Mick Hartley

The wheels may be coming off the Mermaids bandwagon, but the effects of trans ideology are still widespread. Jo Bartosch:

Mermaids may now be in deep water. But the mythology it subscribes to has already spread its tentacles through every school and local council. The monster is less a mermaid and more a hydra – cutting off one head won’t slay the beast.

The growth of the ‘transgender child’ as a concept has been rapid. Despite a paucity of research and a lack of medical consensus on this question, there are few schools or local councils that have escaped some form of trans-activist-led training about ‘trans kids’. Mermaids alone boasts of having delivered 143 training sessions to other organisations in the last financial year – including to social services, police forces and schools. What public officials are taught at these training sessions tends to be ideologically infused falsehoods – such as that failing to affirm a child’s transgender identity increases his or her risk of suicide or self-harm.

Trans ideology has been adopted wholesale by far too many public institutions, with often disastrous consequences. Children are now skipping school because they don’t want to use unisex lavatories. And girls are self-harming by binding their breasts. Countless families have been left to clean up the mess.

Worse, it is hard for families to speak out against what is happening. Parents who don’t affirm their offspring’s ‘gender identity’ are aware they can draw the attention of social services. For the most part, the people victimised by the new cadre of trans-trained public officials are those at the bottom of the heap – those without recourse to lawyers or who lack the financial security to risk becoming unemployable….

To make matters worse, an online army of luvvies and #BeKind pundits have staked their reputations on the existence of the ‘trans child’, appointing themselves as moral arbiters on the matter. JK Rowling and the tiny minority of public figures who have dared to break ranks have been turned into folk devils. Their rotting reputations have been strung up on social media as a warning to others not to challenge trans ideology….

As it becomes harder to deny the harms of trans ideology, those who self-identify as ‘on the right side of history’ will probably just move on to the next trendy cause. Their consciences are likely to be untroubled by the broken careers, families and bodies that have been left in their wake. The truth is that the ‘Karens’, ‘TERFs’ and ‘haters’ were right all along. There really is something fishy about trans ideology – and it has spread far beyond Mermaids.

Meanwhile the latest Mermaids scandal – they're coming thick and fast now – concerns their digital engagement officer. 

Parents of children who have used the transgender youth charity Mermaids have complained to the watchdog after a worker posted explicit images and sexualised pictures “as a schoolgirl” online.

Darren Mew, digital engagement officer at the children’s charity and who identifies as “they/them”, posted an image of himself on Instagram with an upwards view through his short skirt with the words “Sorry I can’t hear you. I’m just out here living my fantasy” and the hashtag “nonbinaryfinery”.

Mew was also featured in a collage of six pictures of himself naked, holding his erect penis, from the rear and with pairs of breasts with penises protruding from them for a shot for Haus Magazine, an LGBT publication.

The worker lists himself on LinkedIn as the digital engagement officer at Mermaids . Mew has featured in campaign material for the charity, and until recently on the Mermaids website under a staff profile saying: “Darren joined Mermaids in 2021. They have many years of experience working in the LGBT+ and charity sectors, and believe in the power of community and bringing people together.

“When they aren’t working, you’ll often find them reading magazines, watching videos or at a drag show.”

Or posing as a foxy little schoolgirl on social media. Just the kind of person you'd want to be advising your child behind your back on questions of sexual identity. Exactly what kind of digital engagement did he have in mind, I wonder?

For more, including those pics – oh yes – see the Glinner Update.