LGB Alliance



The LGB Alliance is a British anti-trans pressure group that views civil rights as a zero-sum game. They've made other anti-LGBT+ activities a habit: defending opposition to gay marriage and, bizarrely, holding people in contempt for wearing rainbow flags. But their T-less name makes their main stance pretty clear.

It's criticised as an anti-transgender hate group by the United Kingdom's main LGBT+ organisations. It has been designated similarly by anti-hate expert organisations. A great deal of their supporters are trans-exclusionary radical feminists, although they've also been linked to social conservative organisations. They also have registered charitable status in the UK, though this has been formally contested due to the group's activities.

Despite having been rejected by much of the mainstream LGBT+ community at-large, it has managed an audience with the Conservative government's policymaking bodies on multiple occasions. Mainstream British news media (especially those of a more conservative inclination such as The Times or The Daily Telegraph but also sometimes more moderate outlets such as BBC News) have also platformed them surprisingly often when reporting on transgender topics.

Formation
It was launched in October 2019 in London, with co-founder Allison Bailey posting a statement that "gender extremism is about to meet its match." The October 2019 meeting for the group included a speaker who called for the LGBT charity Stonewall to be "pulled down". Some media sources inaccurately claimed it had split from Stonewall, but despite one or two former Stonewall people being involved, none of Stonewall's staff or trustees left to join LGB Alliance.

Down with rainbows
They are apparently not fans of rainbows. In August 2020, the LGB Alliance claimed that a rainbow lanyard "reflects alignment with gender identity campaigners who promote self-ID. There is a clash between self-ID and the rights of LGB people and women." Additionally, they suggested that wearing a rainbow lanyard "undermines the impartiality of the police."

One co-founder for the group later stated in response to a straw poll about whether the gay pride flag should be burned: "I'm not in favour of flag burning but I recognise the feeling of utter revulsion at what the pride flag now symbolises." In response to some NHS staff wearing rainbow badges during LGBT Pride Month, another co-founder said it was "almost Maoist". The group's managing director has called the pride flag "a symbol of everything ugly about the pernicious, creeping 'queer' movement."

Homophobia
The LGB Alliance argued that it isn't "homophobic" to not be in favour of gay marriage. Their reasoning? Most people identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual in the United Kingdom aren't in gay marriages. It's also not sexist to oppose a woman's right to become a judge, because most women haven't chosen to become judges. The chart they use to support their argument shows an increase in the proportion of gay marriages every year relative to the LGB population in the UK. Notably, legalisation of equal marriage rights has been linked to a decrease in suicide attempts among young people, and especially LGBT youth in many countries. However, while they consider being against equal marriage not homophobic, apparently the entire modern, mainstream LGBT movement is homophobic, because it isn't transphobic.

In an appeal to respectability politics, they falsely and ahistorically stated that gay and lesbian activists "never demanded society change its laws" or "cursed people who disagreed"; a baffling and incorrect statement from a group purporting to serve LGB people, and rather insulting to the lesbian and gay activists who fought and died to change homophobic laws and in some countries, still give their lives in support of the cause. Although, according to the Mexican branch of the LGB Alliance, "homosexual men aren't oppressed, but discriminated".

In 2022, they attracted further criticism from other gay organisations when the LGB Alliance called for the closure of all gay saunas, leather bars, and clubs with dark rooms in the UK for the duration of LGBT Pride Month. This was supposedly to prevent the spread of, a disease which had spread at a small number of gay events. They also called for the closure of straight leather bars and other straight venues, but the places they named were largely used by a gay clientele. This mirrored the homophobic reaction to AIDS in the 1980s, when rather than proportional reactions and safe sex messages, many people called for draconian restrictions on gay life.

Scientists rejected the group's proposal as unnecessary. The Health Security Agency proposed less extreme mitigation measures that bars could take on. One public health researcher stated: "It's important that public health policy is proportionate, informed by experts, and done in consultation with the communities it will affect. The LGB Alliance's unhelpful call for a closure of queer spaces is none of these things. As a member of the queer community who has recently recovered from monkeypox, they don't speak for me." Another member of the community added: "Queer spaces are vital for sharing information and bring our LGBTQ+ community together. To be calling for their closure at a time like this is insulting and counter productive." However, The American Conservative agreed with the LGB Alliance, and compared it to the COVID-19 pandemic (also falsely claiming that the currently circulating strain is more lethal than COVID). Though nobody wants to catch this thing — it can leave permanent scars and be quite painful — it is worth noting where it differs from HIV/AIDS and COVID-19: There are effective vaccines available for it from the get-go and the death rate for the internationally-circulating strain is very low.

The LGB Alliance sneeringly downplayed the prospect of young homeless LGBT people facing unique levels of familial rejection, stating that "We are clearly intended to be appalled that '69% of young LGBT homeless people were rejected by their parents and suffered abuse within the family'. This is likely to be true of ALL young homeless people." Related statistics on the matter indicate that many in this group were made homeless on account of their LGBT status, with one figure saying "77% state that their LGBT identity was a causal factor in them becoming homeless". Comparative data indicates that "LGBT youths are significantly more likely to experience targeted violence, sexual exploitation, substance misuse, and physical and mental health problems than any other homeless youth."

