Queer community ‘shocked’ after LGB Alliance handed National Lottery grant

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The queer community has been left “shocked” after LGB Alliance announced that it had been handed a National Lottery grant to set up a helpline for young people.

In a statement released on Friday (10 June), the group said: “LGB Alliance has been successful in its application for a gran from the National Lottery Community Fund to plan and scope a helpline for young lesbian, gay and bisexual people and their families and friends.”

LGB Alliance said the proposed helpline, which would operate online and by phone, would “serve young people aged between 13 and 25” and is “anticipated to have the capacity to respond to up to 60,000” calls per year.

It continued: “Currently there is no dedicated national service of this type for young LGB people in the UK and we are delighted that our proposed helpline will fill this gap in existing provision.

“We will use this grant to make an accurate assessment of need and to plan a robust and appropriate response, designed to support as wide a range of young LGB people, and their loved ones, as possible.”

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The queer community immediately expressed concern at the idea of LGB Alliance, which campaigns against “the damaging theory of gender identity”, giving advice to young people.

LGBT+ Glitterati, an LGBTQ+ community organisation, tweeted: “This is a very worrying development. LGB Alliance, an organisation that compared the LGBTQ+ community to bestiality and claims openly that “there is no LGBT+ community”, has been given lottery funding to set up a phone line to talk to vulnerable young people. A shocking decision.”

The organisation encouraged the queer community to contact the National Lottery Community Fund to “query how an organisation with a track record as contentious and controversial as the LGB Alliance, which exists specifically to exclude trans and non-binary people, and campaigned against banning conversion therapy, has been awarded funding”.

Please contact @TNLComFund and @TNLUK and query how an organisation with a track record as contentious and controversial as the LGB Alliance, which exists specifically to exclude trans & non-binary people, & campaigned against banning conversion therapy, has been awarded funding.

— LGBT+ Glitterati (@LGBTglitterati) June 10, 2022

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How can LGB Alliance qualify for @TNLComFund funding to support LGBTQ+ youth when they have publicly stated:

" LGBTQ+ theory is regressive & homophobic"
"There is no LGBTQ+ community"
"The rainbow flag doesn't represent us"
"We are not queer" pic.twitter.com/klmvyiUqgi

— LGBT+ Glitterati (@LGBTglitterati) June 10, 2022

Responding to the helpline funding, Rob McDowall, chair of Welfare Scotland and former grants officer for the National Lottery Community Fund’s predecessor, tweeted: “As a former Grants Officer at the BIG Lottery Fund (the predecessor agency), I’ll be raising my concerns with the fund. I don’t see how this award to this organisation has come about.”

As a former Grants Officer at the BIG Lottery Fund (the predecessor agency), I’ll be raising my concerns with the fund. I don’t see how this award to this organisation has come about. https://t.co/mAmVxnlpLZ

— Rob McDowall FRSA (@robmcd85) June 10, 2022

Just imagine you’re a vulnerable #trans teenager & decide to call a new youth helpline funded, inexplicably, by @TNLComFund & run by the sinister ‘LGB Alliance’. You could end up talking on the phone to someone who thinks you’re as unnatural as a ‘vegan cat’. pic.twitter.com/4CUVgafBv2

— JOHN NICOLSON M.P. (@MrJohnNicolson) June 10, 2022

BAD DECISION @TNLComFund

I don’t expect you to fund hate. If this turns out to be an “oversight” then you really need to review your organisational capacity and probably outsource to a credible LGBT+ organisation to make grants on your behalf.#HappyPride https://t.co/AAj2nKbtKB

— Cllr James-J Walsh (@JamesJWalsh) June 10, 2022

The LGB Alliance has campaigned against a legislative ban on conversion therapy in the UK,  and claims that gender-affirming healthcare for young people is itself conversion therapy, although it continues to deny being transphobic.

The group is currently facing a high-profile appeal against the Charity Commission’s decision to register the group as a charity, and a tribunal hearing is expected later this year.

In April, funding by Arts Council England’s Let’s Create Jubilee Fund, which awarded National Lottery funds for creative projects to mark the platinum jubilee, was withdrawn from the LGB Alliance.

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PinkNews has approached the National Lottery Community Fund for comment.