Other What currently makes your life awesome?

Thanks, Graham!

 

Aren't Mermaids the one's who are a bit sketch and have previously gone against all medical advice regarding hormone treatments and even previously assisted in a unwarranted forced gender change? Seems more like a crusaid than a charity.

 

Nope, but that's certainly how they're positioned by very vocal and either misinformed or wilfully-lying people like Glinner. Mermaids is a support organisation, nothing more, and has absolutely zero input in recommending children are medicated or surgically altered: the decision to seek medication/surgery always comes from the patient themselves, and can only be acted upon by a qualified doctor through the usual routes.

This is what Mermaids UK does, and supporting that is far from a 'crusade.'

 

So they haven't "referred parents to a private GP, Helen Webberley, who prescribed cross-sex hormones to children as young as 12" or "been banned by the High Court from any contact with a family after the mother, who was being advised by the group, forced her seven-year-old son to live as a girl."

I'm not saying that trans children don't need help, it must be such an emotionally difficult experience (understatement of the century) to come to the realisation that your body is not the same sex as your mind, but that doesn't sound like just support to me. And if they're being ran by a woman who took her child to Thailand for a a sex change operation which is risky as hell, do you really want them advising you? I wouldn't if I was the parent of a trans child.

 

Dunno: I can't read either of those, because I'm not a subscriber. Well, I can read the first couple of paragraphs...

Here's an alternative view which can be read without a subscription, though.

If we take both your extracts at face value, though: referring parents to a private GP with expertise in the field of gender dysphoria seems pretty reasonable, and without knowing any other details I'm willing to bet the prescribed 'cross-sex hormones' were actually puberty blockers which delay the onset of puberty and the irreversible changes it would bring - and here's a nice Twitter thread about that; for the 'forced seven-year-old son to live as a girl,' if Mermaids gave advice that said "force your seven-year-old son to live as a girl" then that's terrible, but I very much can't see that being the case - if the seven-year-old son doesn't suffer from gender dysphoria, why were the parents talking to Mermaids in the first place?

 

Wow. That's horrifying. And now I get the 'thanks graham' remark. Sad to think someone who made a name for themselves taking the piss out of catholics would take their doctrine to heart like that.

The 'forced gender change' one was where social services had consulted with Mermaids and not taken any action based on their advice, that's likely due to a failure in safeguards from Mermaids and, but in particular, social services.

This is why you should get info from multiple sources before concluding anything. I don't subscribe I've just given them my spam email address for free articles. As if I'd pay for something I could find on the floor of the train for free. Could be worse though, could have been reading the mail.

 

He's proper flopped off the deep end with it: telling anyone who'll listen that transwomen - and it's always transwomen, not transmen - are a threat, a danger to "real" women, were actually just gay and forced into gender confirmation surgery by homophobes (because transwomen who fancy women and transmen who fancy men apparently don't exist in Glinner's World), and that only Graham Linehan Feminist Crusader can save women from the Trans Agenda... The tit.

Let's hope lessons have been learned on all fronts - but one screw-up won't stop me from seeing Mermaids as an overall force for good.

Darn tootin'!

 

Well, first things first: no UK doctor will perform gender confirmation surgery on a child. Not one. That's not a thing that happens, except in transphobes' imaginations.

Typically, the process goes something like this: Mum, I think I'm the wrong gender; Doctor, I think I'm the wrong gender; yes, Doctor, I'll try presenting as the other gender for a while to see how it feels; Doctor, I'm still unsure about all this, can we delay puberty so I have longer to think about it; I'm pretty sure being the opposite gender feels right, having been presenting as that gender for a while, may we begin hormones now Doctor; I have fully transitioned hormonally, and now that I am an adult I would like gender confirmation surgery please Doctor.

Note that there are multiple points at which the patient can change their mind: I didn't feel right presenting as the opposite gender, Doctor; I feel comfortable going through puberty now, Doctor; I have changed my mind about the hormones and would like to cease treatment, Doctor. It's only the very last step - and it is always the very last step for that very reason - that is irreversible. (Some transgender individuals don't even do the surgery: presenting and hormone treatment is enough for them to be happy in their own skin.)

Any clearer? There's plenty on Mermaids if not: https://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/resources-for-parents.html

 

Which is why A) support organisations like Mermaids UK are so important, and 2) why you can be pretty sure that a kid who has been going through all that is probably serious about wanting to change genders rather than just messing around.