Lesbiphobia
The group has repeatedly promoted Julie Bindel, calling her "a voice for a generation and an inspiration for lesbians" while promoting her book in 2022. Bindel is a notable "political lesbian" which is, in brief, an ideology that claims sexual orientation is a political choice. Bindel stated: "To me, political lesbianism continues to make intrinsic sense because it reinforces the idea that sexuality is a choice, and we are not destined to a particular fate because of our chromosomes." Another notable political lesbian promoted by the LGB Alliance is Sheila Jeffreys. Replying to a lesbian who disagreed with them, they stated "Please do your own research. Sheila Jeffreys is a superb lesbian theorist. A feminist much admired among UK lesbians." A statement Jeffreys helped to write said that "all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men."

In 2020, the LGB Alliance responded to the LGBT survey examining issues facing the LGBT community. Responding to lesbians who described their experiences as having been raped by another woman, the group denied that this experience could be considered rape. This is the quote they were reviewing:

Here was their response:

It is probable this laywoman's use of the word "rape" wasn't intended to identically meet with how the term is defined in the law, thus why a lesbian surveyed would refer to woman-on-woman rape as rape despite the British government's definition. Nonetheless, they likely intend to insinuate that this category of offence is committed entirely by transgender women, a transphobic obfuscation done with no regard for how it erased the experiences of lesbian women. Rape is a sadistic act, and similarly sadistic forcible penetration can occur with other instruments than a penis; that this is not categorically defined as rape under British law should not be used to minimise those sexual abuse survivors who feel they had an equivalent experience to what might usually be thought of as rape.

Keeping with their usual style, they've sometimes decided to make smartass comments denying that somebody can be a lesbian and attracted to some trans women — replying with "It's absolutely fine to be bisexual! But lesbian means being exclusively attracted to other women." The segments of the lesbian community that have no issue including trans women may take exception to their comments. Particularly, there are quite a few trans women who have little issue with passing. But nevermind that, we judge what your sexual orientation is. Meanwhile, one of their co-founders self-describes as "theoretically bi" but the LGB Alliance describes her as a lesbian. Apparently attraction to the individual trans women that one finds perceivable as women is disqualifying, but attraction to actual men is not.

Biphobia
In a blatant display of erasure towards the historical contributions of bisexuals like to the early LGBT liberation movement, the LGB Alliance claimed that: "The original gay and lesbian rights movement did not include bisexuals. It is a historical observation." Amusingly, they likely even excluded one of their own co-founders with this statement. They like to tout her activist credentials on social media, so this comes off as a bit two-faced.

They also stated that the presence of bisexual people in differing-sex relationships at gay bars and clubs was disrespectful and "offensive". The group's Irish branch stated about bisexual people, "For some people, sexuality is not a choice. We call those people straight or gay. For some people, it is a choice, and we call those people bisexual."

Transphobia
The LGB Alliance have said they are not an anti-trans organisation — actually, they've gone as far as to claim that they "support trans rights". This is a somewhat dubious claim, to put it as gently as possible. Many have disputed it, not least due to the behaviours of the group, along with the affiliations and stated beliefs of their founding members and officers. Hope not Hate described the LGB Alliance as an "anti-trans campaign group". However, they have trans friends. So there's that.

Founding members of the LGB Alliance are among the signatories for the "Declaration on Women's Sex-based Rights", produced by the Women's Declaration International (formerly called the Women's Human Rights Campaign). The declaration, which repeatedly refers to transgender women as "men", argues for stripping transgender people's access to transition-related healthcare. It also argues for stripping them of their legal rights provided under the and the Equality Act because, they say, legally recognising "innate gender identity" infringes on women's rights under international law. The declaration was extensively scrutinised by one academic lawyer who is a specialist in the subject of gender and sexuality under international human rights law. In her analysis of the document, she described it as "a call for the removal of transgender persons from public life". The LGB Alliance states: "we do not, and will not, forge links with, or accept funding from, any organisation that does not share our values". Meanwhile, they are an official partner of the Women's Declaration International, who also had a stand at the LGB Alliance's 2021 conference. Using the above-mentioned reasoning, the WDI has previously submitted documents to British parliament calling to "eliminate" the "practice of transgenderism".

In resurfaced footage of the LGB Alliance's October 2021 conference, a bisexual trans woman who attended (Jen Ives) was verbally abused by a man, who recorded her while calling her a "mentally ill autogynephilic pervert" and repeatedly shouting transphobic remarks at her after she disclosed that she is transgender. She was accused by another woman at the conference of being "provocative" for attending. In a tweet Ives stated, "As a bisexual myself I had a right to be there". She further stated: "[E]verything seemed fine before they knew I was trans and then when they did know I was trans I suddenly became an 'activist' and 'provocateur' in their eyes." Meanwhile, there was a feisty back-and-forth between the transphobic and very-transphobic conference attendees arguing about how inflammatory they should be towards transgender people. One side proposed that the term "gender identity extremists" should be used, and the other that they should deny trans people exist at all.

