Change of CEO at mermaids…

[backaftera2yearbreak]

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

I don't think a house cleaning exercise is likely to be possible to Mermaids due to brand damage tbh.

I'm wondering if they've uncovered a Serious Incident that Mermaids didn't report to the Charity Commission. That lack of safeguarding ...

This is so important. One of the reasons the middle aged men who self ID as women so relentlessly pursue the transitioning of children is because it's so hard to challenge without centring a vulnerable, often mentally unwell child. Too many parents simply cheerlead their children, abandoning (through fear I know) tough love, while family, friends, colleagues, schools & communities hesitate to challenge, giving them immense power to direct the narrative.
Hence safeguarding and the long term needs of these children are abandoned for the poster children they become.

I could see a scenario where SG has seen something coming and has left in order to take up work in the states or Canada or Australia. The statement being short may be because she's left them all to face it while she swans off

Jackie has no room for regrets.

This is important to note. There are many people who are dealt a blow of some sort and they don’t want to dwell on the past because it can’t be changed. Regret is a hazy measurement of whether something should have happened differently. Some people find the inner strength to live their lives without regrets, some struggle with the trauma for life.

Support groups for adults in this situation will be needed in the coming decades.

I hope all the other Mermaids enablers are held to account here, particularly those, such as ITV with its Green-based drama series tweely named 'Butterfly', that helped instil the threat 'better a live daughter than a dead son' (or vice versa) into the minds of so many distressed and confused families.

@RedToothBrush We were in a very similar position with DD, who is both academic and has ADHD. Because she's a girl as well, it took us a long time to be heard about this and I really regret some of that delay, so you are absolutely doing the right thing in pressing for it.

In the end, the best solution for us was to get a private assessment. From that point on, everything else can be organised through your GP/local paediatricians if you want, so there is just that one-off cost. I can recommend you an amazing person in the Midlands if that is any help at all - DM me if it's of interest.

Today's Telegraph

The chief executive of Mermaids, Susie Green, has left the transgender children’s charity after six years in her post.
Announcing the decision, the charity thanked Ms Green for “building Mermaids into the organisation it is today”.
The chair of trustees said an interim chief executive would be appointed shortly. No explanation was given as to what triggered the announcement.
The news comes after a Telegraph investigation earlier this year revealed the scandal-hit charity was offering to give potentially dangerous chest-flattening devices to 14-year-olds against their parents’ wishes.
Staff with no medical training were also found to have given advice to users, who they believe were as young as 13, that controversial hormone-blocking drugs are safe and “totally reversible”.
In the wake of The Telegraph’s investigation, the Charity Commission launched a “regulatory compliance case” over concerns about the charity’s “approach to safeguarding young people”.
In recent months, the charity has also found itself under intense public scrutiny for other controversies.
One of which was the charity's decision to launch an appeal against the Charity Commission’s awarding of charitable status to LGB Alliance, which has been critical of “gender ideology’’.
The case is understood to be the first time one charity has tried to strip the legal status away from another.
Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Leeds, with an office in London, Mermaids has about 44 staff members and 110 volunteers.
Prior to her appointment as CEO in 2016, Ms Green worked as an IT manager for Citizens Advice from 2002 to 2015.
Ms Green has previously spoken about taking her child to the US in 2017 for puberty blockers when they were aged 12, oestrogen aged 13, and to Thailand for surgery on their sixteenth birthday.
In a statement posted on the charity’s website on Friday night, Mermaid's chair of trustees, Belinda Bell, wrote: “The trustees are very grateful to Susie for everything she has done over the last six years to support trans, non-binary and gender-diverse young people and their families, and to build Mermaids into the organisation it is today.
“We wish her all the best for the future.”
Reacting to the news Ms Green had stepped down, a Charity Commission spokeswoman said: “Mermaids’ trustees have informed us today about the departure of the charity’s CEO. The charity remains subject to a compliance case.”
Since the commission launched its investigation, some organisations have paused their relationships with Mermaids.
The national lottery community fund has suspended future payments and the Department for Education has removed it from its mental health and wellbeing resources for schools.

Situation is we can't even do a private assessment because of what our council / school will / won't recognise.

We need the school's input for this.

We will see what this first stage produces. His teacher is picking up on stuff lots so recognises it's a real issue for him.

If we aren't getting anywhere after that, we'll see. On the plus side his class are such an absolute nightmare I think they are desperate to have one boy at least performing at a good level and for there to be at least some extra funding for the class.

Fucking hell, I've only just learnt about this.

If she was pushed out, I wonder if she'll take them to tribunal 🍿

Oh please, oh please ...

IMHO SG was wholly unsuitable for her appointment - a stunt gone badly wrong.
Mermaids is surely going to be the next Kids company?

