JK Rowling has slammed transgender support group Mermaids for ‘total, shameless lies’ and said its ‘fingerprints are all over the catastrophe of child transition’.

The Harry Potter author criticised comments made by the group’s chief executive Lauren Stoner yesterday that it does not advocate for any medical pathway.

Responding to a video of the Sky News interview, Rowling tweeted: ‘Absolute, total, shameless lies. Your ex-CEO referred children to the Tavistock gender clinic.

‘Mermaids has repeatedly claimed puberty blockers are reversible, sent out breast binders to girls as young as thirteen and insisted publicly that unless children are affirmed in their trans identities they’ll kill themselves.

‘Your fingerprints are all over the catastrophe of child transition, and those who funded you, campaigned for you and allowed you to embed yourselves in healthcare systems need to be held to account.’

+7
View gallery

The Harry Potter author criticised comments made by the group’s chief executive Lauren Stoner yesterday that it does not advocate for any medical pathway

Ms Stoner told Sky News that Mermaids was commissioned to provide some focus groups to the Cass Review, but that they were otherwise ‘not clinician professionals’

Giving her response to the Cass Review yesterday, Ms Stoner told Sky News: ‘We have been supporting trans young people and their families for nearly 30 years and over that time we have been focused on providing that support to young people and families who often struggle to find that support elsewhere.

‘We were commissioned to provide some focus groups to the Cass Review, but otherwise we’re not clinician professionals – we don’t get involved in the decisions that are made between a young person, their family and their clinicians.’

Mermaids has been accused of encouraging youngsters to transition simply because they do not conform to gender stereotypes, even though they may be too young to understand the consequences.

It has also campaigned for greater access to puberty blockers, despite there being no medical evidence to support their use in children.

The Cass Review this week warned treatment with puberty blockers ‘may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development’ but critically does not change a patient’s body dissatisfaction or gender dysphoria.

Rowling’s fury has been echoed by Father Ted’s co-creator Graham Linehan, who demanded criminal investigations into both Mermaids and pro-trans charity Stonewall for encouraging what he called ‘the myth of the trans child’.

Responding to a video of the Sky News interview, Rowling tweeted: ‘Absolute, total, shameless lies’

+7
View gallery

Rowling’s fury has been echoed by Father Ted’s co-creator Graham Linehan, who demanded criminal investigations into both Mermaids and pro-trans charity Stonewall

+7
View gallery

Linehan said the sudden financial insecurity caused by his trans views caused the collapse of his marriage of 16 years to Helen Serafinowicz, co-creator of the BBC comedy Motherland

+7
View gallery

Rowling’s crusade for women’s rights has led to the former stars of her hugely successful brainchild, the Harry Potter series, distance themselves from the author

Linehan earlier said he was ‘proud as punch’ and felt vindicated by the Cass Review’s conclusion that medical treatment in children’s gender care had been based on weak evidence.

Rowling’s crusade for women’s rights has been met with a huge online backlash, as well as former stars of her hugely successful brainchild, the Harry Potter series, distance themselves from the author.

In 2021 Linehan revealed that sudden financial insecurity caused by his trans views caused the collapse of his marriage of 16 years to Helen Serafinowicz, co-creator of the BBC comedy Motherland.

Mermaids is said to have had an alarming influence over the now-closed children’s gender identity service at London’s Tavistock Hospital, where doctors prescribed puberty blockers.

The recommendations in the lengthy and long-awaited report have prompted NHS England, which had already stopped puberty blockers being given to under-16s, to announce a review into the use of hormones.

+7
View gallery

Mermaids is said to have had an alarming influence over the now-closed children’s gender identity service at London’s Tavistock Hospital

+7
View gallery

Among her 32 recommendations, Dr Cass called for a ‘follow-through’ service for 17 to 25-year-olds rather than this ‘vulnerable’ group going straight into adult clinics

It has also written to local NHS leaders to ask that they pause first appointment offers at adult gender clinics to young people before their 18th birthday, as it also intends to carry out a major review of these services.

READ MORE: Father Ted creator Graham Linehan tells how his trans views cost him his career, friends and marriage during six-year ‘nightmare’ ordeal – as he calls for criminal probe into charities Mermaid and Stonewall after Cass report

Among her 32 recommendations, Dr Cass called for a ‘follow-through’ service for 17 to 25-year-olds rather than this ‘vulnerable’ group going straight into adult clinics, saying teenagers are ‘falling off a cliff edge’ in their care when they reach 17.

Her report said gender services should operate ‘to the same standards’ as other health services for children and young people, with ‘a holistic assessment’ of referrals, including screening for neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, and a mental health assessment.

Mermaids has said the ‘current system is failing trans youth’ and called for the NHS to ‘resist pressures from those who seek to limit access to healthcare’ and instead ‘act urgently to provide gender services which are timely, supportive and holistic’.

The organisation said it was ‘pleased the voices and experiences of trans young people appear to have been heard and respected’ in the review.

But it raised concerns that some of the report’s language could be ‘open to misinterpretation and could be used to justify additional barriers to accessing care for some trans young people’ adding that they would publish their full analysis of the review ‘in due course’.

MailOnline has approached Mermaids and Stonewall for comment.