The LGB Alliance tweeted a list of 12 questions they had for "prospective parliamentary candidates." None of the questions related to LGB rights; instead every single one related to trans people. That seems quite curious for a group that claims to have seceded from mainstream LGBT+ rights groups so they can simply focus on "LGB issues" to the exclusion of trans issues.

The group had a rather absurd response when the LGBT branch of the British Psychological Society (BPS) recommended that people raise a concern with the regulatory body for psychologists if their psychologist responds inappropriately to their sexual orientation or gender identity. The LGB Alliance stated: "This special account set up to encourage patients to report psychotherapists adds extra pressure to therapists to "affirm" clients' gender self-diagnosis, instead of providing neutral, ethical care." The BPS did not mention this, and responded to the group with a link to its statement that, "LGBT people deserve high quality care. If they feel they aren't treated appropriately, they deserve to know where to report concerns. There's nothing 'ideological' about it".

They have "objected" to the existence of non-binary people's identities. Additionally, they find the term "cisgendered" to be offensive—a common transphobic stance reminiscent of the homophobic aversion to the words "straight" or "heterosexual."

Transgender status as a 'social contagion'
The LGB Alliance has promoted the (ROGD) concept of gender dysphoria as a "social contagion", originating from the Littman 2018 ROGD study. A statement signed by a plethora of professional organisations including the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association reads, "There are no sound empirical studies of ROGD and it has not been subjected to rigorous peer-review processes that are standard for clinical science. Further, there is no evidence that ROGD aligns with the lived experiences of transgender children and adolescents."

The Littman study's survey data came from websites "all dedicated to parents who do not recognize the gender identities of their children, and do not support their transitions". It did not interview the subjects directly; it surveyed their unsupportive parents. A 2019 commentary published in Archives of Sexual Behavior criticised the Littman 2018 study's methodology, and another critical commentary was published in The Sociological Review in 2020. Studies published in 2021 and 2022 offered evidence that contradicted the ROGD concept.

Nevertheless, the LGB Alliance has promoted Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters quite extensively, a book that endorses the ROGD concept of gender dysphoria as "social contagion" which is supposedly delivered through "radical ". The book is by Abigail Shrier, a rather conservative opinion columnist for the Wall Street Journal. It's worth noting that her book was published by the Christian conservative, which has put its stamp on plenty of bullshit over the years. A review of the book published in Science-Based Medicine (SBM) described it as "a fear-filled screed, full of misinformation, biological and medical inaccuracies, logical fallacies, and propaganda." A separate SBM review said, "Shrier uses emotional language throughout to appeal to the reader. Her book presents a mix of anecdotal reports, opinion pieces, and minimal cited research."

A related group the LGB Alliance has promoted is, another group known to promote the idea of transgender status as a "social contagion". Transgender Trend (whose name speaks for itself) has been known to publish propaganda targeted at transgender minors; they also lobby to this end for transphobic medical and educational policy. The LGB Alliance has promoted the group, and endorsed teaching materials they produce for use in schools.

You might be asking what the fuck any of this has to do with "LGB issues". Apparently they think this "social contagion" could cause a "lesbian extinction". Despite this speculation of an impending "extinction" for lesbians, the amount of lesbian women has only repeatedly increased in both US and UK statistics over the years, alongside other LGBT+ identities. They expanded upon this argument in evidence submitted to British Parliament, which included some amusingly Boomer complaints about there being a transgender community on TikTok, YouTube, and Tumblr. There, they mentioned a "sudden and rapid growth in referrals" to gender-affirming healthcare services for young people, and of course made some token references to detransitioned people. In that regard there is some relevant commentary from Shon Faye, who said: "A useful thing I like to keep in mind when people say there's a huge social contagion driving kids towards medical transition is that 300 people under the age of 18 are newly prescribed puberty blockers each year in the UK and the UK population aged under 18 is 15 million", referring to BBC-provided data. Not only that, but the amount of young trans men (and young trans people in general) seeking gender-affirming care in the UK leveled off years ago, and waiting times to access this care were excessively long.

Anyway, engaging in some casual bisexual erasure, they use a citation which mentions most of the AFAB trans patients being attracted to women, to mean that "most of these girls [sic] are lesbians". They also state that it is "especially those on the autism spectrum" who are falling for this supposed social contagion. If their intention is to insinuate that autistic people are incapable of independently forming their own sense of gender identity without falling for the ploys of the transgender Internet cabals, one has to wonder what they think of the fact that autistic people are also more likely to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual — are they, too, being swindled by a cabal of YouTube and TikTok influencers? Is that why the lesbian population has increased each year? Well, of course not.

