National Lottery Pauses Funding for Transgender Charity Mermaids

A National Lottery sign in the United Kingdom on Aug. 2, 2018. Andrew Milligan/PA

A £500,000 lottery-funded grant to Mermaids, a charity that promotes transgenderism in gender-dysphoric children, has been paused while it is probed by a watchdog over safeguarding concerns.

The National Lottery has frozen future funds from the leading LGBTQ+ charity amid a recent series of revelations and accusations.

It comes days after a trustee who sat on the board of the British children’s charity quit after it emerged that he spoke at a conference for an organisation that was founded by a convicted child rapist.

Jacob Breslow, associate professor of gender and sexuality at the London School of Economics, gave a talk to U.S.-based B4U-ACT in 2011. B4U-ACT was co-founded by Michael Melsheimer, a paedophile and convicted sex offender.

On Sept. 30, the Charity Commission, the regulatory body for charities in England and Wales, confirmed that it is looking into concerns about Mermaids’ approach to safeguarding young people.

This was after an investigation in The Telegraph alleged that the charity sent chest-flattening devices to children as young as 13 and 14 against their parents’ wishes or behind their parents’ backs.

A Mermaids spokesperson at the time pointed to a statement that denied any wrongdoing.

The Charity Commission case is a regulatory compliance case and not a statutory inquiry, meaning that this is not in itself a finding of wrongdoing, but rather it is the first step the commission can take in examining potential wrongdoing.

National Lottery

Mermaids has received £530,000 ($590,000) in total from four projects funded by the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF), which gives out millions of pounds from the UK’s National Lottery to good causes.

NLCF is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Mermaids is a children’s charity that supports “gender variant and transgender youth,” and many celebrities, politicians, and businesses have endorsed the organisation. It provides gender-diversity training in many places such as the NHS, schools, social services, children and adolescent mental health services, police and uniformed services, as well as other charity and corporate clients.

General view of the LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual, and agender) flag outside the RICS London Bookshop during UK Pride Month 2021 in London on June 1, 2021. Edward Smith/ Getty Images

An NLCF spokeswoman told The Epoch Times by email that it has “paused any future payments to Mermaids, pending the Charity Commission’s Regulatory Compliance Case.”

“This is an option open to us in cases such as this,” she added.

Mermaids’ most recent grant is for a £500,000 ($556,000) project called “Embrace, Empower and Educate transgender children and young people.” The grant, awarded in 2019, is still marked as active and is meant to last until 2024.

NLCF awarded £500,000 over five years to Mermaids in 2018. This was to establish 45 local groups across the country.

At the time, NLCF produced a report (pdf) to look into the grant award after a backlash following a Sunday Times article in which MPs, feminists, and women’s organisations accused the charity of pressuring parents towards puberty blockers and promoting “questionable statistics” in relation to suicide risks.

Mermaids denied all the allegations and NLCF concluded in its recommendations that “while there are some areas of practice which can be improved we have not found evidence to support the substantive allegations made about the organisation.”

‘Horrified’

On Oct. 5, Mermaids published a response about former trustee Breslow, saying it was “horrified.”

“We have explained that it was only on the 3rd October that we became aware of his participation in a 2011 conference that would have disqualified him from becoming a trustee. Once notified, we immediately launched an investigation and Dr. Breslow tendered his notice that same day,” wrote Mermaids Chair of Trustees Belinda Bell.

“We want to apologise for the distress and concern this news has caused. It is clear that Dr. Breslow should never have been appointed to the board, and as Chair of the trustee board I am horrified that he was,” she added.

The charity added that “all trustees and staff are subject to background checks including enhanced DBS searches, social media reviews and other due diligence. On this occasion we also placed weight on the fact his employer is a globally renowned institution that would have carried out its own checks.”