Change of CEO at mermaids…

[backaftera2yearbreak]

mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/susie-green-leaves-mermaids/

There's been no word from what I could make out, from LOJ, Foxy, Nancy K, SW, GIRES, Gendered Intelligence etc.

Nothing from Dawn Butler either...

twitter.com/jimboobeh/status/1559532454456745985?s=46&t=43RB-Je6b3Ux4-e--1xr0g

...then there are a lot of other MPs who certainly support one of MM's core aims to check...

twitter.com/banctorg/status/1524325233276112896?s=46&t=43RB-Je6b3Ux4-e--1xr0g

...as well as the 'slebs...on and on it goes.

Also saw speculation SG may erupt if she gets zero support, which might be a theory worth bearing in mind.

growinguptransgender.com/2022/11/25/mermaids-time-for-trans-accountability/

Helen Webberly has tweeted this. Wasted no time in doubling down from her lofty position of moral authority. She suggests The Good Law project could help find the next CEO. I wonder how Jolyon Maugham is feeling about their association with Mermaids at the moment?

My guess is that either the charity will be closed down by the charity commission or the board of trustees will be removed prior to a new CEO. The trustees are utterly complicit in this and should have seen this as a massive risk

What I would like to see now is Mermaids reversing to pre 2015 Mermaids, which advocated watchful waiting and meaningful support to children suffering distress about their gender.

If they wanted to do this it will take massive rebranding to restore trust. There is surely a lot more to come out yet. I can't see it being possible to do a complete U turn.

@Kucinghitam - go on then, message Alex Sobel MP. What's to stop you?

He posted a photo of himself and some MM person on Twitter not so long ago, all 'I am really proud to support them ....' blah blah.

You'll be doing Sobel a kindness by allowing him to express his new found dismay at all the recent revelations.

Do come back and tell us what he says. 😄

I'd like to hear from Anna Friel in the roll call of slebs backing SG and MM. She played the SG character in that hideous Butterflies drama, and was singing her praises at the time. Stupid and irresponsible.

@Rightsraptor TBH the main thing stopping me is that I'm a coward. I simply don't trust people who are so fervently invested in genderism. I daren't get my real name out there. But I plan to open a new, anonymous Twitter account and message him through that.

In an ideal (istic) world Mermaids would come under a professional body as some patient charities do.

I know of one charity that's attached to the British professional body in the field for a certain condition. As such, patient experiences go back and forth to them and they give medical advice to the charity/ members. The charity effected real change in one urgent area a few years ago after many failings were reported to them by members / patients .

There are other separate charities for the condition that operate differently (though all appear to be increasingly singing from the same song sheet.)

I'm not really sure how easy that would be to run in the area of paediatric gender dysphoria, especially given the current climate though.

But it could be a stipulation of mermaid's funding and status that they follow future U.K. nhs guidelines (currently being reviewed) given the seriousness of the safeguarding implications.

As I say, ideally.

And probably overly optimistic and idealistic.

Until now, mermaids attached itself to WPATH via Susie green who was a member. And they stated they follow that guidance.

But surely SG’s child is a girl and has always been one - that’s what SG says.

Gah, thought Stacey Dooley was a good un. She'd answered some qs on trans women in prison reasonably well in a q and a session in 2019 when giving a talk.

That TED talk was frightening. No wonder the poor wee child felt like their body was wrong if the body they had wasn't allowed to play with the things they wanted to play with. I do hope Jackie is doing alright after that kind of toxicity growing up and such a public spotlight from such a young age.

That silence you hear from slebs is the sound of them checking their old tweets or consulting their advisors.

Some particular tweets deleted by SG apparently:

twitter.com/salltweets/status/1596410346096369664?s=46&t=43RB-Je6b3Ux4-e--1xr0g

@Kucinghitam I understand your concern but isn't it shocking that you feel that way, that any of us would feel that way, about approaching your MP?

Also worth pointing out this tweet made by Mermaids at 11.35am on 24th November

Mermaids at mermaids_gender
Mermaids is under attack. Donate today and join the 1,500 people who have already pledged to beat transphobia.

Mermaids is 'under attack' is the official line whilst in the midst of multiple safeguarding concerns.

The charity's official line is notably tied up with its strategy to get donations. This is a major issue for Mermaids.

Notably its not 'donate today to make the lives of children better'. Its donate today to save our embattled charity 'cos transphobia'. With no comment on resolving these safeguarding concerns the charity is embroiled in.

Remember Mermaids financial model is based on grants from public bodies, larger charities like children in need and the lottery and smaller donations coming from its legitimacy as a charity recommended by the NHS and Department for Education.

Once you pull those - which has happened - Mermaids has a financial black hole that i think needs explicitly spelling out as its an important factor about where it now finds itself and what options it has for the future post Susie Green.

The path Mermaids set by a fundraising strategy based on being under siege is limited in its scope. And tbh is unlikely to be able to sustain the number of employees it has left. Mermaids grew fast and in some ways now finds itself bloated beyond its means. Its financially unsustainable without a serious rethink of how it gets money going forward. I'm guessing that financials over the last couple of months have not been great.

That tweet is problematic going forward and again makes it more difficult for Mermaids. It's hard to see how you disassociate the concept of 'crying transphobia by default' by instead suggesting there is a personality cult around Green or Green is solely responsible for the charity's current path. Especially when you've been a Trustee who has continued to give Green the benefit of the doubt for so long.