Criminalisation of trans healthcare
Regarding trans-supportive parents and doctors, the LGB Alliance have also suggested somebody here will be criminally prosecuted, though it may not be clear who. Non-transphobic LGBTQ+ groups who follow professional WPATH guidelines and help trans-supportive parents may be who they are saying should be prosecuted:

While it's perhaps not clear who they are suggesting may be prosecuted for providing medical treatment for gender dysphoria to minors, it would seem fairly reprehensible no matter what the answer is—doctors, LGBTQ+ rights activists, or parents. If they want LGBTQ+ rights organisations to be prosecuted for supporting treatment of dysphoria in minors, it reminds one of the effects that Russia's "gay propaganda" law has had on gay youth—a law that has also lead to gay people in Russia being unable to seek mental health support tailored to their needs, and being unable to voice this need in the first place. If they want for doctors to be criminally prosecuted, they certainly have an ally in American conservatives, including the anti-gay Heritage Foundation.

Intersex topics
The LGB Alliance state that they "believe that biological sex is observed at birth and not assigned. In our view, current gender ideologies are pseudo-scientific and present a threat to people whose sexual orientation is towards the same sex, or to both sexes. In addition, we believe that these ideologies are confusing and dangerous to children." This statement comes into major conflict with the widely agreed-upon contemporary understanding of biological sex imparted by science communication.

Their co-founder, Kate Harris, explicitly stated intersex people "necessitate medical treatment." They regularly use the contentious phrase "DSDs" (which typically stands for "disorders of sexual development") to refer to intersex people, sometimes even placing the term "intersex" in apparent scare quotes. Though opinions are not completely uniform, the term has been criticised in the intersex community. One paper reported that 69% of intersex patients felt a negative emotional reaction to the use of the term. Other research indicated that just 3% used the term as a self-description: "The gap between the popularity of the words 'intersex' and 'DSD' was so large that the research suggested that any imposition of the DSD label on this community in Australia would clearly be inappropriate, despite attempts to impose it elsewhere".

Asexual exclusionism
Indeed, the lack of the "A" part of "LGBTQIA+" is intentional. After the group's American branch launched, one Twitter user commented that the group should explain the inverted "A" on their logo, and that they "Hope it's not asexuals because they're a disability, not an orientation." The LGB Alliance USA responded by clarifying that they believe "Asexuals are not a sexual orientation, much less one that needs advocacy, [because] they don't have any claim to oppression or discrimination". In fact, a 2012 study with heterosexual participants found that asexuals are viewed as less human. Separately, "student subjects reported being less willing to hire, or rent to, asexuals than homosexuals (or heterosexuals)". It should perhaps come as no surprise then that asexual respondents to the British government's 2017 LGBT survey were significantly less likely to be employed. There's also the issue of corrective rape. Even assuming asexual people can hide their preferences better and not get directly persecuted, this sort of gatekeeping behaviour has also been practiced towards bisexual people and established as harmful.

Conversion "therapy"
So as far as sexual orientation is concerned, we do not think that a ban on conversion therapy is needed now, at this point in time, in the UK.

LGB Alliance Ireland appears to have introduced itself to the Irish by spreading a slew of transphobic inaccuracies, most notably including a suggestion that a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder could also be applied to gender dysphoria in order to get the transgender patient to "learn to love the skin you live in." Proposing a solution that sounds an awful lot like conversion therapy isn't too surprising for a group which has called laws that ban the practice of conversion therapy "Trojan Horses" while sharing an article which refers to transgender teenagers as a "global epidemic."

So while the LGB Alliance claim they do not support conversion therapy, they have consistently opposed bans on conversion therapy, across multiple countries. In fact, they are sometimes cited by social conservatives in official hearings on such bills, as they were in 2020 by the in Canadian Parliament. As for the British group, they had met with the government in their efforts to weaken the conversion therapy ban once it became clear that one would pass in the UK, something notably also done by the Evangelical Alliance. Though reportedly, this opposition to the bill (such as the UK government viewed it) almost stopped any such ban from passing entirely. They have claimed that "gender identity" campaigners having given "conversion therapy" a new meaning. This is untrue, and trans people subjected to conversion "therapy" experience the same enormous increase in suicidal ideation that LGB people do, which is why every reputable psychological organisation denounces it.

In fact, the LGB Alliance has opted to cite a group called "Thoughtful Therapists" in their opposition to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on conversion therapy in the UK. The MoU has been signed by a number of respected medical professional bodies, including the British Psychological Society, NHS, Royal College of Psychiatrists, National Counselling Society, Psychological Professions Network, and the Royal College of General Practitioners. On the other hand, this "Thoughtful Therapists" group the LGB Alliance has promoted as some sort of "voice of reason" on the matter, is now known to have met with the evangelical Christian conservative Family Education Trust in a supportive capacity. One member of the group is also known to have been backed in a legal case by the anti-LGBT Christian Legal Centre.

Despite claiming to oppose conversion therapy, the LGB Alliance still supports the idea that gender identity doesn't really exist and is simply an "ideology" or "theory" that should be rejected. The logical conclusion of rejecting gender identity is that there is no legitimate medical reason for any trans people to transition, and that all gender dysphoria should be treated with psychotherapy.

