Mermaids, the transgender charity, is facing yet more criticism as it emerges (via a Times investigation) that one of their trustees, an academic in gender and sexuality studies at LSE, spoke at a B4U-Act pro-paedophilia conference in the USA years ago. Mermaids says the organisation is “completely at odds” with its values and has accepted his resignation. It follows on from a Charity Commission investigation into Mermaids launched last week after claims that it was handing out chest binders to children as young as 13 and 14.
The Times also revealed parents’ concerns last week after it emerged that children on Mermaids’ online forum were arranging to move conversations about experimental drug treatments and medical transition onto less closely supervised platforms.
I can’t track down a birth date for Susie Green, Mermaid CEO, who took her child to Thailand for transition surgery when they were sixteen.
Mermaids itself was started by a small group of concerned parents in 1995 – and what is intriguing astrologically-speaking – is that Uranus was then on the cusp of Aquarius.
Two pro-paedophilia groups were also started when Uranus changed sign. The UK Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) in 1975 as Uranus went into Scorpio. And the US pro-paedophilia B4U-Act founded in 2003 by convicted child molester Michael Melsheimer, as Uranus moved into Pisces.
I am not remotely trying to collate transgender with MAP (minor attracted persons)/pro-paedophilia organisations but both are counter-culture outliers in the area of sexuality. Uranus can be an enlightened trailblazer and catalyst for social reform or a lawless contrarian intent on upsetting the status quo and revelling in causing outrage.
Skipping across the charts of high profile pro-paedophilia spokesman like Tom O’Carroll, the convicted ex-head of the PIE, 8 August 1945 and Ian Dunn, the PIE co-founder, 1 May 1943 what stands out are a smattering of Gemini planets and an afflicted Mars. O’Carroll has Mars Uranus in Gemini sextile Sun Pluto in Leo and Dunn has Uranus Saturn in Gemini square Mars.
Ralph Underwager, co-founder of the ‘False Memory’ (FMSF) movement in the US and reputedly the creator of the ‘false memory’ concept which sought to undercut allegations of child abuse, was also pro-paedophilia, 28 July 1929. He was a Leo with a T square of Saturn opposition Venus in Gemini square Mars in Virgo. He likened paedophiles to Christ on the way to Calvary and claimed it was a feminist conspiracy that condemned underage sex.
Richard Green, an American psychiatrist, a vocal advocate of ‘false memory’ of child abuse, who worked in a London transgender Clinic in the 1990s, 6 June 1936, was a Sun Mars Venus in Gemini opposition Jupiter square Saturn opposition Neptune. He was in addition friendly with O’Carroll and wrote a foreword to his 2010 Michael Jackson book. Green hosted pro-pornography conferences in the US as well.
Michael Melsheimer, 21 August 1942, founder of B4U-Act, another Sun Leo with, more significantly, Saturn Uranus in Gemini square Mars Mercury in Virgo.
There’s a whole messy hinterland in the ‘alternative’ sexualities universe. Not all are connected or support each other. But they do all share a rich seam of anger at being outside the established order and a law-unto-themselves determination to upset the status quo. They are driven by a conviction that their cause is righteous and everyone else is wrong.
Uranus, the castrated god, is ruler, amongst other things, of what goes against the biology. It is an intriguing marker of organisations that pop up to proudly (at first) proclaim their courage in standing against accepted cultural values. Uranus is also associated with Prometheus, who brought the gift of fire and scientific knowledge to humanity and was punished by the gods by having his liver pecked out daily by a vulture as his body lay imprisoned on a rock.
Gemini despite being an Air sign and supposedly emotionally detached has an almost Scorpionic side. Mars Saturn can refer to damaged sexuality.
Hi Marjorie,
I think Roger St. Aubyn (father of Patrick St. Aubyn who wrote the Patrick Melrose books) also had many of these same astrological characteristics. He was a Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and a Mars-Pluto conjunction all scattered throughout Gemini. If the books and/or TV series are even a measure of the level of horror that this man inflicted on his toddler son, it makes one wonder about that Scorpionic influence that you alluded to. Frightening.
