Sex Matters’ statement on LGB Alliance ruling
For immediate release
Date: 6th July 2023
London – Today, the First Tier Tribunal general regulatory chamber (charity) rejected a challenge brought by trans lobby group Mermaids against the Charity Commission, seeking to have the charitable status of gay-rights organisation LGB Alliance removed.
The Tribunal agreed LGB Alliance’s primary case that Mermaids did not have standing to bring the appeal against the Charity Commission’s decision.
Maya Forstater, executive director and co-founder of human-rights organisation Sex Matters, said:
“Sex Matters is delighted that Mermaids’ challenge to the Charity Commission’s decision to grant LGB Alliance charitable status has been rejected.
“This was an ill-conceived and spiteful attempt to hamper the work of an excellent charity supporting and advocating for same-sex attracted people. It was motivated by extreme trans ideology, according to which men who identify as women can be lesbians, and women who identify as men can be gay.
“This ideology has no basis in law or science and is fundamentally homophobic, since it denies the very existence of same-sex orientation, and the right of same-sex oriented people to organise and campaign on their own behalf and without reference to anyone else.
“We congratulate our friends at LGB Alliance, and wish them all the best in opposing prejudice and homophobia wherever it is found.”
Notes for editors
About Sex Matters
Sex Matters is a human-rights organisation co-founded in 2021 by Maya Forstater, who is its director, to campaign for sex-based rights. It lobbies for clarity on sex in law and institutions; publishes research, guidance and analysis; supports and mobilises people to speak up; and holds organisations accountable.
About Maya ForstaterMaya Forstater is co-founder and executive director of Sex Matters. In 2019 she lost her job as a researcher with the European arm of American think-tank Center for Global Development, after tweeting and writing about sex and gender. She was the claimant in the landmark test case which established that the protected characteristic of belief in the Equality Act covers gender-critical beliefs. She writes about single-sex services at a-question-of-consent.net and tweets @MForstater.