Social conservatives
"If the LGB Alliance loses its charitable status, obviously the next thing would be that our side would bring suit against all of them, and I'm sure people would raise a great deal of money for it, and, in fact, the Christian Right will be pouring their money in!" *evil cackling* Although Christian conservative groups may oppose gay rights, they have proposed for years that separation of the transgender community from lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals could be an effective "divide-and-conquer" tactic. A prominent example was the Values Voter Summit in 2017, sponsored by the Family Research Council and attended by President Donald Trump and his advisors. There, one panelist explicitly suggested: "For all of its recent success, the LGBT alliance is actually fragile... If you separate the T from the alphabet soup, we'll have more success." This may explain the willingness of such groups to support the LGB Alliance, even if we took the claim that the organisation supports LGB rights at face value. In a British context, it has been observed that both TERF groups and social conservatives advance a sort of "zero-sum conceptions of rights" rhetoric, pitting the rights of different groups against one another (such as the LGB vs. the T). Even prior to the existence of the LGB Alliance, these so-called "gender critical" groups have been known to act as "unlikely allies" of the Christian Right in the UK.

One of the speakers at the LGB Alliance launch event was Gary Powell, who has allied with the American conservative Heritage Foundation against gay surrogacy rights and has written for Public Discourse, a division of which staunchly opposes gay marriage and funded the controversial. One co-founder of the LGB Alliance defended this sort of connection with anti-women social conservative groups by stating, "Are you disgusted with feminists who have appeared in events organized by the Heritage Foundation and other rightwing groups? Perhaps you need to get informed as to the reasons they have for doing so. Please take the time to read the attached article before rushing to judgement." The attached article is published by the aforementioned conservative journal of the Witherspoon Institute; It complains that non-conservative media is unwilling to cover stories from parents who say their children identifying as transgender is "damaging".

British Conservative politicians that support the LGB Alliance (and vice versa) have included unelected peer   (phew)   and. The group thanked Baroness Nicholson for her support. A week later, she was rather incoherently justifying her vote against legalising gay marriage with the statement that she: Naturally, this attracted some criticism for the LGB Alliance, who (probably as a result of the above statement and their newfound connection with Baroness Nicholson) then went on to defend opposition to gay marriage as not "homophobic". Other top hits from Nicholson include voting against the repeal of section 28 and the legalisation of same-sex civil unions. A group called the Lesbian Avengers actually staged a protest on her lawn in 1995. As for Jackie Doyle-Price, she also voted against equal marriage rights. According to herself, "I didn't vote for the legislation because I didn't like it" — that is, she has attempted to justify this vote by claiming she would have voted for it if it was about equal civil union rights and not marriage. However, she also voted against same-sex civil partnerships. The LGB Alliance, naturally, opted to thank her "for standing up for the rights of people with a same-sex sexual orientation." Having been rejected from the conference for the Labour Party (and later the Liberal Democrats), the LGB Alliance hosted a stand at the Conservative Party Conference in 2021. In the meantime, the stand for the was placed over at section #28.

An Ofcom letter released in December 2022 revealed that the LGB Alliance holds an office at, a notorious hotbed for the United Kingdom's most influential conservative think tanks. The location is owned by a Tory Party donor, Richard Smith. Others with offices there include the TaxPayers' Alliance, various Eurosceptic lobby groups, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the, various climate denial groups such as the , and groups in favor of tax cuts. During the premiership of Liz Truss, this group of think tanks was blamed for crashing the British economy.

LGB Alliance co-founder and director Kate Harris has been approvingly quoted by Christian conservative organisations to argue against letting your children use TikTok, after she called TikTok videos with transgender people in them "deeply frightening". These videos might turn other youngsters transgender, after all! Groups republishing her statement included (HLI) and Ken Ham for Answers in Genesis (AiG). HLI is American-based, and best known for being one of the largest anti-abortion organisations in the world; it also supported the Ugandan government's criminalisation of homosexuality. Answers in Genesis and Ken Ham are best known for their pseudoscientific Young Earth creationism.

Closer to home is support from the, a British anti-LGBT, anti-abortion organisation. They have quite frequently quoted the LGB Alliance approvingly as a source of information in their articles for their crusade against "transgender ideology" (which they somewhat ludicrously claim has its origins in Gnosticism, a set of esoteric religious ideas that many Christians historically viewed as heresy). Despite being an anti-gay organisation, the Christian Institute frequently takes a line towards this "transgender ideology" in its articles that is nigh indiscernible from those of the LGB Alliance.

In Germany, the "LGB Alliance Deutschland" backed a campaign including many right-wing figures (including those on the Christian Right and those who promote racialist pseudoscience, the latter of which was not coincidental as this campaign was concern trolling about the "scientific basis" of transgender acceptance) in opposition to the independent, state-funded news outlets supposedly "indoctrinating children" with "gender ideology". The open letter from which this campaign stemmed was signed by the spokeswoman for the LGB Alliance Deutschland, Martina Haardt. A version of this was published in Die Welt, a mainstream conservative paper in Germany, and indeed the article invokes the LGB Alliance by name in attempting to support its campaign against trans acceptance.

Conservative media
Many right-wing media organisations have supported the LGB Alliance. This has included transphobic trans woman Debbie Hayton in The Spectator. Other supporters have included Breitbart (including Andrew Sullivan), and Conservative Woman. It is perhaps telling that both Breitbart and Conservative Woman are otherwise homophobic.

