A Mother Complains About Mermaids

In 2020 a mother wrote a letter of serious complaint to the Charity Commission about Mermaids. Two years later and the world is waking up to her concerns.

My huge thanks to an anonymous source who provided me with the following information and screenshots. She is the mother of a gender-distressed child and, a few years ago, sought help from Mermaids on the recommendation of her child’s school.

In 2020 she wrote a letter of complaint to the Charity Commission about Mermaids, alarmed by their procedures and protocols. In light of recent revelations in the media, she was quite right to be worried.

In her complaint, this mother points out that, from the outset, Mermaids insisted that she should affirm her daughter’s gender identity and they had no interest in exploring or discussing the child’s complicated and long-term mental health issues.

The mother was extremely concerned about Mermaids’ private online youth forum for 12-19 year olds. Parents and carers are barred, no proof of age or identification is required and children are encouraged to use an email address to which their parent or guardian has no access.

This screenshot, included in the mother’s communication, shows the instructions being given by Mermaids to young site users at the time of the complaint in 2020.

As she points out, with such poor safeguarding, anyone could gain access to the site and then be able to contact members as young as twelve. She was also alarmed by the provision of free breast binders, sent to children behind the backs of their parents.

The mother provided screenshots of deeply concerning conversations she had witnessed on their youth forum.

In this exchange from October 2019, a moderator called ‘Lynne’ reminds youngsters about the Mermaids binder scheme and says that Mermaids can post a binder to directly to anyone who requests one. The only ‘guidance’ offered is about requesting the correct size.

In this exchange, also from October 2019, a young girl who hates her female body makes clear that she is under eighteen years of age and still at school. She says that her mother has already forbidden the use of a binder. The Mermaids moderator says they ‘would love to help’ and offer ‘personal advice’. The only question they ask the young girl is about her ‘specific identity’, nothing else.

The site also allows discussions about self-medication.

In this exchange, a young site user says their parents have confiscated their (likely illicitly procured) hormone drugs.

The Mermaids moderator, Izzi J, responds only by offering the youngster a range of options via which to contact Mermaids.

Moderator Izzi J is mentioned in a recent article in The Times about this Mermaids chatroom.

In screenshots of conversations seen by The Times, Izzi J encouraged children to move their conversation from the Mermaids forum onto Discord, an unregulated site notorious for hosting graphic content and failing to verify user ages, and then instructed them not to mention their connection to Mermaids.

As the mother pointed out in her complaint, discussions around self medication on the Mermaids site are allowed to go unchallenged with moderators rarely explaining the dangers or expressing warnings.

The mother also points out that Mermaids allows minors to discuss and endorse Gender GP without any intervention from moderators (something we’ve previously discussed on this site). Even after the suspension of both doctors Webberley and even after a warning from funders, the National Lottery.

In this screenshot a youngster on the site talks about being treated at Gender GP, seeing Michael Webberley (who has now been struck off the medical register) and being prescribed testosterone less than two months after their initial appointment.

On the site young people also encourage each other to lie to GPs. In one conversation screenshot by the mother, a poster says they plan to tell their GP that they are considering self-medicating. Another encourages them to lie to the GP and say that they *are* self-medicating, explaining how to do so successfully.

At no point does a moderator intervene to condemn these practices and halt the conversation. Again, adolescents as young as 12 are free to read these discussions on a site that their parents have been led to believe is a safe and moderated environment.

Of particular concern is that suicide is openly discussed on the site with frequent posts by distressed youngsters who say they are considering suicide. All too often, there is no intervention by a moderator and it is left to other adolescents to provide support and advice.

The mother did supply a screenshot of a conversation which involves a young person on the site telling others that “Suicidal thoughts are now very obvious”. This screenshot is very distressing so I won’t post it here but it’s clear this young person is urgently in need of immediate help. There is no intervention from a site moderator, just messages from other adolescents on the site.

As this mother wrote to in 2020, “These are not isolated incidents, but are a sample to give you an idea of the lack of safeguarding in the Mermaids Youth Forum. I believe the forum puts its adolescent users, particularly the younger ones, at risk of serious harm through a lack of proper moderation and/or understanding of serious issues such as self medicating and suicidality.”