A tribunal has ruled that the law does not allow the transgender children’s charity Mermaids to challenge the charitable status of the gay rights organisation LGB Alliance. Who was involved?
LGB Alliance was founded in October 2019 to campaign for the rights of same-sex attracted people by two veteran lesbian activists: Bev Jackson, a founder member of the Gay Liberation Front in 1970, and Kate Harris, who was previously a volunteer fundraiser for the leading gay rights organisation Stonewall. They were concerned at the implications of Stonewall’s decision to alter its definition of sexual orientation in 2015 from “same-sex attracted” to “same-gender attracted”.
The organisation also flagged concerns about the medicalisation of gender non-conforming children and young people, and the use of puberty blockers. The charity believes the desire to transition gender can be a response to the homophobia of parents or peer groups.
Mermaids, the charity that supports transgender, non-binary and gender-diverse children and their families, was prompted in 2021 to take legal action, aiming to have the organisation’s charitable status removed because it believed LGB Alliance had “gone beyond the boundaries of civilised debate”.
Before LGB Alliance was awarded charitable status it frequently used highly confrontational language to criticise Mermaids on social media. It criticised the actor Emma Watson for donating to the charity, tweeting: “How embarrassing” and suggested it was time to review the Lottery funding of a group “which actively promotes transitioning of children under 18”. It described Mermaids’ trans affirmation model as “transing away the gay”.
Explaining the decision to launch the case, Belinda Bell, the chair of trustees at Mermaids, told the hearing: “An inevitable consequence of LGB Alliance’s charitable registration is that its false claims about Mermaids … are being taken more seriously, including by those in positions of power and by our potential supporters/partners. Its ability to damage our reputation by making false claims has increased materially.”
But the judges found: “Charitable status does not come with any guarantees of funding nor any freedom from criticism or debate. It is no part of the commission’s function (nor of this tribunal) to tell people what to think, or to regulate public debate in a context where there are deeply held, sincere, beliefs on all sides of the discussion.”
Mermaids was supported by the Good Law Project, but both charities raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for legal costs through crowdfunding. LGB Alliance says the cost of defending its charitable status has interfered with its work to set up a helpline for lesbian, gay and bisexual young people.
Kate Barker, the CEO of LGB Alliance, said although she regretted the amount of time and money spent on the case, “it was good the wider public got to hear the issues aired in a public forum”. More than 200 members of the public logged in to listen to the case online.
The seven-day hearing went to the heart of some of the most contested issues in the evolving debate over sex and gender.
But ultimately, the judges’ decision that Mermaids did not have the legal standing to mount the claim, meant the ruling was focused on legal technicalities clarifying how organisations can have their charitable status removed. “We are conscious that this case was regarded by some as being about the rights of gender-diverse people or about the rights of gay, lesbian and bisexual people, but it is not; the focus of this decision is upon a small part of the Charities Act 2011,” the judges wrote.
