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Blog — Press Statements

Mermaids Press

On Thursday 11 April, we were made aware that the Charity Commission has allegedly liked and reposted gender-critical content on its official X account, including potentially defamatory content about Mermaids.  In response to an email from us, the Commission confirmed that this appears to have been accidental activity during monitoring. We recognise that accidents do happen, however vigilance is required to ensure that these are addressed as soon as possible. As a public body, the Commission must appear to be scrupulously independent and unbiased across its work, including its activity on social media, and it is disappointing that it has…

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Mermaids Press

Everyone deserves access to timely, supportive and holistic healthcare. However, across all of the UK, the NHS is failing trans youth, with appalling waiting lists of more than six years, virtually no first appointments offered for over a year, and increased politicisation of the support offered to children and young people.  Trans youth tell us they want services which are accepting and respectful, which offer supportive spaces to explore their gender, and provide access to medical transition if and when they need it.  The Cass Review, an independent review of NHS England gender services for children and young people, published…

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Mermaids Press

Lauren Stoner has been appointed permanent CEO of Mermaids on a two-year fixed term basis.  An experienced charity professional with a background in health and social care, Lauren (she/her) joined the charity as Interim CEO in December 2022 and has successfully steered the organisation through challenging times. Her leadership will see us into our 30th anniversary year in 2025.  On Lauren’s appointment, incoming Chair of Trustees Kathryn Downs (she/her) said: “Lauren has demonstrated impressive leadership, implemented new working practices and, in particular, begun the crucial process of improving the culture at Mermaids. “Her leadership on EDI matters has been strong…

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Mermaids Press

Rishi Sunak’s shameful and heartless comment today (Wednesday 7 February) at Prime Minister’s Questions demonstrates just how little his Government thinks of trans young people and the important people in their lives.  Words spoken in Parliament have real-world consequences for people like the late Brianna Ghey, and so to have made a joke like this, in front of her mother who was invited there, is just downright cruel.  Trans young people need their politicians to build supportive school environments, to fix our broken NHS and to protect them from violence. They are tired of being spoken about, rather than listened…

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Mermaids Press

All young people deserve an accepting and supportive school environment to learn and be their authentic selves. The UK Government’s draft trans guidance for schools in England seeks to prevent that. Its approach is unworkable, out of touch and absurd.  Rather than listening to trans young people and reflecting best practice of inclusive educators across the UK, the Government has created more confusion for schools and is putting young people at risk. It is difficult to understand how aspects of this draft guidance, including automatically excluding trans pupils from facilities, sport bans or allowing students to be misgendered are compatible…

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Mermaids Press

On 25 November 2022 we announced that Susie Green had left Mermaids. Following this, various media outlets reported that Susie has resigned from the organisation due to issues in relation to her leadership of the organisation. This was not correct and this false speculation has been upsetting to Susie, who has been involved with Mermaids for many years. We regret that we did not address this speculation at the time and are sorry for any negative impact this reporting has had on Susie and her family. Throughout her time with the organisation Susie has shown hard work, passion and commitment…

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Mermaids Press

In the last week, senior Conservatives, including the Prime Minister, have used their Party Conference to distract from the real social, economic and environmental issues faced by everyone in the UK by repeatedly sharing transphobic rhetoric and undermining the existence and rights of the trans community. Nothing that has been said is a change to the law, or to the rights of our community, but these statements further legitimise the harassment which many trans young people and their families experience every day in the media, at home, at work, school and online. Trans young people and their families are asking…

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Mermaids Press

Mermaids has been supporting transgender, non-binary and gender-diverse young people to survive and thrive since 1995 and has been a registered charity since 2015. We’ve experienced significant growth and change in that time, and in 2022-23 our income exceeded £2,000,000 for the first time, while we supported over 10,000 individuals.  Given this growth, and following our report into equity, diversity and inclusion, which highlighted significant concerns about governance and leadership at Mermaids, the trustees decided to commission a comprehensive, independent review of our governance. We knew that doing so would invite ever more scrutiny into our organisation at an already…

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Mermaids Press

In June 2021, Mermaids, supported by a coalition of LGBT+ organisations, appealed the decision by the Charity Commission to register LGB Alliance (LGBA) as a charity. We argued that LGBA shouldn’t be recognised as a charity because it was focused on hostile anti-trans activism and not (as it claimed) on the promotion of lesbian, gay and bisexual rights.  The hearing took place over seven days in September and November 2022, and the Tribunal handed down its decision on Thursday 6 July 2023. Their decision is that Mermaids doesn’t have legal standing to bring the appeal. Standing in this context is…

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Mermaids Press

NHS England’s updates today gave much welcomed clarity on the current and future provision of youth gender health services, but we remain concerned about the ever-growing waiting times.  What has NHSE said?  “Following the further advice Dr Cass’ provided in July 2022, NHS England set out plans for how it would start building a more resilient service by expanding provision and enhancing the focus on quality in terms of clinical effectiveness, safety, and patient experience. These plans were welcomed and supported by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. The first phase in these plans is to establish two new…

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