Evidently Mark Twain used to used talk about the special relationship between a boy and a man. He saw nothing wrong with it. Absolutely creepy! I often used to wonder if he was ever taken off the lists that governed what was acceptable reading in American schools.
Marjorie, I think it would be interesting in this context to check on the condition of Jeffrey Epstein’s Uranus, as well as a few of the prominent people associated with him. Also, perhaps a few of the more well known priests convicted of pedophilia. Perhaps, even Matt Getz, the Florida congressman accused of a sexual relationship with an underaged girl.
Amazing research Marjorie, women rights campaigners since the eighties have been well aware that paedophiles have used the gay rights movement to further their cause. Many govts who promote gender policies are naive about this. It is time LGBTQ groups were scrutinised as to who is working for them and what even qualifies them to work with children and vulnerable adults. I worked for years with children and the vulnerable and was expected to have a professional qualification and answer to a professional body.
Thank you Marjorie. So very thought provoking and complex. Issues of power imbalance are at least beginning to be considered more widely now – coercive control in adult sexual relationships, for example. Understanding that kind of thing is relevant to the muddy waters of paedophile arguments re children’s sexuality etc. Just because children can enter puberty from as young as 8 does not mean it is in any way appropriate or healthy for them to have a sexual relationship with an adult.
The age of consent was raised to 13 in 1875 in the UK. That year shows Saturn in Aquarius opposing Uranus in Leo. It was then raised again, amidst concerns about child prostitution in Britain, to 16 in 1885. That year Pluto had recently entered Gemini, and there’s a trine with Uranus in Libra. Saturn in Gemini (children and the law?) Chiron is in Gemini, and the Nodes were in Libra. I don’t have exact dates for these Acts, but think the big aspects with Uranus in both offer a ‘flavour’ of the years in question.
Re Mermaids – the foundation was registered as a charity on 20th Februrary, 2015 (Charity Commission website). Curiously, considering its name, it is awash with fluid Pisces – Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Neptune, and Chiron. Alongside this sits an ambitious Cardinal t-square – Uranus in Aries, Pluto in Capricorn, Nodes in Libra. The outlet for that tension in Cancer, sign of protection, security, and a ‘female’ and ‘maternal’ sign is interesting.
Saturn will soon reach the 1 Pisces Sun square Saturn 4 Sagittarius (leadership? legislation?), while dissolving, dreamy Neptune is drawing closer to its conjunction with its Venus 28 and Mars 29 Pisces for some wild swimming and possibly sacrificial scandals. Change would seem to be required.
“contrarian intent on upsetting the status quo and revelling in causing outrage”
Indeed.
Pink news listed Breslow as staff writer up until this all came out, so I think he might be on sabbatical from them too. They are currently adding caveats to his articles.
He wasn’t even publicly listed as a trustee to Mermaids. His status was only revealed in the recent court case of Mermaids is trying to have the charity status removed from the LGBAlliance.
In trying to attack another charity they seem to be on the way to their own demise.
Minor attracted persons, is a ghastly term clearly developed to normalize the horrendous practice.
Thank you Marjorie for such an interesting article. In myth, the blood from Uranus’s severed genitals spawned the erinyes – the furies, cthonic deities of vengeance as well as the giants and the Meliae who were tree nymphs and of course Aphrodite was born from the foam as the God’s genitals were thrown into the sea.
Thanks. Isn’t that interesting about the Erinyes – furies – given the insane rage that emanates from the extreme ends of the trans lobby. And the pro-paedophilia lot have an undercurrent of seething aggression about them as well plus a relentlessly vengeful streak.
That makes a great deal of sense to me.
Thank you Marjorie. This is one of the reasons why Pluto in Aquarius concerns me..
Queer theory is underpinned by the intention to break down barriers/safeguarding and facilitates MAP the current version of PIE and there is a constant push for it to be included in the flag.