Some conservative media outlets the LGB Alliance has repeatedly republished to their social media include The Post Millennial, The Federalist, The Spectator, The Daily Mail, Conservative Woman, and the hard-right magazine Spiked (known for defending Alex Jones, Tommy Robinson, the Football Lads Alliance, and the homophobic prime minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, among others). One LGB Alliance co-founder even did a lengthy Spiked interview about how "trans ideology is an assault on reality" with Brendan O'Neill in 2021, who is himself more than a little bit homophobic. Another media figure promoted by the group is the homophobe Matt Walsh whose social media self-describes him as a "theocratic fascist".

One of the more fascinating instances of right-wing media backing the LGB Alliance is RT, a Russian state media outlet. In one instance, they were used as a central reference to support a story that NHS doctors were supposedly quivering in fear at the prospect of LGBT Pride Month coming around.

Brushing shoulders with the far-right
The LGB Alliance has been criticised for having neo-Nazis among its supporters. Disclaimer: they aren't constantly collaborating with fascists, but they've shown enough deference to each other here and there that it is actually somewhat worrying, even for a TERF group (but especially for an "LGB" focused group). Shortly after the group launched, it received support from Katie Hopkins, who called them a "welcoming group". She has previously stated: "Racial profiling is a good thing", and went on to retweet a neo-Nazi with the username "AntiJuden SS" who approved of her comment. Additionally, Quillette (the so-called "alt-centre" publication which has a reputation for attempts to launder racialist pseudoscience) saw it fit to publish TERF author Helen Joyce's praise of the LGB Alliance.

In fact, Andy Ngo (who left his job as editor at Quillette after witnessing planning violence but failing to report it), attended the October 2021 conference for the LGB Alliance. They complimented his work for the New York Post as "extraordinary and important." Indeed the LGB Alliance seems to republish articles quite frequently from Quillette and The Post Millennial (where Ngo was hired as an editor immediately after leaving his job at Quillette). Ngo also attended the 2022 conference, and a co-founder for the LGB Alliance commented that Ngo had been met with many "fans" there.

The LGB Alliance Canada got into hot water after it republished an antisemitic video by a neo-Nazi about "Transhuman Judaism", with conspiracy theorist commentary from Jennifer Bilek (a past member of ) regarding the "Jewish aspect" of the "transgender/transhumanist agenda". This, of course, had everything to do with "LGB issues" because... because... well, the group apologised "unreservedly" for this, adding that they were "not sure" how it got there, which is complete bullshit makes total sense. They also stated that "Bilek's investigation of gender theory's wealthy backers initially interested many feminists but she's lost the plot". Indeed, many "gender critical feminists" have expressed their interest in Bilek's beliefs, which have, since at least 2018, included citing David Icke and his beliefs about "reptilians". The LGB Alliance had repeatedly shared her "investigative journalism" up until at least 2021. At least two co-founders of the LGB Alliance had endorsed her ideas, with one adding "This transhumanism project, eugenics 2.0, explains why transgender ideology enjoys so much support from men and large corporate enterprises." Bilek's ideas have unsurprisingly been endorsed by neo-Nazis.

In 2020, a photo of an LGB Alliance fan posing with a Totenkopf-inspired mask and a gun was uncovered on a Gab-connected platform. The photo comes in the style that the neo-Nazi terrorist organisation Atomwaffen and its allies have used in many of their propaganda works (perhaps not coincidentally, they have operated accounts on Gab before to distribute said propaganda). When asked to condemn support from neo-Nazis, the LGB Alliance declined. To be fair, they really hate PinkNews, who contacted them. They may be averse to responding to requests for comment from them, of any kind. There's no way they in all earnesty wouldn't condemn racists, right? Right?

Anyway, just five months after that incident, one of the LGB Alliance co-founders stated on Twitter that: "[E]very woman and girl must know that their sex-based rights will disappear if they do not pay attention & join this struggle... [w]hether they are non-racist, racist, homosexual or homophobic. That doesn't mean I condone racist or homophobic behaviour, I abhor it."

The far-right has taken desperate measures in recent decades in attempts to repair its poor reputation. Research has suggested some far-right groups in the United Kingdom have characterised themselves as defenders of liberalism while driving tensions between LGB and transgender people, as one tactic to recruit young LGB Britons. Researchers concluded in one 2022 study: "We believe that the research indicates that intersectional coalitions are crucial in providing resistance to radical right narratives. Claims of division between cisgender homosexuals and bisexuals, versus trans people are not exclusive to the radical right but are also found in more mainstream discourses." That could help explain why some far-right individuals may be inclined to lend support to groups like the LGB Alliance: their politics of exclusion plays well into the.

Allison Bailey
Up and down the country, and around the world, girls are removing breasts that have never known a lover's caress.

