The Little Mermaid, updated

NOTE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: due to other commitments, I’m struggling to post fortnightly as originally promised. So I’ve taken the decision to pause paid subscriptions for the moment. I know times are financially very tough for many, and are likely to become tougher soon. This piece, as all my other pieces on Substack, are free to read. Thank you for your understanding.

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When it comes to typing out what is now happening in our institutions thanks to lunatic LGBT pressure groups, there are just too many sentences that make your brain scream. “The council’s menopause strategy was reviewed by two external agencies, producing the decision to remove the word ‘woman’”... “The violent male sex offender was placed in a women’s prison on the grounds of her vulnerability”... I tell you, it’s all too much. Trying to process it mentally, you feel the pull of the gin bottle at 10 in the morning.

Hats off to those who can still face it, but personally I don’t think I can write one more straight-faced sentence about the ludicrous, off-the-charts batshittery of mainstream LGBT organisations. And believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve just spent the morning attempting a serious piece on the current legal attack on the charity status of the LGB Alliance by Mermaids. This case has reached court this week, reportedly providing some jaw-dropping moments from Mermaids’ witnesses along the way. But really, there’s only so long you can spend trying to be bland and measured about a situation this insane.

Funded by the National Lottery, deeply embedded in many of our public sector organisations, and championed by many a celeb and politician, Mermaids UK is an organisation that - let’s just say – seems to have a remarkably child-like worldview. From the available evidence, Mermaids staff seem to see the world as structured like a children’s fairytale. There are goodies and baddies. Mysterious things no-one can understand keep happening. To save your child from evil, it’s important to keep incanting the right spells and taking the right potions.  And so on.

So - in lieu of the serious piece I can no longer bring myself to write -  I thought I’d write this general worldview up as the pastiche of a fairytale it really is. As you read, remember that versions of this particular story are also operative in educational settings, NHS services, social services, the judiciary, the media, and police forces across the land. And then be sure to run screaming with manic hollow laughter to the nearest darkened room.

The Little Mermaid, updated

Once upon a time, at a hospital where Birthing-Persons give birth to children of indeterminate sex, a trans child is being born [1].

This is a special child. Unbeknownst to all, something called a gender identity lies within the newborn as it innocently sleeps. A bit like the seed in Jack’s pocket yet to grow into a beanstalk, this gender identity has yet to germinate and unfold. But one day it will.

Soon thereafter, the sex-assigning fairies arrive at the hospital, and sort the newborns into two groups: half into boy-babies, and half into girl-babies. Our hero is assigned “boy” by the sex-assigning fairies.  Nobody objects, for they know no different. The gender identity needs time to germinate. It is not ready yet.

Time passes.

One day, on his fourth birthday [2], our trans child wakes up and realises that there is something inside him – or rather, inside her - demanding attention. Quite mysteriously[3], her gender identity has somehow arrived, and it fails to match her original sex-assignment by the fairies. A gender identity is a bit like the magic mirror in Snow White - it never lies. There has been a mistake at birth. Our hero now realises that “he” is a she, and that she is really a girl.

Our heroine tells her parents about her gender identity. But they have already noticed that she is different. She is small for her age, she is feminine, she is not like other boys. They nod sagely when she tells them. For they had already suspected.

After the child realises that she is a girl, a clock starts to tick -  a bit like the clock in Cinderella, about to strike twelve. This gender identity must be affirmed at all costs by those around her. It’s a race against time! Spectres of misery, mental health deterioration, and even the possibility of suicide lurk around the corner, should the family fail[4].  

Not only must her parents treat her as a girl from now on, they must ensure that siblings, grandparents, teachers, family friends, and medical professionals do too. They all must use her new name and respect her new pronouns. And they must never, ever refer to her original and erroneous sex-assignment, for fear of distressing her. For - like the Princess so delicate she could feel a small pea under layers and layers of bedding – she is highly sensitive to events that ordinary mortals would not mind.

More time passes.  As our heroine reaches adolescence, she starts to feel a secret interest in boys at school. She starts to feel self-conscious around them. She gets crushes. This reassures her. She thinks it is further evidence that she is really a girl.

But by her thirteenth birthday, storm clouds are gathering. Her body is swelling in places that girl’s bodies don’t normally swell, and failing to swell in others where they do. She is keenly aware of the emerging differences between herself and other girls. A new race against time begins. Once more her mental health, and perhaps even her future life, is in peril.

Her parents make the journey with her to procure the special potion that will save her. Our heroine takes the potion. Time is now frozen. For as long as she takes the potion, like Peter Pan she will not grow up. She and her parents are relieved. Disaster has been averted once again.

Meanwhile, other dangers lurk. Our heroine must also be protected from the evil baddies in the world: from the transphobes and the bigots at the LGB Alliance, for instance. These people pretend to worry about what social transition does to children, or about the effects of puberty blockers upon young bodies, or about whether gay or autistic youths are being confused by societal narratives into thinking they are members of the opposite sex. They masquerade as reasonable and caring - but, like the evil witch in Hansel and Gretel, or the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, they are not what they seem[5].

Equally, our heroine must be kept away from any therapist who might suggest to her that she is not really a girl. This would be “conversion therapy”, and it is something that only evil transphobic baddies would attempt. For, like the genie in Aladdin, once it is out of the bottle, a gender identity is very hard to get back in and must be listened to.

Generally speaking, whatever bad things happen to our heroine during her teenage years, transphobia is always the cause, and more affirmation of her gender identity is always the magical solution. If she is bullied, or mentally unwell, or does badly at school, or has dark thoughts, it is because of the transphobes. No other cause is possible. All around her must keep chanting the spells to see the evil transphobes ultimately defeated.

More time passes.

Our hero is now 18, and small and undeveloped compared to her peers. She has not gone through puberty. Like Snow White asleep, she has never been kissed.

It is now time for her to make the final crossing into womanhood, courtesy of a surgeon’s knife. Like the Little Mermaid, crossing over will feel as if a sword is being passed through her body. And afterwards - also like the Little Mermaid - she won’t be able to return.

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[1] In the words of Mermaids Chair of Trustees, Dr Belinda Bell in court this week: “"I'm not sure that people come out of the womb with a sex".

[2] A parent testimony currently on the Mermaids website approvingly describes a male child realising he was a girl at four, and thereafter being treated as a girl by his family.

[3] Mermaids website, ‘The toys and clothing question’: “Discussing gender identity is difficult enough, but for children and their families it can feel impossible to put things into words”.

[4] Mermaids frequently make expansive claims about the supposed connection between failing to affirm a child’s gender identity, and suicide. See for instance here.

[5] From Mermaids’ witness, Paul Roberts, head of the LGBT Consortium to the court, 12th September 2022 as reported by Tribunal Tweeets: Barrister: “you believe that [the LGB Alliance] have deliberately adopted a positive stance to deceive the Charity Commission and the wider community. Paul Roberts: “yes that is correct”.

Photo credit: Kristal O'Neal