Lottery pauses cash for trans charity Mermaids during investigation

Oct 7, 2022 by Jill

by Lucy Bannerman, The Times:

The National Lottery has paused a £500,000 grant to Mermaids, a charity that helps young people who identify as transgender.

Mermaids is being investigated by the Charity Commission for handing out potentially harmful breast binders to girls as young as 13 behind their parents’ backs.

It has also been revealed that Jacob Breslow, one of its trustees, was linked to an organisation that aims to help paedophiles “live in truth and dignity”. Breslow quit his role this week after it emerged that he had given a presentation at an event for B4U-ACT, an American group that promotes services “for self-identified individuals . . . who are sexually attracted to children”.

Mermaids has denied allegations of safeguarding failures and said that it is the victim of a “smear campaign”.

The National Lottery Community Fund confirmed that it had halted all payments to Mermaids during the investigation. It has awarded four grants, worth a combined total of £530,000, to Mermaids, which is based in Leeds. The opening of a compliance case is not a finding of wrongdoing but the first step the watchdog can take in examining potential wrongdoing. It has the power to open a more serious statutory case.

Read here (£)

Watch: The trouble with Mermaids. Malcolm Clark and Brendan O’Neill discuss how trans ideology harms children.

Read also: Trans charity’s ‘irresponsible’ online forum has major safeguarding issues, The Christian Institute