Mermaids getting eaten from the inside out

[feelingcadoubleledlove]

Simping fools

mermaidsuk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/EDI-Audit_-Recommendations-and-Next-Steps.pdf

the Report says they’re not inclusive enough 😆

Well, have they got any middle aged, middle class white blokes? NO!

Amazing.

Is this an instance of critical race theory triumphing queer theory? I’m imagining PacMan swallowing up multiple rainbow coloured ghosts.

The intersectional stack sure is hard to navigate, especially for us middle aged white mummies, eh Suse?

Love the Pac-Man image

Oh God that sounds quite distressing tbh.

There's being self-questioning and aiming to improve the culture, and there's expensive navel gazing encouraging everybody to focus on the worst aspects of their own lives and past.

Very keen now to know the outcome of the Mermaids v LGBA case, not to mention the final report of the Cass review. Can't come soon enough.

Tbh, I think it’s an act of EDI self flagellation in an attempt to distract from their safeguarding failures and overly dangerous practices.

Mermaids are finished

The report was an interesting read!🙄

About 10 years ago, way before EDI was a thing, a hobby group I volunteered with introduced an anonymous suggestion box. I instinctively knew it was a bad idea but was outvoted by the rest of the team.

Bloody box was soon filled with so much whinging and nitpicking about the various volunteer staff that it was only a few weeks before I theatrically stamped it flat and threw the entire thing, cardboard box and all it’s pernickity contents straight into the recycling bin.

No one ever spoke of the suggestion box again.

Actively asking people to lodge complaints and grievances, especially anonymously, creates more problems than a small org is likely to ever resolve.
I’d say ‘don’t make unnecessary problems for yourself, Suse’ but well, it’s a bit ⏰ for that now!

I can't see how any actual work will get done once they implement all of that.

Probably for the best

Well there's an image!

What were the recommendations of the report? Sorry, being lazy but can't face reading the "EDI self flagellation" (excellent phrase) as pp put it.

I almost feel sorry for Mermaids - sounds like it's going to be an even wors.place to work...

The org who carried out the audit has an illustrious list of clients:

Stonewall
Liberty
Girl Guiding
Scouts
Fawcett Society
NUS...

socialjusticecollective.co.uk/clients

This tickled me. See point 5

Sounds like staff appraisals and performance reviews to me

During the EDI visioning process, explore and articulate a shared organisational view as

to why representation of the communities Mermaids seeks to serve is integral to Mermaids’
organisational purpose.

(None of us know what we are actually doing)

Develop clear mechanisms for all staff, and particularly junior / frontline staff, to engage

with the Board, leadership team and decision-making processes, including ways to feed

back when those mechanisms have not worked effectively

(We need to tell someone when we don't know what we are doing)

Proactively foster a culture of learning and practice and ensure the Board, leadership and

all staff undergo a rolling learning programme covering; trans and non-binary identities,

white fragility, racial equity, power and privilege, microaggressions, intersectional

identities, having challenging conversations and EDI action planning / commitment setting.

(We so don't know what we are doing we need to pay people to tell us how to do our jobs)

Pretty sure that listing 'white fragility' would break the Equality Act.

😁

paraphrasing:

1. replace all senior staff and trustees with new people from higher up the oppression pyramid
2. implement regular struggle sessions
3. let young trans people make all the important decisions
4. clearly define who Mermaids exists to help (implication: trans teenagers and young adults, not snotty GNC kiddies and their middle class mummies.

I think that’s a reasonable summary. Anyone got any additions?

Does this report come with its own trigger warnings?

Yeah...

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine whiiiiiiiiiiiinge whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

Tears.

Aren't points 3 & 6 directly in contravention of each other?

Reverse mentoring.

😆

It looks like it. But the language is like trying t o understand Esperanto.

Sort of.

Maybe if you pay them enough a la no.6 it overrides no.3?

I can’t see how deliberate protected characteristic hires can be legally justified if the reason for hiring within a group, their lived experience, is then placed off limits within the workplace?

Seems a bit… grifty.