I had had the water and their blood and urine tested, to find out what was wrong. I was going demented with worry and then they said they'd take me to court. When the child was referred to the clinic, Di Ceglie and Mary Lightfoot, the clinic's social worker, visited the school and explained how they could best help the child. They helped develop a plan to get her back into school. With their support she gained seven GCSE's, an achievement which Davis says would not have been possible without Di Ceglie.
Mermaids wants to increase awareness of gender identity problems among professionals.
Many of the families who attend the clinic have struggled to get social workers, doctors and psychologists to take the matter up. Gender identity disorders in children are different from those in adults because children are still developing physically, sexually and psychologically. This makes it harder to predict the long-term consequences of their disposition, or of any intervention, creating an ethical quagmire for practitioners so that work with the young people has to proceed with caution. Di Ceglie is anxious to point out that the clinic's prime aim is not to alter the child's identity. Instead, he says, it encourages recognition and non-judgmental acceptance of the problem, and gives the children emotional security.