Founded | 1995 [1] |
---|---|
Type | Nonprofit advocacy organisation |
Registration no. | 1160575 |
Purpose | Transgender rights |
Location |
|
CEO | Lauren Stoner |
Revenue (2020) | £902,437 [2] |
Expenses (2020) | £1,041,326 [2] |
Staff (2020) | 18 employees, 7 trustees, 31 volunteers [2] |
Website | mermaidsuk |
Part of a series on |
LGBT rights in the United Kingdom |
---|
By location |
Policy aspects |
Legislation |
Culture |
Organisations |
History |
Mermaids is a British charity and advocacy organisation that supports gender variant and transgender youth. [1] [3] It also provides inclusion and diversity training. [4] Mermaids was founded in 1995 by a group of parents of gender nonconforming children [5] and became a charitable incorporated organisation in 2015. [6]
Mermaids was founded in 1995 by a group of parents of gender nonconforming children, originally acting as a small helpline. [5] It aims to provide support for transgender youths up to 20 years of age. [1] [7] Mermaids became a Charitable incorporated organisation in 2015. [6]
Susie Green was the chief executive from January 2016 until 25 November 2022 when she resigned. [8] Previously she worked as an IT manager at the Citizens Advice Bureau in Leeds. Green was a trustee of Mermaids for four years from 2011. Her daughter is one of the youngest individuals in the UK to have transitioned surgically. [9] [10]
Lauren Stoner was made interim chief executive in December 2022 [11] and was appointed CEO for two years in February 2024. [12]
In August 2023, it was announced that Belinda Bell would be stepping down as chair of the charity, while remaining as a trustee. [13] Kathryn Downs, who is transgender, became chair in February 2024. [12]
In the years from 2000, Mermaids alongside another campaign group, GIRES (Gender Identity Research and Education Society), lobbied clinicians at NHS Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) to allow children access to early treatments such as puberty blockers. [14] [15] After taking her child to Boston, Massachusetts in 2007 to receive puberty blockers, Susie Green worked to make them available in Britain from GIDS. [14] In response, GIDS began prescribing blockers from 2011 onwards, making them widely available in response to demand from families. [15] [14] Green said: "… we don't have any say on how they operate, how they prescribe, what they do in terms of the process." [16]
In July 2022, NHS England decided to close GIDS and replace it with regional healthcare centres, following the publication of the independent Cass Review. [17] In response to the decision, Mermaids CEO Susie Green was "cautiously optimistic", but expressed concerns that priority would be given to mental health over medical care. [18] She said: "We would not want any further barriers to be put in place in terms of access to medical intervention." [18]
In 2017, Mermaids reported that it and its volunteers had been the victims of online harassment. CEO Green stated that she had been falsely accused of forcibly castrating her transgender daughter, Jackie. Her daughter maintained that "If my mum had not helped me, I would not be here today" and transgender journalist Paris Lees wrote: "Susie Green is saving lives and I wish my parents had known about Mermaids when I was growing up". Green raised concerns "that the social media backlash may put people off coming to the charity for help." [19]
In December 2018, the charity was allocated £500,000 in funding by the Big Lottery Fund, to create a national network of local groups. [20] [21] However, the funding was put under review after criticism of the charity, including by anti-trans activist Graham Linehan, [22] who created a post on Mumsnet calling for members of the forum to email their concerns to the National Lottery. [23] [24] In response to this, on 18 January 2019, YouTuber Hbomberguy began a livestream attempting to 101% complete the video game Donkey Kong 64 , with a goal of $500 to be donated to Mermaids. The stream became popular and raised over US$350,000 for Mermaids. [25] Among other guests, the stream featured an appearance by American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. [26] On 19 February 2019, the National Lottery concluded its review into the charity and announced that it would follow through with the promised donation, stating that "did not find any grounds to withhold the grant.". [27] However, in October 2022, National Lottery funding was paused due to the investigation by the Charity Commission. [28]
The 2018 ITV drama series Butterfly , about a young transgender girl, was substantially informed by Mermaids and its CEO, Susie Green, a consultant on the series who worked with creator Tony Marchant. [29] Marchant and cast members Emmett J. Scanlan and Anna Friel also met families involved with Mermaids to inform their creative processes. [30] [31]
In July 2020, the charity complained that the BBC had no longer included links to themselves on BBC LGBT advice pages, alongside two other organisations. [32] [33] The BBC said that Mermaids was removed after complaints were made about the information it provided, and for impartiality reasons. [33]
