Code of Conduct

Please read the following rules and code of conduct very carefully and then answer the questions on the web form before membership can be approved.

Please note that membership is not a list for transgender adults with children. Membership is for parents/guardians (who may or may not be trans) of “children and young people in the UK (up to and including age 19) who are gender questioning, gender variant and/or transgender”. 

Those parents with older children should contact Depend: https://depend.groups.io/g/main/subgroups

***PLEASE READ: Mermaids takes the safety and privacy of all its members very seriously, which is why we need to have the information requested. It will only be shared by the admin team on this group – the moderators – and will not be seen by anyone else at all. This information is necessary for us to determine whether this is the right group for you, and if you are right for this group, where personal and private information is shared by members, ensuring that it remains a safe and private space for families and their young vulnerable people.***

Thank you

Mermaids 

MEMBERSHIP RULES

Once a member, you will have access to our forums. Please adhere to the following Code of Conduct when using the Forums

1. To help protect your private information, all members must have a username that does not make your actual name known to forum users
2. To help protect a young person’s private information, you must never disclose the full name of your child, or photos of them on forums
3. All members are expected to post a brief intro to the forum about themselves shortly after joining (normally within 7 days) – continued membership will be dependant upon their doing so.
4. The forum should be treated as confidential: nothing posted may be quoted or reproduced anywhere else without the permission of the original author and of any list member who is quoted or referred to in the message.
5. It is also forbidden to reveal the identity, email address or any other personal contact details of any other member to any third party.
6. Harassment of another list member, whether on the list or off it, is unacceptable and may result in your removal from the list. (So if anyone has grounds for complaint, please contact [email protected])
7. Advertising on list by people with a “financial interest” in a business or products, or spamming by individuals or companies will not be allowed.
8. No posts by members are affiliated with or endorsed by Mermaids. Posts are the personal opinions of individuals who publish to the forum. Simply because a post is unmoderated, that does not mean the content of the post is supported by Mermaids or is the opinion of Mermaids.

We hope that the list will be essentially self-ruling but the moderators reserve the right to take action against any individual should they see fit. Such action may involve issuing a warning to, or barring from the forum, any individual who breaches this code of conduct, or who shows by their actions that they do not have the best interest of other members at heart.

Posts that include the following will be deleted, to keep our forums safe:

·        Personal attacks, name calling, bullying

·        Unlawful commentary

·        Trolling, misleading or deliberately inflammatory behaviour

·        Personal information or prying for personal information

·        Personal photographs

·        Graphic, offensive or unlawful content

·        Advertising or personal fundraisers

·        Impersonation

·        Promotion of violence or discrimination

·        Content that we suspect contains malware including but not limited to viruses, Trojans, key-loggers etc.

·        Content that causes undue upset to other users

Respectful Conversation

·        Remember that your child may not be in the same place as others. Each and every member of the forum has a unique experience. Be kind and thoughtful.

·        Please remember that although you yourself may have an opinion everyone thinks differently so there may be many opinions around one subject. 

·        Be respectful of other members when discussing your opinions. Consider what you are posting and how it may affect others. 

·        Do not make comments that you know could be inflammatory in such a way that you know they could upset, offend or invalidate other users.

·        If members report, and/or admin consider, that a post is potentially triggering and/or hurtful in any way, we will remove it.

 Disclaimer – members are warned to be careful when using the internet not to give out personal contact details in response to private mails etc., and to be careful about meeting people they have got to know on the ‘net – Mermaids, its owner and moderators and Mermaids support groups take no responsibility for the safety of their members and users as they go about their lives or for the content posted by members.

While Mermaids is acutely aware of the strain being placed on young people and their families by the current situation regarding NHS support and/or treatment, the charity does not signpost to private organisations or individuals regarding medical pathways

Please address any queries regarding these rules, or the administration of the forum, directly to: [email protected]  

If we miss anything, you can report content that you feel includes any of the above to us using [email protected].

We reserve the right without notice to record, suspend, remove or delete User Content or to disclose to the relevant authorities any User Content if: (a) it is the subject of a complaint; (b) if we consider that it breaches our terms and conditions (including those laid out in this document); (c) if we consider that such steps are necessary to protect us or others; (d) a criminal act or civil wrong has been committed; or (e) we are required to do so by law or an appropriate authority.