensible over and over again.

Safeguarding is based on "thinking the unthinkable" and yet, even when doubt is cast, even when details emerge, they are sticking their fingers in their ears and refusing to even listen.

I don't think so.

According to the trustee appointment brief document on the Mermaids website, the deadline for Trustee applications was 20 May 2022. This was the same day Mermaids put out a tweet saying that their first residential of 2022 had kicked off. They later said the next residential was planned for Autumn 2022 and I have seen nothing to indicate it has happened yet.

A narrow escape I think.

So very proud and thankful to the amazing t**fs of Mumsnet.

The war may not be over but it looks like the days of no debate and affirmation without question are coming to an end.

@BirdinaHedge
I'm sure others have said the same - that is the real tragedy. This was Mermaids several years ago. That was the organisation that many of its supporters still thin they are defending.

WendyWagon have a non mumsnetty hug.

I think this is interesting - mothers particularly, not women in general? I do think that you are right about a relatively small number of people being responsible, though. Well-placed rather than numerous.

This. Exactly.
So many people blindly support "a children's mental health charity" in the same way as they support "the biggest LGBT charity", still believing those organisations are true to their original aims and operating as they used to. They are not actively supporting harm, they think they are supporting good, or at least supporting people whose hearts are in the right place. This is the time to do due diligence and open your eyes, if you are one of those supporters.

Regular visitor and activist @RobinMoiraWhite has posted this today, after the revelations about Breslow. So it seems that Robin has opted for the “doubling down” approach, rather than the genuinely brave admission that this one is wrong.

Sometimes people shout out the quiet bits really loudly.

Robin seems to be screaming SQUIRREL to no avail!

+100

Scotland isn't famous for its sunlight...

Does RMW really not understand that it is inappropriate for a charity to encourage vulnerable children to keep secrets from their parents, when those children are evidently victims of online grooming and that charity claims to support those vulnerable children?

What on earth does RMW find so confusing about this?

This professed lack of understanding re: the harms caused to children via keeping secrets is presumably
how Mermaids ended up with a Paedo-adjacent-academic on their board of trustees, but no Paedo-adjacent-academic on Mermaids’ self-published list of trustees?

I suppose I'm thinking about busy professionals - teachers, doctors or whatever - who were continually reassured that this was the right thing to do, and heard all that "its just like racism" or "it's section 28 again" and just went along with it.

Who are now realising that through their inaction, or lack of curiosity, or respect for whoever was spouting the garbage, they have ended up in an utterly awful position, and that very real harm has been done, and they could have stopped it.

I have very little sympathy for educated professionals who thought it was the right thing to do to encourage children to believe that they could change sex.

People like doctors and teachers should have known better. They knew it was a lie. Why would they take someone else's word that it was the 'right thing to do' to encourage children to believe a lie?

And India Willoughby