Mermaids and the LSE who had Breslows writings on their website for a longtime and have now placed him on sabbatical till Janurary, are by no means the only charities or institutions with this issue.
I was startled to put it mildly when I tripped across the pro-paedophilia lobby in the 1990s, many of them academics, when I was involved in the child abuse campaign. Their arguments were like disappearing down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland – everything completely whacko. It had never crossed my mind that such people existed, let alone were tolerated. You’d think by this time they would have been obliterated but clearly not.
There was an excellent review by the Pink Paper on a book that came put in the late 1990s by Joseph Geraci, then editor of Paedika magazine – DARES TO SPEAK: Historical and Contemporary Perspective on Boy-Love.
Simon Edge: ” Gay attitudes to paedophilia have undergone a transformation. In the early days of gay liberation, ‘intergenerational’ sex seemed to occupy a legitimate place on the homosexual continuum. Homosexuals were vilified and persecuted, and so were paedophiles. Denying child sexuality seemed part of the ideology of repression. But genuine anxiety about child sex abuse …. has hardened attitudes. Gay law reform is a serious business nowadays. We have spent decades trying to shrug off the charge that we just want to molest children. We can do without real perverts hitching a ride on the bandwagon, thank you. ” ” … the book is about more than discussing paedophilia in a calm atmosphere; its thrust is to present it as a viable sexuality.”
“.. the downside is swept under the carpet. The vast questions of consent and power imbalance are mentioned only in pejorative asides about feminist academics. This gives the collection an unpleasant aftertaste. What aims ostensibly to illuminate seems more designed to legitimate and titillate.”
I hung onto the review since it seemed very pertinent.
Thank you for adding that.
I too came across it in the 90s in Australia at a big outdoor music festival called Confest. There was a big pile of pamphlets on the main stage by a group of lawyers advocating for the removal of the age of consent. Lots of kids running around people naked lsd etc, no boundaries. And I remember it as a background hum growing up in the UK in the 70s.
Thinking about the historic proclivity for this in the UK I was re looking at the 5th House in our national chart, Aquarius /Pisces perfect kink descriptors with both Venus in Aquarius and Pluto in Pisces , opp Saturn etc It just occured to me that the ingress of Neptune in Pisces in the 5th already in conjunction with Pluto, was when Saville was exposed…So aside from all the other iconography for that combination the transit of Neptune in Pisces in the UK is really washing all to the surface, the complete erosion of boundaries and justification of their Peter Pan perversions.
A transit that started with Saville and ends with Mermaids and all their little fishes.
Paidika existed between 1987 & 1995. John Money (father of gender identity theory DOB 8 July 1921 NZ) was interviewed by Paidika before Underwager. According to the FMSF website it was Money who introduced Roger Scotford to the FMSF
Advcates for ‘transkids’ use similar arguments to Paidika. Non Western pre colonialist societies are idealised as places where children could chose their gender, the agency of the child is paramount, oppostion is ‘moral panic’ and a coalition of Western feminists and the religious right.
But Paidika criticised child protection services and advocates for ‘transkids’ co-opt them. Trans children are seen as a special sort of child to whome normal laws of child protection do not apply.
I hadn’t realised there was a crossover between the BFMS (UK false memory/Scotford) and the trans gender advocates. Richard Green (above) was a sex researcher and buddy of John Money who was his mentor. He was on the scientific advisory boards of both US and UK false memory societies. What a weird cross over. Scary and chilling. The post Kinsey sex researchers of the 1950s/60/70s were a rancid lot.
For me, there is an element of verbal trickery in both FM groups and Mermaids. In the first the trickery was about getting people to think about memory and argue with each other about how it works… rather than see what is actually going on when these people network with each other to silence those who said they had been abused.
With Mermaids the trick is to focus on trans identity and trans rights rather than see that children (who may not even be trans when they grow up) are being sadistically hurt and encouraged in self harm.
Interesting about Prometheus, where they all have their moon in fires signs.
Thank you for your insights, Marjorie