The blog post linked by Dr W is written a, afiercemum and dadtrans, two Twitter users very aligned to mimmymum and Foxy. Afiercemum is very involved with trans academia at Goldsmiths I think.

There’s an interesting line in the blog - We cannot afford to have weak or conservative cis leadership at Mermaids.. It seems to imply that Susie Green was seen as conservative and weak. I can’t see Mermaids reversing or reverting. I think they’ll appoint, as others unthread have suggested, a wholly inappropriate trans woman akin to Christine Burns.

To me it points to a fracture in Mermaids. The recent tribunals and cases will have shaken the way Mermaids ideology, methodology and lobbying fits within the law.

My TRA/cat video twitter feed is still cats. Which makes me think the main TRAs know what’s about to land. They’re all connected, just as the women’s groups talk to each other the TRAs/trans organisations are networked, and the silence is deafening.
Interesting.

Hard to see it not going that way at this point.

Worth noting Belinda Bell has been trustee since 2019 so during most of the scandal period. And she's the one who put out the statement. All the others are 2021 or later. It's had an unusually high turn out of trustees.

That in itself begs questions.

There’s an interesting line in the blog - We cannot afford to have weak or conservative cis leadership at Mermaids.. It seems to imply that Susie Green was seen as conservative and weak. I can’t see Mermaids reversing or reverting.

Some of those key words appear here about the NHS consultation:

https://twitter.com/nancymm_k/status/1596461771161600000?s=46&t=43RB-Je6b3Ux4-e--1xr0g

"Must read: the leading global medical bodies on trans healthcare have issued this: a well evidenced and highly critical reponse to the @NHSEngland interim service specification for GIDS. This is the current medical consensus. listloop.com/wpath/mail.cgi… 1/3

So much of the (endless) media and political discourse is based on it being uncomfortable for cis adults to think about the fact that trans children exist, and can benefit from this kind of care. They do exist, and the medical evidence is clear that they can benefit. 2/3

We knowwhat happens when we deny care and treat trans identities as mental health problems/trauma responses. We did that for decades. The practice changed because it was clear to the (very conservative) medical establishment that it was bad practice and harmed patients. 3/3"

Is this - safeguarding children - going to be framed as a small or big C, conservative matter by those who've pushed the affirmation model?

There’s nothing on twitter from Stonewall, GIRES, Gendered Intelligence, Stephen Whittle. No best wishes to SG, nothing, despite a close working relationship for years.

Possibly there isn’t a point.

I think there are a large cohort of distressed and damaged young people who need support. The vehicle for their expression of distress is gender, but possibly you’re right and this is better addressed holistically as part of a badly needed improvement to general childrens mental health services, and not a “specialist” service. I wouldn’t argue against that.

what I do not want to see is a rerun of the disgraceful scenes I saw after the first Keira Bell decision, when grown adults suicide baited vulnerable children all over the internet, convincing them that half of society wants them dead, they would be receiving no medical care whatsoever, and really, why not kill yourself?

It was disgusting. We mustn’t forget that there are children in need of support, even if we know Mermaids isn’t how they should get it, and even though we have grave reservations about what or whom a “trans child” is.

I’d be very worried that the usual suspects would be whipping up a frenzy about The Transphobic Everyone Wrecking Everything and causing upset. It’s very interesting that that’s not really happening. Ouch, Susie, that has to hurt.

What's that about?

I’m shocked that none of our usual visitors have been in here to defend SG

silence from all quarters…..

Don't let's forget that there are enough young women far enough along the medical pathway that NHS England is funding a new surgical unit at Chelsea and Westminster hospital for up to 280pa plus more provision at two private providers.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/nhsserviceeforprovisionnof_mas

I would be surprised if this was a choice for SG. Mermaids has been her life for years. It gave her position, influence and access to people in power. Crucially it also gave her validation for the extreme choices she made for her child.

A massive surgical team and a whole time Tissue Viability nurse. For those who don't know TVNs specialise in wound healing - specifically wounds that AREN'T healing. Infections, fistulas, that sort of thing as well as leg ulcers and pressure sores.

Yes, they're an income stream for each other.

More or less. Not really sure where the company is based as it’s quite a complicated shell type set up.

They have a Romanian doctor and an Egyptian doctor on the payroll for signing prescriptions. Increasingly British pharmacies are refusing to fill the prescriptions issued.

they prescribe across a number of foreign markets and their main customer base are adults so I doubt the child/puberty blockers is much of the turnover at this stage. Especially as puberty blockers are extremely expensive on a private script so even gender ideological families tend to think twice. GenderGP prescribe hormones to young teens anyway, so puberty blockers aren’t always required.