Mermaids being investigated by the charity commission

[MajorieEks]

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

the absolute irony. Bloody brilliant!

Awful that it has taken this long for them to be put beneath the spotlight and scrutinised though.

Excellent news. Hope people have screenshots, they're going to be madly deleting evidence of what they've actually been telling kids and parents

Long time coming well deserved. How did it survive scandals like this reported and discussed on Mumsnet in 2017 and many others?

:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3054431-Mermaids-story-in-the-Sunday-Times-today

"A taxpayer-funded transgender charity has been banned by the High Court from any contact with a family after the mother, who was being advised by the group, forced her seven-year-old son to live as a girl."

Note this was well before JKR took an interest in the matter publicly - because there were plenty of indications
Mermaids was dodgy long ago. Too many
people covered for it because of their PR and because of the money to be made

I agree with this. I'm glad they're investigating but concerns have been raised for a long, long time. Children have been harmed, (mostly) women have been vilified and lost their jobs, while no proper action was taken to establish what was going on.

And it's not only Mermaids. We all remember the NSPCC and others who have a big and important national role, who actively cheered this stuff on (www.barnardos.org.uk/news/joint-statement-barnardos-nspcc-national-childrens-bureau-and-childrens-society-about-gender). None of them must be allowed to magically step in with some "toolkit" or other bollocks, and gloss over their enabling of this.

Stunting penile growth, binding breasts, giving children drugs deemed to have negative side effects in sex offenders. Creating adults who can never have an orgasm. This is very serious. It's child sexual abuse in my view.

It's not celebration territory. I find it very very sad that it even happened. It should never have happened.

Marg has been reminded of the shocking Mermaids data breach in the Kiwi Farms thread within the last day!

couldn’t possibly have forgotten already!

This ⬆︎⬆︎⬆︎

They could have been such a positive force for good, helping families.

The sooner they are shut down the better.

This.

The people of Penis News must be hugging their emotional support dogs and rocking in the corner today, for they seem to be in complete denial (also, shameless plug for The Queens' Speech podcast with the very entertaining Clive Simpson and barrister, Dennis Kavanaugh, who will be covering this development tomorrow):

Oooh so Lush too are going to have some sort of investigation? Good.

I think they’d call this “winning”.

Investigating them for what specifically? Fear nothing significant will come of this.

I just did a search to see if I could find a comment I vaguely remember seeing here years ago, listing Mermaids scandals. It was a really long comment, there were so many! It was full of bullet points.And it was before the pandemic so… years.

I couldn’t find the comment, but the search showed Mermaids very, very slowly falling from grace since 2019. Organisations backing off, removing their logo from stuff, removing links to Mermaids fron their websites… their end seems inevitable, but it’s taking a very long time.

Well done, all you women who kept pulling. God damn this is a slow and frustrating fight.

@KatMcBundleFace your post made me cry. Well said.

I sure hope the investigation into Mermaids will be the starting point of a much broader investigation into how this ideology has harmed so many women, children and gay people in the last decade.

I have been reading and engaging in it in detail for many years, and was continually frustrated by how utterly captured so many organisations and individuals were, and I still cannot quite get my head around why.

Although so many people are obviously thrilled at this development, I am being more cautious in my celebration because I still think there is some distance to go. And I still think that the only real change is going to come when the very apparent physical and physiological harm that has been done to thousands of children starts to manifest itself.

I agree this may well not be the collapsing of the House of Cards.

But it is the first step. And we always need that bloody first step

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that this is the beginning of the end.

The scrutiny is now countrywide.

Every single thing they say and do is now under the spotlight. Including all their 'lessons' in schools. That's the next thing. Let's see absolutely everything they talk about in schools. Plus the NHS, the police, universities, and the government.

All of it.

"I'm amazed this is JKR's fault too, that woman just gets so much done. Respect. I can't even get my house cleaned. I'm still waiting to discover which of her tweets caused global warming."

Come on @ImherewithBoudica it's climate change these days keep up 😁!

As for 'innocent until proven guilty' @MargaritaPie - you're hilarious. For a moment there I thought you were being serious!

This has made my day! Woop!

Mermaids are quite capable of saying oh, you might be right, we didn't realise that advocating for breast binders behind parents back is now no longer acceptable, we will stop doing that forthwith.

But now all their online forums are under the spotlight. Their camps. Every single thing they say and do.

I don't think this will be the final thing that breaks them, although I do hope that is does.

Excellent post from @BirdinaHedge about everything that Mermaids could have been if they'd taken a responsible approach. For children questioning their gender who don't feel able to talk to their parents, a charity could be an invaluable source of support....if of course they put safeguarding at the forefront of their practices, and had proven, responsible processes in place. Which Mermaids clearly don't.

I followed all of this kicking off on Twitter a couple of days ago and there was a whole bunch of TRAs trying to minimise what Mermaids are doing by insisting that breast binders are "just underwear". Cue lots of TRA comments along the lines of "you GC weirdos are telling Mermaids they can't send out sports bras."

Lots of people responding with links to independent evidence showing that breast binders carry all kinds of health risks. Totally ignored, and more insults.

So I think that's the route that some might go down - breast binders are just strong sports bras and really, definitely aren't a cause for concern. Even if Mermaids were handing them out without checking for Gillick competency....as it's just underwear it doesn't matter...........

Ugh.

And also what @BirdinaHedge said x

I've allowed myself a momentary gloat about karma but as Bird says they could have done so much good and instead they've spent ridiculous sums of money doing harm and justifying their existence.

If this is the beginning of the end for them I hope it makes space for a charity which genuinely has children's wellbeing and interests at heart.

Now reported by the BBC. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63081644
Funny how they don't mention that Children In Meed gave Mermaids funding a few years ago.

So many charities moved away from Mermaids. I remember being horrified that the Autism Society? had initially teamed up with them and back pedalled.

A few from my files. These concern Liverpool, and the Scouts, including the Commissioner, Peter Oliver, mentioned here.

'Reality is what I say it with and fact shaming me is hate.'

The only answer really is yes dear. There is no point in trying to have a sensible conversation, the sensible bit has to be held with those not committed to the one true faith.

Also just found the Mermaids tweet supporting Aimee Challenor's Huff Post piece, which was published after the Challenors hit the headlines.

I also find this tweet disturbing: