Mick Hartley

The rot has spread to the Samaritans. From the Telegraph:

A Samaritans volunteer was suspended after he publicly called on the charity to sever its ties with a radical trans activist group.

Robert Laverick, a listening volunteer at Samaritans in Leeds, posted online that the suicide prevention charity should end its endorsement of Gendered Intelligence.

The controversial group, with contentious views on sex and gender identity in young people, is one of the charities Samaritans recommends on its website.

Following a disciplinary investigation by Samaritans, Mr Laverick, an academic at the University of Leeds, was found to have breached multiple guidelines with his post.

The 32-year old was given a written warning and ordered to undergo equality training, while Gendered Intelligence continues to be endorsed on the Samaritans website.

“They [Samaritans] have missed the point,” Mr Laverick told The Telegraph. “It’s all well and good to punish me, but that doesn’t change why I made the post.”

Mr Laverick started volunteering a year ago at Samaritans, which provides a helpline service for people in emotional distress or at risk of suicide.

In July, he posted on X, formerly Twitter, about an independent review by Prof Louis Appleby, a suicide expert. The review debunked trans activists’ claims that the ban on puberty blocker drugs, brought in by the previous government in May, will increase child suicides.

In the post, Mr Laverick wrote: “As a Samaritan listening volunteer, will the charity stand with Prof Appleby and condemn the false and irresponsible suicide claims around those whom are questioning their gender and reconsider our signposting list to remove harmful groups?”

In a later post, he called Gendered Intelligence an example of a “harmful group”.

Gendered Intelligence has caused controversy by giving seminars in schools to children as young as four on changing gender.

The charity says it exists to “increase understanding of gender diversity”, but parents’ groups have expressed concern that young children will become confused and could misinterpret feelings of unhappiness as a symptom of being the “wrong” gender….

Maya Forstater, chief executive of human rights charity Sex Matters, said: “Professor Appleby’s report for the Government was blistering on the dangers of misrepresenting suicide statistics in the context of trans activism.

“Organisations like the Samaritans should be taking it on board, not reprimanding volunteers for sharing it publicly.”

From Samaritans Media Guidelines for Reporting Suicide:

Steer clear of presenting suicidal behaviour as an understandable response to a crisis or adversity. This can contribute to unhelpful and risky normalising of suicide as an appropriate response to distress.

Hmm.