To reflect on possible outcomes

ripx4nutmeg at ripx4nutmeg
Prediction: It will turn out she was sacked as another scandal is about to be unearthed, Mermaids will then appoint someone 'trans' as its new CEO and say all the problems were because it wasn't a 'trans led charity' but lessons have now been learnt

I think tweet this is a good representation of the trap Mermaids now face. Appoint someone non-trans and willing to try to reinvent away from scandal and build a new financial funding model and you get one backlash from the core support Mermaids has left itself dependent on for money. Appoint someone trans or effectively double down in another way and you make the problem worse with scrutiny and the ever shrinking pool of people who will continue to donate to you.

By aligning the concept of transphobia as being the same as scrutiny into the charity's safeguarding failures you create a situation where you cannot fix the safeguarding and financial problems of the charity without deliberately inviting abuse back on the charity from its remaining key supporters if it decides to (or is forced to) now change course.

As a charity which does uturn in order to return to a broader base it has to acknowledge those safeguarding issues but that in itself undermines the ideology its been pushing and that has trust implications too.

This mess Mermaids has got itself into is paradoxically probably why Susie Green survived as long as she did. It was about money and Green was bringing home the gravy. Now the charity finds itself in a position where its run out of rope to hang itself and that problem is retained even with Green's departure.

You cannot fix this by screaming transphobia anymore.

It does beg a massive question about the viability of the charity or whether it will be forced to shrink and scale back even if it does survive.

These same questions will also be raised of other similar charities but they may be able to weather the storm better if they don't adopt as strong a line on 'its transphobia' as Mermaids.

Mermaids are a busted flush imho. How they go down is what to watch for. I don't see it being anything but messy.

The blog itself is written anonymously- so it’s not Webberley suggesting The Good Law project, is it? Unless she said that in her tweet, I suppose. The initial suggestion comes from the blog post though.

I actually don’t think this is good news.
She will probably skip off happily and carry on damaging children while someone else carries the can for her past “crimes”
She should have gone down with the sinking ship

Absolutely 100% I've never felt like this any other time I've had to contact my MP on other subjects. Before anybody jumps on me, I'm not saying specifically that an MP would would somehow abuse the knowledge of my personal information (once you have a constituent's name and address, it's not a big leap to find their workplace etc), as I do believe they understand the duty of their position - but how about the staff around them? We've seen how TRA MN staff have doxxed posters.

On Maugham

Sarah Phillimore at SVPhillimore
It’s interesting isn’t it, that Jolyon Maugham has yet to offer any public comment on his dear friend Susie Green and all the sterling work she has done over six years at the helm of Mermaids?

Especially in light of the ongoing attempt by Maugham to force the NHS to offer immediate medicalisation to all the ‘trans children’ out there. He has been Green’s loyal lieutenant for years now. If there is any justice, the collapse of Mermaids will take him out too.

The Good Law Grifters are in court next week trying to get the nhs to dish out drugs to kids without proper safeguarding.

That'll be fun.

We can't afford to let it drop. For me, this fight has never been about the demonisation of trans people (IGAF what ppl wear do in the bedroom as long as it's safe, sane and consensual). It's always been about the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults, which often includes trans. They deserve so much better than the current shitshow.

I want to see ethical, evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of gender dysphoria. I want teenagers to be properly assessed rather than blindly affirmed. I want to see decent research into the social contagion around trans in schools - and especially the impact on the gay community. The alarm bells are going off now about the number of teenage girls transitioning and in years to come, I think this will be seen in the same light as toxic dieting (e.g. bulimia) as a red flag for parents to be aware of.

This mess had two distinct masks. Susie Green is one, spearheading medical transition whilst tapping into societal homophobia and teenage disgust at their bodies. The other is Stonewall who seems to be run by Tumblr and the fetish community these days. It's going to take a long time to clean up this mess simply because the mysiogyny runs deep and many places have been captured; not least the universities.

I expect he (Joylon) will be doubling down.

Mermaids remains an important stakeholder in supporting trans children and their carers, in advocating for trans kids’ rights to healthcare, to education, to safety, equality, and well-being.

This is interesting to me. All children have a right to education. Why is there a suggestion that trans identifying children are being denied the right to education/ or have less of a right than children who do not identify as trans?

Webberley wants the Good Law Project and the Trans Learning Partnership to advise Mermaids on their next CEO. Crucially both are pro immediate access to drugs for children (and therefore to her personal financial benefit) which is completely at odds with the Cass Review and the tide within the NHS and government.

See my point about doubling double and financial implications of doing so above.

In terms of what happens next to Susie Green, I think its dead easy to work out. A lucrative career in the US or Canada beckons where she can continue to drive the 'im a victim of transphobia attacks' narrative for some time to come.

I think the rumour about an investigation into her personally is just that. A nonsense rumour.

In terms of what happens next to Susie Green, I think its dead easy to work out. A lucrative career in the US or Canada beckons where she can continue to drive the 'im a victim of transphobia attacks' narrative for some time to come.

Interesting. Maybe the terse statement by the trustees, it because they feel she’s abandoning the charity when the shit is just about to hit the fan.

I am taking a watchful waiting approach (see what I did there). I think something more is going to come out over the next few days. Once that happens, I will be following up with my TWAW MP in very firm terms. This is a safeguarding issue and mealy mouthed platitude and slogans are not the answer (although I am happy to suggest Better a gay child who feels loved and supported than a gay child who is told they are in the wrong body).

I will also be following up with companies and celebs who chose to back Mermaids to bolster their liberal credentials.