About us
Mermaids has been supporting transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse children, young people, and their families since 1995.
Back at the start, we were a small group of concerned parents sitting around the kitchen table, coming together to share experiences, find answers and look for ways to keep our children safe and happy.
Today, Mermaids has evolved into one of the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ charities, empowering thousands of people with its secure online communities, local community groups, helpline services, web resources, events and residential weekends.
We also seek to educate and inform wider society on gender identity by helping professionals accommodate and reassure gender-diverse young people…
Regulatory Inquiry
THE CHARITY COMMISSION – 2 December 2022 – Press Release
… The regulator will seek to determine whether the charity’s governance is appropriate in relation to the activities the charity carries out, which involve vulnerable children and young people, as well as their families.
The inquiry, which opened on 28 November 2022, will examine:
- The administration, governance and management of the charity by the trustees including its leadership and culture.
- Whether the trustees have complied with and fulfilled their duties and responsibilities as trustees under charity law; in particular whether they had sufficient oversight of the charity’s activities and compliance with its policies and procedures and in line with its charitable objects.
- Whether there has been any misconduct and/or mismanagement by the trustees.
It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were…
Charity regulator opens compliance case into Mermaids
HARRIET WHITEHEAD – 30 September 2022 – Civil Society UK
The Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case into transgender youth support charity Mermaids, after it received a number of complaints about the organisation.
It had been considering regulatory action after the Telegraph published an article raising concerns about the supply of chest binders to young people via the charity without parental consent.
The Commission has now opened a compliance case, which in itself is not a finding of wrongdoing.
A Commission spokesperson said: “Concerns have been raised with us about Mermaids’ approach to safeguarding young people. We have opened a regulatory compliance case, and have written to the trustees. We now await their reply.”…
Mermaids refuses to let staff see report on former chief amid ‘safe space’ fears
EWAN SOMERVILLE – 5 December 2022 – The Telegraph
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.
The scandal-hit child transgender charity’s workforce were due to receive the highly critical audit on Monday after the chief executive was forced out in a staff revolt.
Last weekend, a whistleblower told The Telegraph how Ms Green faced a staff backlash over her “incapable” leadership, culminating in the “nail in the coffin” report, seen by trustees.
But on Monday staff were told that the board of trustees felt “we can’t safely share the EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] report today as we had planned”.
Citing media reports and an “unacceptable risk” to the authors, Mat Maddocks, a Mermaids trustee, wrote in the email that “our first priority is the well-being of our staff and given these events it isn’t possible to create the safe spaces for processing the report that are vital”…
MERMAIDS REPRESENTATIVES & EMPLOYEES
SUSIE GREEN – CEO
THE GENDER COLLECTION – Profile page
Mermaids – Representative Incidents
THE GENDER COLLECTION
INVOLVEMENT IN MEDICAL GUIDANCE & PRACTICE
Why the Tavistock had to fall
KATHLEEN STOCK – 1 August 2022 – Unherd
For years, the seeds of the Tavistock’s downfall have been hiding in plain sight, as a picture has slowly emerged of its clinicians doling out harmful drugs to gender-confused youth as if they were sweets. At the same time, though, a more subtle clue to the clinic’s endemic dysfunction has been contained in the generic communications that followed each new crisis.
“Thoughtful” is a self-description that crops up repeatedly. In response to critical reporting from Newsnight in 2019, the clinic’s Gender Identity Development Service insisted that it was “a thoughtful and safe service”. When Keira Bell and others took their case to the High Court a year later, arguing that under-16s could not give informed consent to puberty blockers, a GIDS spokesperson replied obstinately that theirs was “a safe and thoughtful service”. And when the Care Quality Commission rated the service as “inadequate”, the Tavistock’s ensuing statement defensively began: “The first thing to say is that GIDS has a long track record of thoughtful and high quality care.”
Alongside this manic insistence on thoughtfulness, there has also been a marked tendency to engage in special pleading about the especially difficult and highly contested cultural position the service occupies. For instance, in response to the damning CQC report, CEO Paul Jenkins replied that GIDS “has found itself in the middle of a cultural and political battleground”. And to the news of the closure last week, a spokesperson commented, with the air of someone sighing heavily: “Over the last couple of years, our staff… have worked tirelessly and under intense scrutiny in a difficult climate.