In June 2019, The Times revealed that they had discovered a data breach by Mermaids in which confidential emails had been made readily available through their website. [34] The Times stated that these included names of transgender children and their parents, together with contact details and intimate medical information. The newspaper reported that there were internal emails from the trustees that criticised the leadership by Susie Green, as well as criticism from parents. [34] Mermaids issued a press release on the same day, which acknowledged that a data breach had occurred, and that they had informed the Information Commissioner's Office and had corrected the breach. The press release stated that the breach was limited to internal emails and that no emails to and from families were part of the information leaked; The Times disputed this. [7] [34] After an investigation, Mermaids were required to pay a £25,000 fine. [35]
This section may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. Please help to create a more balanced presentation. Discuss and resolve this issue before removing this message. (March 2022) |
Writing in The Daily Telegraph in September 2020, Kim Thomas said that some pressure groups, including Safe Schools Alliance and Transgender Trend, have argued that some resources used by Mermaids in training sessions reinforce rigid gender roles and might cause non-conforming children to identify as transgender. [36] In contrast, Attitude quoted Kate Lister, who said that the resource is "a visual representation of gender identifying markers ... At no point does anyone suggest children who act in ways that do not conform to a gender are trans. At no point does anyone suggest gay children are trans." [37] Likewise, Mermaids released a statement saying that they have never encouraged teachers "to state that 'tomboys' should be transgender", and that they do not provide classroom talks or lesson materials for schools, contrary to what had been reported in some newspapers. [4]
Following the commencement of the regulatory compliance case by the Charity Commission in 2022, the Department for Education has removed Mermaids from its mental health and wellbeing resources for schools. [38]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2021) |
The charity criticised the UK Government's April 2021 decision to disband the LGBT advisory board without a planned replacement, describing the move as "very concerning". [39]
In June 2021, Mermaids along with other charities including Stonewall began raising funds to appeal the awarding of charitable status to LGB Alliance, describing the latter group's activities as "denigrating trans people". [40] The case began in September 2022, [41] and ruled in July 2023. The judges determined that "the law does not permit Mermaids to challenge the decision made by the Charity Commission to register LGB Alliance as a charity". [42]
In March 2022, Susie Green was due to speak on a panel regarding support for transgender youth, alongside Stephanie Davies-Arai, of Transgender Trend, a "gender-critical" website. The panel would have been part of an event, eventually postponed, for an expected 100 to 150 trainee child psychiatrists organised by Great Ormond Street Hospital and Health Education England. [43] Paediatrician Hilary Cass, journalist Helen Joyce, psychotherapist Stella O'Malley, and academic Lisa Littman would also have participated. [44]
Following complaints to the organisers by Mermaids and a trainee doctor, Davies-Arai's appearance was cancelled. Susie Green said that Mermaids "cannot be a part of a conference that gives a platform to Transgender Trend" and advised the organisers to "stay clear of anyone involved with anti-trans pseudo-medical platforms that have been set up with the sole intention of attacking trans people (especially trans youth) and their healthcare." Davies-Arai said that it "should concern everyone that the NHS has allowed unsubstantiated claims of 'transphobia' to influence their decisions." [43]
In September 2022, Susie Green co-authored the 8th edition of the standards of care issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. [45] [46]
In September 2022, Mermaids was the subject of an investigation by The Daily Telegraph , which accused the charity of offering chest binders to transgender youth without parental consent and to have told users they believed to be as young as 13 that hormone-blocking drugs are "totally reversible". [47] [48] [49] [50] The investigation relied largely on an anonymous adult pretending to be a 14-year-old named "Kai" in order to access services from Mermaids. [48] The Telegraph, masquerading as "Kai", exchanged emails with the charity, during which the charity staff agreed to offer them a chest binder. [48] The Daily Telegraph criticized the charity for not investigating the fictional Kai's mental health and for not requiring that "Kai" inform an adult, despite "Kai" describing their parents as unaccepting in the email exchanges. [48] Mermaids responded by saying that they take "a harm reduction position with the understanding that providing a young person with a binder and comprehensive safety guidelines from an experienced member of staff is preferable to the likely alternative of unsafe practices and/or continued or increasing dysphoria". [48]
On 29 September 2022 the Charity Commission opened a regulatory compliance case into Mermaids, based on complaints made about the charity as a result of The Daily Telegraph's investigation. [51] [52] Mermaids subsequently submitted a number of serious incidents reports to the commission in relation to issues raised in the media, and also closed its helpline temporarily due to what it described as "intolerable abuse" received by staff and volunteers. [53] Funding from the National Lottery has been paused during this investigation. [28]
