LGB Alliance wins court case against Mermaids

News from the UK Is cause for celebration. The LGB Alliance founded in 2019 as a lesbian and gay alternative to the UK’s largest rainbow charity Stonewall has recently won its long running court battle against Mermaids. Mermaids is a an advocacy organisation that supports families with transgender children. They took a court case arguing that their organisation would suffer if LGB Alliance’s charitable registration was permitted because the Alliance’s “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.”

On July 6 the judges ruled that the children’s charity cannot challenge charitable status of gay rights organisations. Amongst the reasoning was that it is unexceptional that charities have conflicting interests. It appears that opportunities for an appeal have been all but cut off. As well as losing the case Mermaids itself is now the subject of a Charities Commission investigation into its governance and it has recently been that its non-medically trained staff have been intervening in treatment decisions effectively applying to pressure for children to receive puberty blockers and other ‘gender affirming’ care over the heads of the children’s own doctors.