[Cherie]

Mermaids’ attempt to have a gay charity struck off are “profoundly homophobic”, a tribunal has heard.
The trans children’s charity is asking for judges to strip the LGB Alliance of its charitable status claiming that the organisation is merely a front for transphobia.

But Karon Monaghan KC, representing the LGB Alliance, alleged that Mermaids had not suggested that the charity was a “sham”.

Instead, the case, which included evidence of social media posts, relied upon “insinuation” and “conspiracy” to suggest that they were “setting out to deceive” the Charity Commission about the work they were doing.

She said that during the hearing, Mermaids had suggested that words like

sexual orientation, sex-based rights, and lesbian, gay and bisexual were “used to signal position against trans rights”.

“This is deeply offensive, and it is profoundly homophobic, it is again the love that cannot speak its name,” Ms Monaghan told the tribunal.

She said that if that is the “stigma” attached to those words “it pushes same-sex attracted people back into the closet”.

Safeguarding ‘red flags’
Michael Gibbon KC, representing Mermaids, denied any accusation of homophobia. He told the court that LGB Alliance were seeking to undermine trans charities like Mermaids “by promoting the view that they spread disinformation, and by seeking to deprive them of funding”.

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