On 2 December 2022 it was announced that the Charity Commission had opened a statutory inquiry on 28 November and that the charity's management and governance were now being looked at. [54] [55] The Charity Commission said the opening of the inquiry was not a finding of wrongdoing. [56] [57] This followed the resignation of CEO Susie Green, in November 2022. [55] [56]
As at July 2024, the inquiry was still ongoing. Mermaids said that this was “significantly impacting our services, staff and volunteer wellbeing, our reputation, and our finances”. [58]
In October 2022, Dr Jacob Breslow of the London School of Economics resigned as a trustee of Mermaids after it was revealed that he had spoken at a conference organised by B4U-ACT, a paedophile support group, as a PhD student in 2011. In a statement, Mermaids described the organisation as "completely at odds" with its values, and said that "Once notified we took swift and decisive action to investigate ... Safeguarding is of the utmost importance to Mermaids and the safety of the young people we support is our highest priority." [59] Belinda Bell, the chair of trustees, apologised for the distress caused by the news of Breslow's links to the group, and said that he should never have been appointed to the board. [60]
On 12 October 2022, Miriam Cates MP used Prime Minister's Questions to ask for a police investigation into Mermaids. [61] In response, the charity said that her "attitudes to LGBT organisations are well-documented and this is not the first time she has criticised Mermaids". [62]
Stonewall Equality Limited, trading as Stonewall, is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights charity in the United Kingdom. It is the largest LGBT rights organisation in Europe.
Graham George Linehan is an Irish comedy writer and anti-transgender activist. He created or co-created the sitcoms Father Ted (1995–1998), Black Books (2000–2004), and The IT Crowd (2006–2013), and he has written for shows including Count Arthur Strong, Brass Eye and The Fast Show. Early in his career, he partnered with the writer Arthur Mathews. Linehan has won five BAFTA awards, including Best Writer, Comedy, for The IT Crowd in 2014.
The Gender Trust was a United Kingdom charitable organisation promoting public education about transgender and gender identity issues and providing information to those affected. It is based in Horsham and Henfield, West Sussex. Gender Trust spokesmen comment on occasion to the news about transsexualism. For example, when the 2004 Big Brother winner was a transsexual, a GenderTrust spokesman said of the program: "It's raised the general public's awareness that transsexuals are just ordinary people." It has criticised employers for rarely thinking about the need for sex change or of the difficulty of sex change operations on their employees.
Transgender rights in the United Kingdom have varied significantly over time, with transgender Britons facing many issues not experienced by non-trans individuals. These include various laws and public attitudes in regards to identity documents, as well as anti-discrimination measures used by or pertaining to transgender people, in the areas of employment, education, housing and social services, amongst others.
Rosemary Clare Duffield is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Canterbury since 2017.
Aimee Knight is a British transgender activist and former politician. She was a rising star in the Green Party and its equalities spokesperson. In 2018, her father, who had been her election agent, was convicted of raping a child and she was no-fault suspended during an investigation into safeguarding failures by the party. She subsequently joined the Liberal Democrats in 2019 and was suspended after tweets appeared on her fiance's account stating he fantasized about children having sex, which she attributed to hacking.
Butterfly is a three-part British television drama series that premiered on 14 October 2018. Made for ITV by Red Production Company, the series focuses on the family of 11-year-old Maxine, who begins to realise that she is a transgender girl. Anna Friel and Emmett J. Scanlan play her parents, Vicky and Stephen, who reluctantly begin to accept Maxine's need to transition. The programme was also broadcast in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, and made available on the American subscription service Hulu.
Jolyon Toby Dennis Maugham is a British barrister. Initially a practitioner in contentious taxation law, he stepped away in order to act as the founder and director of the Good Law Project, through which he has played a role in bringing to court a number of legal challenges to the Brexit process. He has written on Brexit and legal issues for publications such as The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the New Statesman. He published his first book in 2023.
Kathleen Mary Linn Stock is a British philosopher and writer. She was a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex until 2021. She has published academic work on aesthetics, fiction, imagination, sexual objectification, and sexual orientation.
Abigail Thorn is an English YouTuber, actress, and playwright, best known for producing the YouTube channel Philosophy Tube.
Preferred gender pronouns are the set of pronouns that an individual wants others to use to reflect that person's own gender identity. In English, when declaring one's chosen pronouns, a person will often state the subject and object pronouns, although sometimes, the possessive pronouns are also stated. The pronouns chosen may include neopronouns such as "ze" and "zir".