One co-founder for the group is lawyer. She crowdfunded £500,000 ($572,810 USD) to sue Stonewall, claiming she lost her job for criticizing its diversity training. The case was widely reported in the UK press, and hyped by "gender criticals" in their war against Stonewall. Bailey lost the suit against Stonewall. In fact, the judgement referred to allegations that Stonewall had "directed the complaint process" of her employer as a "conspiracy theory". However, she won the discrimination complaint against her employer; apparently "political beliefs" are sometimes a protected category in the United Kingdom as long as they don't directly interfere with one's job.

Bailey has stated that trans people have no right to children. She also stated: "The LGBTQ lobbying juggernaut that created & then weaponised 'gender identity' theories, gave birth to a cult... No cult ends voluntarily. They must be stopped." This could be considered a rather chilling threat against non-transphobic LGBTQ people.

In July 2021, Bailey tweeted that someone had thrown a chocolate bar into her yard, accusing the "right side of history" (i.e., trans-rights activists) of trying to poison her dog. Shortly after, the culprits were revealed, unsurprisingly, as "neighbouring children being a bit silly."

Ann Sinnott
Strange times, strange bedfellows. So be it. The origin story for Ann Sinnott, another co-founder (and apparently a director, previously), is that she is a heterosexual author. In particular, she wrote "Breastfeeding Older Children", in which she advocates prolonged breastfeeding. According to The Guardian, she "mentions a 16-year-old boy who was regularly fed by his mother and cites examples of even older children. She says breastfeeding adolescents isn't a practice she would dismiss out of hand." The Guardian also commented, "Physiologically, there is no research, as yet, to suggest that breastfeeding for longer than two years is significantly beneficial. As the [World Health Organization (WHO)] says: 'We don't know. There is no evidence either way.'" Ehh...

Sinnott was also previously a city councilor, where she opposed a measure to get more young people to vote because they are "very busy". She resigned because transgender women were allowed to use women's restrooms, and the council refused to abolish this access. After that she tried setting up a group called the "Authentic Equity Alliance". It was described by one lawyer as having "certainly shared her negative view of trans women, regularly publishing links to any media stories about trans women convicted of any crime. It was not known for drawing attention to trans women making positive contributions to society."

Sinnott attempted to take her opposition to trans women's bathroom access to court (and crowdfunded over £97,000 for the cause) in a case against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), claiming it was contradictory to the Equality Act 2010. However, this was thrown out of court (the judge referred to her argument as an "obvious absurdity" and "wrong in law"). She resigned from her position at the LGB Alliance less than a month later.

Bev Jackson
Drag queens perform for adult audiences. They are linked to the sex industry. In contrast, pantomimes are family entertainment. Bev Jackson is another co-founder of the LGB Alliance. She is apparently bisexual, albeit "theoretically". Thus, speaking about the topic of whether being gay is a choice, she stated that "It's a choice for some people. Me for instance." She was one of about twenty founding members of the London Gay Liberation Front. The London GLF later denounced the LGB Alliance's transphobia in response to Jackson's appropriation of their logo for personal use. In fact, it must be a peculiar sight for other GLF veterans, to see Jackson go such a route: a popular slogan for the GLF in the 1970s was "there are as many sexes as there are people". There were also transgender people in the GLF. There was even a pro-trans manifesto published in a lesbian journal for the GLF.

Jackson is apparently not a fan of drag queens. In one instance she described a rather banal-looking drag queen as an "over-sexualised caricature". In another, she bizarrely claimed that drag queens are "linked to the sex industry". This kind of talk in opposition to drag is apparently gaining traction on Mumsnet lately.

Jackson has previously used the organisation's Twitter to share a rather... dubious anecdote. A tale is described of meeting a young, weeping woman at a party in 1969. She had apparently grown up in a small village and had never heard of homosexuality. Instead, she had—again, in a small English village in the 60s—obtained a double mastectomy and hysterectomy, on request and without counseling or psychiatric assessment. This story was meant to demonstrate the dangers of the trans agenda—and is unlikely to actually happen in real life, to say the least. In response to skepticism about the claim, Bev Jackson responded:

While trans healthcare had begun in the 1960s in England, it was centered on one London clinic. While there is a legitimate feminist discussion to be had whether hysterectomy is overused—particularly in the United States, where 1 in 3 women have the procedure, compared to 1 in 5 in the U.K. —it is extremely unlikely that a young, healthy, child-free woman would have been able to obtain one, then or now, especially because that person wanted to transition, and especially not without psychiatric intervention. Both Roberta Cowell and Michael Dillon had to speak to psychiatrists before they could obtain hormones, let alone surgery. In short, even if the story in question was accurate, the surgeries would not have been obtained on the basis of transition.

Kathleen Stock
I'm pro-choice. It may surprise some to know I talk to people who are positively pro-life. Not just their pro-choice political allies, who you also revile. But the full-on pro-lifers. They have fine qualities. I refuse to do this splitting. Originally a board member for the LGB Alliance, later a trustee: Kathleen Stock got into hot water for her involvement with the group and her signing of the WHRC declaration. She was a professor at the University of Sussex. Students there argued for her removal, saying "Transphobes like Stock are anti-feminist, anti-queer and anti-intellectual, they are harmful and dangerous to trans people." Naturally, the LGB Alliance compared this to the Holocaust. Stock eventually resigned of her own accord, though the university was quite willing to defend her. Various incidents surrounding this controversy led Stock to claim she had been personally targeted or harassed (though she arguably engaged in such behaviour herself). One such complaint she made prior to resigning was that colleagues displayed transgender flags at the university. These flags were, in fact, displayed to protest the anti-transgender policies of Donald Trump.

