So that's why Susie Green left

[DistantVworp]

Charity commission launches formal inquiry into Mermaids:
twitter.com/SexMattersOrg/status/1598666394610147329?s=20&t=x_Supvwk6lHkKBR7a-ESSw

About bloody time!

Thanks for the heads up

I'm a massive pokemon fan, love Nintendo, love Japan generally and love studio ghibli. Way before any of it became as mainstream as it currently is. I still love despite being a woman in her 40s.

DH and I went a good few years back and loved it. But there is something utterly disturbing about basements full of manga porn and I don't think you can grasp how pervasive it is until you literally walk into one. You can be looking at the stuff aimed at kids on one floor and it's nice and fluffy and you go down a flight of stairs and a age restriction side in the same shop and it's hard core levels.

It is a culture shock in terms of how they sit side by side.

It goes from ultra wholesome and innocent to this dark flipside so quickly though. In a way we just wouldn't allow in Western culture.

I don't think parents here remotely get this though which is part of the problem.

Despite that I'd go back to Tokyo tomorrow if I could though. Utterly fascinating place and one of the best experiences I've had.

Thanks. Just reading some of the replies.

HelenMM as usual, and the one that says "Your Review is wholly unaccountable to patients, their families, and their communities, and it shows."
Absolutely right! It's a fucking Review!

I wish I wasn't banned. Because that entence is croppin gup all over the pace

"deeply inadequate, cis supremacist & unaccountable to service users & their families."

Where has that come from? A concerted effort in the making?

Having read it, how the hell do they get that it is inadequate? It urges research based interventions, shot that actually works, is evidenced, provided by trained individuals with lots of oversight!

What they are saying is they want 3rd rate, unresearched, illegal services.

Witless!

As a broad rule of thumb, if the tras don't like it and it's not currently illegal, it's probably okay.

That is a truism that needs to be remembered often 😊

I don't think parents here remotely get this though which is part of the problem

Loads of the mums at my kids primary school think I’m some sort of paranoid weirdo because I’m always trying to warn about the dark side of gaming/manga.

So many parents are completely clueless about the media their children consume. I doubt there has ever been such a wide divide.

unaccountable to service users & their families."

Yeah that's another grab for 'above the law and too special to be bound by anyone but what we happen to want in the moment that we want it'

No. The customer is NOT always right and all this service user led stuff when many of the service users are not responsible adults with a grasp on appropriacy, training or demonstrated capacity to take into account anything but their own wishes and needs, is what led to this mess.

Accountability to law, to tax payers, to safeguarding policy and standards.

"deeply inadequate, cis supremacist & unaccountable to service users & their families."

Plausibly using it because they know it's phrased for an appeal.

The term 'destruction tested' comes to mind a lot with this agenda.

Will activist demands be possible to balance with women's rights and equality?
Is activist ideology compatible with child safeguarding?
Is the GRA possible to run alongside protecting women and their needs as equal to those of TQ+ male people?

Destruction tested and the evidence is right there. No. It ends now.

You are not a paranoid weirdo if that helps!!!

I am not Mary Whitehouse on this cos I still really love this stuff. We want to try and go back to Japan in a few years when we think DS will get something out of it because we love the place.

I am just very aware that manga / gaming very adult very quickly. It's certainly not a kids thing. You have to drum this into your thinking.

I think it was when we were growing up and when our friends who are slightly older were growing up. But adults have grow up with gaming but not grown out of it. They still want gaming but at the level they are now which is crucial to understand.

It makes a lot more sense when you think about it on those terms.

Good grief! Have they actually READ it?

And we all know the answer to this one.....

NO

Why would they sully their minds in such a way?

After all, if John Nicholson MP and senior people in Mermaids were content to admit in public and as part of the LGBA stramash that they've skimmed the Cass Review (at best), why would any other True Believer feel the need to read it.

Lifton would tell us that adherents couldn't allow themselves to read it.

Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.

Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or all humanity, is likewise above criticism.

Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved?reply=111900052&utm_source=reply&utm_medium=share

I read a lot of manga (and graphic novels in general), and used to be a gamer. No way would I allow my kids near a manga subscription website (for example). I go on a site sometimes to read chapters before the official translations come out, some of the stuff easily available on there is eye watering. And even some of the completely legitimate and mainstream mangas, something like Assassination Classroom, has loads of drawings down a teenage girl’s cleavage, or up a skirt to see her knickers.

Yaoi is written for women, which I don’t think teenage girls realise. A bit like slash fanfic. So the relationships (and sex) are meant to be appealing to women. I teach teenage girls who clearly think that that’s what young gay men are really like. And I totally understand why that appeals to them more than their view of straight men. The male/female relationships in manga are nowhere near as appealing, especially the teenage ones; the boys generally treat the girls like crap. But it’s such a mess in their minds.

On a side note, when scrolling through the Switch Black Friday offers one game was « Hentai fun » or something like that, had hentai in the title, with a little anime picture. Looked fun and was dirt cheap ( like £2), and I really worry that the unsuspecting could end up letting kids buy it. The info line was « easy to play one-handed » 🤢 just hanging out in a list with Lego Marvel and Kirby…

Really bad form to go from chair to CEO - massive conflict of interest both in applicant and interviewing panel.

That's the problem, Milkshakes - any decently managed organisation would have realised that, but this is Mermaids....

Latest:

archive.ph/2022.12.05-202903/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/05/mermaids-refuses-let-staff-see-report-former-chief-amid-safe/

"Mermaids is refusing to let staff see a report into ousted boss Susie Green’s leadership because there are not “safe spaces” in which to read it^."

...^

‘Heated and hostile’ calls

Further whistleblowers have now come forward. A second insider told The Telegraph: “Staff are very upset and outraged that our well-being is being used as an excuse to bury the report, when clearly it’s all about Mermaids wanting to protect what’s left of its reputation.”
The source said calls between senior management and staff on Monday morning “got very heated and hostile” and staff “don’t believe the report will ever see the light of day”."

@RedToothBrush thank you so much for sharing. So much of this parallels our experience. Thankfully our girl pulled back from the brink, but still retreats into Discord whenever real life starts getting well real. It was the worst experience of my life. And I had no peace at all until I decided that I had to protect her future self and my own integrity even if it cost the relationship. I don’t know if she sensed the change but she desisted at that point.

I wonder if the trustees recognise that the report authors need to be protected from the mermaids TRA staff.

‘Protect the authors’ and ‘safe space to process the report’ suggest that there is something in it the staff are likely to react badly to - and without actually thinking it through.

How can they bury it? Is it not a public document? Who commissioned it and who carried it out?

Good grief. What an utter shit show.

Thanks for the link @ResisterRex

Sorry, I see Social Justice Collective carried it out. But who commissioned them? Can they share the report themselves or are they somehow legally blocked from publishing it? It's their report...

I think mermaids commissioned the report. It’s probably an internal report for the board of trustees. They’re probably not required to do anything with it. The SJC almost certainly won’t be able to publish it themselves.

Haven't read the whole thread but came here after seeing the Telegraph journo on Twitter saying more whistleblowers had come to them. More??

Mermaids staff are going to The Telegraph^^ of all places to say their piece? Literally does not compute. The plot really does thicken.