The LGB Alliance is a British advocacy group and registered charity founded in 2019 in opposition to the policies of LGBT rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues. Its founders are Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott. The LGB Alliance describes its objective as "asserting the right of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men to define themselves as same-sex attracted", and states that such a right is threatened by "attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender". The group has opposed a ban on conversion therapy for trans people in the UK, opposed the use of puberty blockers for children, and opposed gender recognition reform.
Allison Elaine Bailey is a retired barrister who specialised in criminal defence law and worked in London, England. Bailey initiated an employment tribunal claim against her legal chambers and Stonewall in 2020. The case has attracted public and media attention, particularly in relation to the Diversity Champions programme. She announced her retirement from the Bar and resignation from her chambers on her website effective 31 March 2023.
Transgender Trend is an anti-trans British pressure group, which describes itself as a group of parents, professionals and academics who are concerned about the number of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It was founded in 2015 by Stephanie Davies-Arai.
Stella O'Malley is an Irish psychotherapist and author, with three books on parenting and mental health. She is a regular contributor to Irish national newspapers, podcasts, and TV. She made a documentary about gender dysphoria in children for Channel 4, and is the founder of Genspect, a self-described gender critical organisation opposed to gender affirming care.
"'We're being pressured into sex by some trans women'" is the original title of a BBC News article written by Caroline Lowbridge and published on 26 October 2021. Produced by the BBC's regional service in Nottingham, the article reports that lesbians are being pressured into sex by a small number of transgender women and non-transgender 'activists'. The article received widespread criticism among the LGBT community as transphobic. It drew particular attention for the inclusion of comments from American pornographic actress Lily Cade, who wrote a blog post after the article's publication calling for the "lynching" of high-profile trans women. Cade's comments were subsequently removed from the article.
Susie Green is the former chief executive officer of Mermaids, a British advocacy organisation for gender variant and transgender youth. She stepped down unexpectedly on 25 November 2022 after six years of service.
Kellie-Jay Nyishie Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker, is a British gender-critical and anti–transgender rights activist and the leader of the political party, Party of Women. She is the founder of the group Standing for Women and the former special advisor to the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF). Keen-Minshull has been described as a key figure opposing the United Kingdom's Gender Recognition Act of 2004. She has been credited for popularising the use of the term "adult human female" to define a woman; the term later became associated with gender-critical feminism. She launched a failed bid to become the MP for the constituency of Bristol Central in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, coming in last place with only 0.5% of the vote.
Jacob Breslow is an American academic and independent scholar. He was Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality in the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics (LSE) until he resigned in July 2023, claiming harassment that he claimed was "part of a broader movement against the field of gender studies, and against trans rights and dignity". In 2022, he resigned from the transgender charity Mermaids after it emerged that he had spoken at a conference B4U-ACT, an organization that provides support to paedophiles.
GenderGP is an online gender clinic founded in 2015 by English physicians Helen Webberley and Mike Webberley. It is based in Singapore but provides services worldwide. It has been the subject of controversy within the United Kingdom as a result of regulatory actions taken against its founders.
Appearing alongside British television writer and anti-trans activist Graham Linehan last year...
As the number of children identifying as transgender has increased, schools have consulted trans charities such as Stonewall and Mermaids about how best to approach the topic. These charities have, however, come under criticism by campaigners, including Transgender Trend and Safe Schools Alliance, for reinforcing a rigid belief in gender roles, and for encouraging children who don't conform to gender stereotypes to believe they might be trans....A large number of the organisations providing training and resources to schools on trans issues use non-conformity to gender stereotypes as evidence that a child is transgender. Mermaids, for example, regularly uses a chart showing gender identity on a 12-point spectrum from a Barbie wearing a pink dress to GI Joe in military fatigues.
The discussion is on how we socially see gender expressions. In psychology, these archetypes are called 'hyper masculinity' and 'hyper femininity' - mermaids have just renamed them to be more accessible. This isn't new or unique to Mermaids. The 'jelly baby' spectrum being used in the lecture is basically a visual representation of gender identifying markers. In academic terms these are 'gender identity', 'gender expression', 'biological sex' and 'sexual orientation'. At no point does anyone suggest children who act in ways that do not conform to a gender are trans. At no point does anyone suggest gay children are trans. In fact, the woman taking the session self identifies as lesbian - and FULLY understands she is not trans.