”Presumably what they really mean by this is that, as is now known, for several years GIDS has been caught between the emotionally blackmailing demands of transactivist organisations such as Mermaids and GIRES, talking constantly about suicide risk and lobbying hard for yet more relaxed attitudes to medicalising children, and the criticisms of those who profoundly object to the notion of a “trans child” in the first place. Former employees such as Susan Evans have reported the historical influence of Mermaids and GIRES on managers at the service, despite their lack of formal medical expertise and the possession of clearly vested interests…
Eighteen years of complaints and ‘thousands of damaged children’, but still the Tavistock Centre wouldn’t listen
HAYLEY DIXON & EWAN SOMERVILLE – 28 July 2022 – The Telegraph
Eighteen years ago, Susan Evans blew the whistle on the NHS’s only gender identity service for young people at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.
Alarm bells had started ringing for the nurse when she realised colleagues had referred a distressed 16-year-old boy who thought of himself as female for hormone treatment after only four appointments.
She saw a service that was under “tremendous pressure” from trans campaign groups such as Mermaids and she was alienated by other staff members for questioning the medicalisation of young people.
Her complaints prompted an internal inquiry in 2004, but nothing changed, Ms Evans said, and felt she had no option but to walk away for her own mental health.
In the 18 years that followed, as more than 20,000 children were referred, history repeated itself.
Numerous staff members, parents and patients have made serious allegations about the running and safety of the NHS’s only gender transition clinic for children.
Allegations include that children are rushed to medical treatment, that doctors were “converting” gay children into thinking that they were trans and medics were failing to consider other mental health issues that vulnerable young people were suffering…
What is WPATH and what are their guidelines?
CLINICAL ADVISORY NETWORK – SEX & GENDER (CAN-SG)
… WPATH Standards of Care are written and developed by self-appointed experts in the field, and do not use the best standards of examining evidence and writing recommendations, which introduces a high risk of bias. These professionals are themselves interested and invested in the various medical interventions that they recommend, and in demonstrating their own authority. Such risks of bias are by no means unique to transgender health and have been noted in many other areas of medicine. Furthermore, some of the authors of the WPATH Standards of Care may be informed more by political campaigning, rather than bringing experience as healthcare professionals, academics in relevant fields or guideline methodologists. For example, Susie Green of the UK Charity Mermaids has no clinical background, but is helping to write the WPATH chapter on paediatric gender dysphoria for SOCv8. Senior healthcare professionals who are WPATH members have allegedly expressed concerns regarding the influence of activism on clinical practice in transgender health (Shrier, 2021)…
UK pediatric transition referrals DOUBLE in SIX months, girls far outnumber boys, many under 10 years old
4TH WAVE NOW – 5 November 2015
Scanning through my Twitter feed this morning, I nearly scrolled past this little news item tweeted by the Guardian:
According to a freedom of information response obtained by the Guardian, the number of children referred to the Tavistock has jumped from 314 referrals in 2012-13 to 697 referrals in 2014-15. In the last six months the service has seen a further increase in referrals with 634 children referred between April and September.
Children? LITTLE children:
Many of the referrals – 151 from 2012-13 to 2014-15 – relate to children under the age of 10, including one three-year-old and 12 four-year-olds.
Yesterday, I posted about a very recent research survey conducted by members of the Dutch team of clinicians who pioneered pediatric medical transition. They found that, worldwide, there is a growing sense of unease amongst clinicians working in child gender clinics. It is widely acknowledged that there is no long-term research to support the current medical paradigm for “treating” children with gender dysphoria–to the point that some providers are even forming “moral deliberation” groups to “rethink” aspects of the pediatric “treatment” protocol….
CHILD SAFEGUARDING FAILURES & PARENTAL ALIENATION
Trans charity Mermaids investigated over ‘breast binders given to children’
AGENCIES – 30 September 2022 – The Guardian
A transgender rights organisation is being investigated over reports it has given breast binders to children.
Mermaids, which supports transgender, non-binary and gender diverse children and their families, reportedly sent the chest-flattening devices to children against their parents’ wishes.
The Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case into the organisation after a number of complaints.
It is the first step taken by the regulator, and not a finding of wrongdoing.
A spokesperson for the commission said: “Concerns have been raised with us about Mermaids’ approach to safeguarding young people.
“We have opened a regulatory compliance case and have written to the trustees. We now await their reply.”…
Why is Mermaids promoting breast binding at events for young people?
DEBBIE HAYTON – 5 November 2021 – The Spectator
Mermaids is arguably the most influential charity focusing on transgender rights in the UK. It claims to have been supporting transgender, non-binary and gender-diverse children, young people, and their families since 1995, and has been at the forefront of key policy changes affecting transgender people in this country. Today, however, the charity is distinctly evangelistic.
This approach worries me greatly. As a teacher, I know how impressionable young people can be. I think it is deeply irresponsible to suggest, as Mermaids do, that children have a gender identity that can differ from the sex that was ‘assigned at birth’.
This evangelistic approach from some in the trans movement can also lead to worrying outcomes. This week, for example, Mermaids posted a blog on the news section of its website about a ‘residential’ weekend it recently held. According to Mermaids, these weekends are generally aimed at the ‘young and not so young’ to ‘empower and enable families and young people to access the best care possible.’…
Trans charity’s chatroom for children condemned as irresponsible free-for-all
LUCY BANNERMAN – 1 October 2022 – The Times
The first red flag was the “dick pic”. Katie had no idea her 14-year-old son was communicating with strangers in secret on the Mermaids website, until she found several sexually explicit images on his phone.
Her autistic son, who had been teased at school for possibly being gay, had visited the school nurse, who in turn did what so many schools, local authorities and child mental health services across the country now do when presented with a gender-non-conforming child in distress: referred him to Mermaids.
The charity is the country’s best known transgender youth charity. It has basked in the support of celebrities such as Emma Watson and Prince Harry, and won generous grants from the National Lottery and the government.
Unbeknown to Katie, her son had joined the charity’s youth forum, a private online community for 12-19 year-olds who are struggling with gender issues. Parents and carers are not allowed. No proof of ID or age is required, only an email address.
Once signed up, he entered an online world where vulnerable children seeking support with others in similar pain, share their personal details, including phone numbers, email addresses and social media handles, under the apparently approving supervision of Mermaids moderators…
MERMAIDS CHALLENGE LGB ALLIANCE
THE GENDER COLLECTION
Our charitable status is being challenged by Mermaids. Mermaids says that LGB Alliance, the only UK charity working exclusively for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, should not have been given charitable status.
We believe this is a fundamental attack on the rights of people with same-sex sexual orientation to organise in our own interests…
SUSIE GREEN & POLICING SPEECH
Fighting for free speech in UK
KELLIE-JAY KEEN-MINSHUALL – March 2018 – Crowdfunder
My name is Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull however you may know me as Posie Parker.
In March 2018 I spent 40 minutes being interviewed under caution for eight tweets spanning ten months. Susie Green of Mermaids reported me to the police and they obtained my contact details from twitter. I have not deleted any of these tweets and anyone is free to view them. They are not malicious, they were not false, the purpose is to inform and to challenge the current pro trans ideological climate.
This fight is not whether you agree with my views on transgender issues as much it is that you agree that I have a right to air my views, a right to voice an opinion, a right to free speech.
I am a 43 year old married mother of four, I am every woman, I am you…
A chat with Posie Parker on free speech, feminism and Mermaids UK
MAGDALEN BERNS – 27 April 2018 – Youtube
TRANSITION ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ALL
A Mother Complains About Mermaids
JL – October 2022 – The Glinner Update
My huge thanks to an anonymous source who provided me with the following information and screenshots. She is the mother of a gender-distressed child and, a few years ago, sought help from Mermaids on the recommendation of her child’s school.
In 2020 she wrote a letter of complaint to the Charity Commission about Mermaids, alarmed by their procedures and protocols. In light of recent revelations in the media, she was quite right to be worried….
Taxpayer-funded transgender charity which offered same-day hormone treatment for children is banned from contacting family after mother forced her son, seven, to live as a girl
SOPHIE INGE – 8 October 2017 – Daily Mail
A taxpayer-funded transgender charity which offered same-day hormone treatment for children has allegedly been banned from contacting a family after the mother forced her seven-year-old son to live as a girl.
