The BBC has removed Mermaids and two other organisations from its information and advice web pages, a sign that it may have concerns over the quality of advice the organisations were giving.
As recently as late June, the BBC website had a whole page dedicated to “Information and advice: gender identity,” in which it referred viewers to the Gender Trust, Mermaids, and the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES).
This page has now gone and the page dedicated to “Information and Support: LGBT Issues” now refers viewers to the NHS website for information on gender identity.
There has been no official explanation for the change, but the organisations have come under increased scrutiny for the advice they give to families of gender-questioning children. There have been accusations that Mermaids, for example, has been accused of acting as a lobby group for medical intervention, rather than a support group for families.
BBC Newsnight recently reported that staff concerns over too-hasty referral of gender-questioning children to medical intervention were being ‘shut down’ by the national Gender Identity Development Service. And the NHS has ordered an independent review of the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in children.
Mermaids was founded by Susie Green, who took her gender-questioning child to Thailand for gender reassignment surgery when the child was 16, and is a leading advocate of the concept of ‘trans children’.
A further sign that harder questions are now being asked of Mermaids, and more generally of the whole issue of gender identity – as mentioned here. The realisation is dawning – not before time – that medical intervention for issues of supposed "gender dysphoria", as pushed by Mermaids, is basically gay conversion therapy under another name.
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