A Statement by Susie Green following the Charity Commission’s findings on Mermaids
…And why we founded Anne Health
“After my abrupt departure as CEO of Mermaids, I knew I wanted to continue advocating for trans+ people. Anne Health was born out of a desire to provide the healthcare that trans and non-binary people of all ages desperately need.”
- Susie Green, Co-Founder and Director of Anne Health
I joined forces with Lizzie Jordan, an LGBTQ+ inclusion specialist and founder of Think2Speak, to launch Anne Health as a not-for-profit healthcare service in July 2024. We wanted to offer compassionate, gender-affirming care grounded in expert evidence and research, such as the internationally recognised World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care and guidance from the Endocrine Society.
With over two decades of experience advocating for trans people, Lizzie and I have seen first-hand the barriers that prevent trans+ people from accessing the healthcare they need and deserve. We were both aware that providing a healthcare company for transgender people would draw inevitable fire, especially as we were committed to including those who are the most vulnerable in the transgender community - trans+ youth.
The reason we decided not to go down the route of becoming a charity or CIC was to avoid the inevitable malicious attacks from those who seek to stop trans people from accessing any kind of support, including gender-affirming healthcare.
One technique used to undermine charities and CICs is to tie them up with regulatory scrutiny and never-ending administrative tasks surrounding investigations and litigation. As the CEO of Mermaids, I had direct experience of this, and I believe that regulatory inquiries were used as a tool to discredit and damage the charity.
There’s now an established playbook used by ‘gender critical’ anti-trans activists…
🔽 Start a media campaign and raise multiple complaints against a charity
🔽 The charity reports a serious incident to the commission
🔽 The commission opens a regulatory inquiry
🔽The media then uses the opening of an inquiry to discredit the charity
🔁 Rinse and repeat
While the recent publication of the Charity Commission’s report on Mermaids and PR statement, draws a line under the years-long investigation into the charity, it also highlights the significant challenges faced by charities working to support trans people, especially trans youth.
One of the most concerning issues about the Charity Commission report into Mermaids, is how they are now instructing charities to adhere to the Cass Review recommendations:
“Trustees who work in this area need to ensure that they have regard to the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Cass Review and ensure that they have reviewed their charity’s literature, website and guidance in light of them. Furthermore, trustees should have the mechanisms in place to ensure that they keep up to date with any future changes to guidance or legislation.”
- The Charity Commission, Inquiry Into Mermaids: Issues For The Wider Sector
The Cass Review is a politically driven piece of research launched by a Conservative Government with an ideological agenda. The report has been widely criticised by numerous reputable organisations and professional bodies working in transgender healthcare and rejected by the trans community. There is growing evidence that the Cass Review and its implementation by the NHS has, and will continue to, cause significant harm to trans people, as demonstrated by new research in the UK and the recent Trevor Project study in the USA and as warned by WPATH.
The Cass review and the NHS should be open to scrutiny and challenge, particularly from the population they impact and the charities that represent and support them. The NHS has made significant mistakes in the past. The almost non-existent,state of trans healthcare is a current example of this.
At Anne Health, we believe that every trans person deserves access to compassionate, expert, gender-affirming healthcare. We are proud to have created a service that puts the needs of trans youth and adults first, offering the high-quality care they deserve - and designed to be “the service our loved ones wanted”.
- Susie Green, Co-Founder and Director of Anne Health
NOTE: I will not be commenting on the termination of my employment with Mermaids.
