A trustee of the transgender charity Mermaids resigned last night after it emerged that he had spoken at a conference hosted by an organisation that promotes services to paedophiles.
Dr Jacob Breslow was a graduate student in gender research at the London School of Economics when he gave a presentation at an event for the US-based B4U-ACT in 2011.
According to its website, B4U-ACT promotes services and resources “for self-identified individuals . . . who are sexually attracted to children and desire such assistance”.
Breslow’s presentation appeared to be a critique of how paedophiles were understood.
Records show that the academic, who is now assistant professor of gender and sexuality at LSE, became a trustee of Mermaids, a transgender youth support charity, in July this year.
After The Times approached Mermaids about Breslow’s talk, he tendered his resignation as a trustee. Mermaids said that it was unaware of his historic appearance at the conference until contacted by this newspaper. B4U-ACT calls itself a “unique collaborative effort between minor-attracted people and mental health professionals to promote communication and understanding between the two groups”.
Its “scientific symposium” was hosted in Baltimore, Maryland, in August 2011, to address concerns about the way paedophilia was addressed in the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders.
Breslow’s presentation was titled Sexual Alignment: Critiquing Sexual Orientation, The Pedophile, and the DSM V. A brief extract of the presentation, still available online, said: “This paper works through the DSM’s struggle to understand ‘the pedophile’ through an investigation of the highly questionable and deeply assumptive clinical, empirical and theoretical studies it cites.”
*In parts, the presentation used the phrase “minor attracted persons”, a phrase used by some instead of paedophile.*
Breslow was contacted for comment last night.
*Last week Mermaids became the subject of a Charity Commission investigation following claims that it was handing out chest binders to children as young as 13 and 14.*
The charity has, in the past, won the support of celebrities such as Emma Watson and Prince Harry, and been handed grants from the National Lottery and the government.
*The charities watchdog is now investigating Mermaids’ safeguarding practices. 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.*
Why does this subreddit only ever restrict a certain type of post ?
This is insane. He was a speaker at a conference about better ways to help and treat people who have identified themselves as peadophiles and *eleven years later* he has stood down as a trustee.
OK appreciate the charity may have felt the subject matter was too risky, even if eleven years had passed. But then for a newspaper to try make news out of it?
WTF is going on in the UK?
Ok, so let’s say someone is attracted to children. How should society respond to such a person?
What is a “trustee”? Kind of an inflammatory title for an article you can’t even read without paying.
What a blatant attack article, “paedophile aid group” makes it sound like he was helping them kidnap toddlers.
This headline is such disingenuous journalism.
It makes it sound like the guy has just recently gone out to some kind of pro-paedophile group and given some kind of rallying speech – not, what actually happened, that nearly 12 years ago as a graduate student he went to a conference on the subject of psychological interventions for paedophiles before they commit crimes, and read an academic paper there to a crowd of doctors and psychologists.
Honestly I’m not saying these things can’t be discussed but it’s hard to take them seriously when they always start with disinegnuous premises like this and then jump to the most dramatic conclusion possible without doing – or by concealing – the nuance and legwork.
E: It’s truly fascinating how a lot of commenters have come into the thread here and other places its been posted with the starting point “Anyone who asks any questions about the Times’ account being completely and absolutely factual *must be a paedophile defender*” and are framing their entire arguments around that ridiculous premise.
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A trustee of the transgender charity Mermaids resigned last night after it emerged that he had spoken at a conference hosted by an organisation that promotes services to paedophiles.
Dr Jacob Breslow was a graduate student in gender research at the London School of Economics when he gave a presentation at an event for the US-based B4U-ACT in 2011.
According to its website, B4U-ACT promotes services and resources “for self-identified individuals . . . who are sexually attracted to children and desire such assistance”.
Breslow’s presentation appeared to be a critique of how paedophiles were understood.
Records show that the academic, who is now assistant professor of gender and sexuality at LSE, became a trustee of Mermaids, a transgender youth support charity, in July this year.
After The Times approached Mermaids about Breslow’s talk, he tendered his resignation as a trustee. Mermaids said that it was unaware of his historic appearance at the conference until contacted by this newspaper. B4U-ACT calls itself a “unique collaborative effort between minor-attracted people and mental health professionals to promote communication and understanding between the two groups”.
Its “scientific symposium” was hosted in Baltimore, Maryland, in August 2011, to address concerns about the way paedophilia was addressed in the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders.
Breslow’s presentation was titled Sexual Alignment: Critiquing Sexual Orientation, The Pedophile, and the DSM V. A brief extract of the presentation, still available online, said: “This paper works through the DSM’s struggle to understand ‘the pedophile’ through an investigation of the highly questionable and deeply assumptive clinical, empirical and theoretical studies it cites.”
*In parts, the presentation used the phrase “minor attracted persons”, a phrase used by some instead of paedophile.*
Breslow was contacted for comment last night.
*Last week Mermaids became the subject of a Charity Commission investigation following claims that it was handing out chest binders to children as young as 13 and 14.*
The charity has, in the past, won the support of celebrities such as Emma Watson and Prince Harry, and been handed grants from the National Lottery and the government.
*The charities watchdog is now investigating Mermaids’ safeguarding practices. 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.*
Why does this subreddit only ever restrict a certain type of post ?
This is insane. He was a speaker at a conference about better ways to help and treat people who have identified themselves as peadophiles and *eleven years later* he has stood down as a trustee.
OK appreciate the charity may have felt the subject matter was too risky, even if eleven years had passed. But then for a newspaper to try make news out of it?
WTF is going on in the UK?
Ok, so let’s say someone is attracted to children. How should society respond to such a person?
What is a “trustee”? Kind of an inflammatory title for an article you can’t even read without paying.
What a blatant attack article, “paedophile aid group” makes it sound like he was helping them kidnap toddlers.
This headline is such disingenuous journalism.
It makes it sound like the guy has just recently gone out to some kind of pro-paedophile group and given some kind of rallying speech – not, what actually happened, that nearly 12 years ago as a graduate student he went to a conference on the subject of psychological interventions for paedophiles before they commit crimes, and read an academic paper there to a crowd of doctors and psychologists.
Honestly I’m not saying these things can’t be discussed but it’s hard to take them seriously when they always start with disinegnuous premises like this and then jump to the most dramatic conclusion possible without doing – or by concealing – the nuance and legwork.
E: It’s truly fascinating how a lot of commenters have come into the thread here and other places its been posted with the starting point “Anyone who asks any questions about the Times’ account being completely and absolutely factual *must be a paedophile defender*” and are framing their entire arguments around that ridiculous premise.