Mermaids justification for supplying breast binders to kids

[MarmaladeFatkins]

they in a statement on their website regarding supplying binders;

Binders
Some trans masculine, non-binary and gender diverse people experience bodily dysphoria, as a result of their chest, and binding, for some, helps alleviate that distress. Mermaids takes a harm reduction position with the understanding that providing a young person with a binder and comprehensive safety guidelines from an experienced member of staff is preferable to the likely alternative of unsafe practices and/or continued or increasing dysphoria. The risk is considered by Mermaids staff within the context of our safeguarding framework. More on binder safety can be found here.

mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/statement-in-response-to-a-telegraph-article-published-sunday-25-september/

HOWEVER I am almost sure that I have seen research that shows there are actually more harmful effects experiences when wearing commercial binders, compared with home made solutions? is this the case?

Of course, India wouldn't have the first clue about any of this.

Or, indeed, much else apparently...

Yes. The conclusion from the studies I've seen must be that there is no safe way to bind in this context (girls with gender dysphoria) and it should neither be recommended nor condoned by organisations purporting to care about children.

The issue is, of course, that the harm that IWilloughby assuring people it is like a sports bra will never be acknowledged.

They - frustratingly - don’t differentiate between methods used in this study published in Pediatrics last year. Time to First Onset of Chest Binding–Related Symptoms in Transgender Youth is on board with Mermaids’ ideas about “harm reduction” though - just give girls blockers early enough they don’t need to bind! Mastectomies for everyone asap!

I really REALLY wish I were joking, but no - apparently the solution to physical harms (the worst of which are due to long-term binding) is more - and worse! - physical harms. No interrogation of whether the “improved mental health outcomes” created by binding are in fact an expression of the relief created by fulfilment of sensory-seeking behaviour for the staggering proportion of girls & young women engaging in this behaviour who have autism.

The risk is considered by Mermaids staff within the context of our safeguarding framework.

Mermaids have a safeguarding framework? Is it published anywhere?

I would love to read this too. I will look forward to in the inevitable eventual inquiry, the pinning down of what staff members think safeguarding is, remembering the Green Party disaster where the inquiry established that one of the people delivering training including safeguarding advice thought it just meant data protection. And was identified by the inquiry to be not just lacking training, but not having the capacity to understand safeguarding.

It is likely they will identify as having a safeguarding framework. And identify as this following standard practice. In the same way as identifying that detransitioners don't exist, and that binders don't do harm, and no females have every complained or experienced problems by them and their spaces being pirated as a therapeutic aid for TQ+ male people, and that the Cass report isn't anything to do with them.

It's written in crayon on the back of a beermat.

It may as well be, since they aren't experts in anything, etc. 🤨