The boy was removed from his mother’s care by the High Court last year, after Mr Justice Hayden found that she had caused him ‘significant emotional harm’.
Mermaids, a charity which offers ‘family and individual support for gender diverse and transgender children and young people’, criticised the judge’s ‘horrific’ decision at the time, claiming there was no evidence to support it…
PSA: Be careful of Mermaids UK Trans charity
SILENT – 23 January 2019 – Medium.com
In 2016, trans charity Mermaids UK supported and enabled a manipulative woman in her custody dispute because she believed her child was transgender. They fearmongered and severely misrepresented the case, glossing over how the mother isolated and abused her child. PLEASE READ THIS AND RECONSIDER IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT AND DONATE TO THEM.
(bold emphasis from this point onwards are all mine)…
COLLABORATION WITH GENDERGP.COM
Pseudo-Scientific Hokum And The Experimentation On Children’s Bodies
JULIAN VIGO – 27 December 2018 – Forbes
… In fact, Mermaids, a political lobby group and not a professional organization, recommends the services of Dr. Helen Webberley, a GP (general practitioner) who was told not to run her online transgender advice surgery by watchdog Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) earlier this year and who just two weeks ago was found guilty of offering sex-change hormones to kids. And even after this last ruling, where Webberley was suspended from her practice and fined £12,000 for failing to register her online advice services with a health regulator in Wales, still Mermaids continued to recommend this doctors practice on its website. They have only removed their recommendation to Webberley’s services very recently…
These people should be in jail
JL – 11 October 2020 – The Glinner Update
A UK chemist has been flogging puberty blockers for children online, courtesy of a company set up by disgraced gender doctor, Helen Webberley.
The Times has discovered that an online pharmacy, Clear Chemist, has been selling hormone treatments to ‘trans children’ on the internet and that this medication is being prescribed by GenderGP, the clinic originally founded by Helen Webberley.
In 2017 Helen Webberley was suspended by the General Medical Council, pending an investigation into her conduct. She and her husband, Michael, were operating an unlicensed gender clinic, charging patients £75 – £150 per hour for their services and prescribing hormones to children as young as twelve. In December 2018 Webberley was found guilty of providing healthcare services illegally.
The Webberleys’ clinic was connected to the death of teenager, Jayden Lowe, who had purchased testosterone from them online several months before tragically taking her own life. Jayden’s mother had no idea the clinic supplying these drugs was unregulated and she demanded a second inquest into her child’s death after learning the truth…
INVOLVEMENT IN EDUCATIONAL GUIDANCE
Trans ideologists are spreading cod science
JANICE TURNER – 22 December 2018 – The Times
Are you a Princess Barbie jelly-baby who likes frilly dresses, high heels and takes ages to get ready? Or a GI Joe jelly-baby who wears boots and functional clothing? Did you know that your preference for pink sparkles or muddy sports isn’t down to societal expectations of boys and girls. No, it’s written in your chromosomes. And that’s science.
Well, science according to Mermaids, the charity for trans children, in a presentation understood to be given to thousands of teachers, health workers, police and politicians, and part-funded by the Department for Education.
I listened to a recording of this bizarre 90-minute training lecture and wish others could too. Particularly those who pride themselves on rationality and evidence-based thinking: atheists, fans of Richard Dawkins and Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science; those incensed by climate change deniers on TV or creationists in schools; the same people who are tweeting #istandwithmermaids because the Big Lottery Fund is reviewing, in the light of an outcry, its decision to award them a £500,000 grant.
On tape the Mermaids trainer tells us that humans don’t come in two sexes, male and female, sperm and ovum: “Most people still think that way,” she says airily. “But what we know now, thanks to advances in science, is that the human race has up to 42 different sets of chromosomes.”
Biological sex is on a spectrum, she says, like skin tone and (seriously) bra size. A person’s “gender identity jelly baby” has nothing to do with how we are raised: it is inside you at birth. You know you are a man because you walk like a man and like “manly” things. A listener questions why this lecture is based upon stereotypes and is told “you’re going too clever”.