Apparently not satisfied with only dropping the T, her and Julie Bindel went on to form "The Lesbian Project", which Bindel described in UnHerd as part of an "amicable divorce from our gay brothers". Stock was no longer listed as a trustee of the LGB Alliance as of early 2023, perhaps due to this sort of splitting. One must wonder where her priorities lie when gay men are worth splitting from (not to mention trans people), but not anti-abortion activists.

Malcolm Clark
What is it the trans lobby actually want? ... what they daren’t admit is their true ideal: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Co-founder Malcolm Clark (who apparently works on contract for the BBC) has opposed LGBT school clubs, calling them "unnecessary", "dangerous", and claiming that they "encourage predators". Victim-blaming children for the existence of predators because they organised supportive social clubs is a curious stance for a supposedly pro-LGB organisation—it is usually heterosexual right-wingers that assume orientation is inherently sexual (think of the children). Additionally, it can be noted that LGBT+ school clubs are associated with better mental health outcomes, better grades, a less homophobic school environment, etc.

In rhetoric that was compared by an SNP MP to past justifications for Section 28, Clark and others 'suggested that young people were being "confused" by celebrities who came out as queer or non-binary', according to The Guardian: he stated this was occurring "through celebrity, through peer pressure, through loads of social media nonsense".

Simon Fanshawe
is a former broadcaster who is perhaps most notable within the context of this list for actually having been a founding member of Stonewall. He also helped to launch the LGB Alliance. He published an article in The Guardian back in 2006 (!) that claimed "[s]ociety now accepts gay men as equals" and accused gay men of "behaving like teenagers" for things like having kinky sex. "[W]e have to grow out of our teenage years of sex and drugs and mocking the old, and embrace a future of fidelity and responsibility," he wrote.

Criticism from the LGBT+ community
The initial LGB Alliance announcement was met with widespread condemnation by the LGBT community. PinkNews charted the immense backlash from LGBTQ people against the group, with LGB people describing the group as "transphobic," "disgusting" and "vile."

More than fifty UK Pride groups stated that "the LGB Alliance does not promote equality, diversity and human rights as stipulated in the purposes of the organisation", in response to Charity Commission accepting their claim to charitable status. A petition from the community that stated "The LGB Alliance has consistently undermined the Equality Act, which is a piece of legislation that protects all LGBT+ people from discrimination... The LGB Alliance does not represent my LGBT+ community. We reject anti-trans rhetoric and support our fellow community members" gained tens of thousands of signatures.

In solidarity with its LGBT+ workers, the (representing millions of British workers) officially recognised in a 200-to-1 vote the following 2020 statement from its LGBT+ Conference:

The Bi Survivors Network stood in solidarity with the trans community in response to the LGB Alliance's formation. Their director Lois Shearing was among those who organised "BWithTheT" events alongside "LWithTheT", "#GwiththeT", and "#myLGBTfamily". The Equality Network said of the LGB Alliance, "It is disappointing that a small group of people who apparently lived through the days of Section 28 cannot see that the way they are treating trans people now is just the way we as LGB people were treated back then." Many lesbians were critical of the LGB Alliance, including after an incident where one of their co-founders claimed that lesbians could be "going extinct". In an incident where the LGB Alliance called for transgender men to be excluded from gay men's spaces, many gay men denounced their anti-trans sentiment.

Michael Cashman, a founder of Stonewall, commented: "How can you claim to be an alliance if you're deliberately excluding people? As soon as you surrender one minority’s rights, you begin to feed the tiger and the tiger is always hungry, it will eat the next group's rights." A number of Gay Liberation Front (GLF) veterans have been critical of the LGB Alliance, two of which actually protested outside their 2021 conference. The GLF UK stated: "To those who want to use their GLF status to legitimise LGB Alliance, we say: gay liberation does not, has not, and never will belong to the transphobes." Andrew Lumsden compared them with feminists who attempted to exclude lesbians from the women's movement. Frankie Green called them "an organisation causing enormous harm to people whose rights and safety are threatened by anti-trans lobbies". Another GLF veteran stated, "It should be remembered and affirmed that trans people were a vital part of GLF and of historical and ongoing campaigning activism for justice." One founding member of the GLF commented:

commented, "There's rarely been revolutionary gay politics without trans people and most trans people are queer/seen as such. There was never a time the T got 'added on'." Dazed stated: "Plus of course, many LGB people are genderqueer, and many trans people identify their sexual orientation as LGB as well as T (Munroe Bergdorf, SOPHIE and Gigi Gorgeous to name just a few examples)." Gemma Stone added: "I am transgender and also bisexual, so even dropping the T doesn't exclude us from the table as much as you'd like it to."

A bisexual woman went to a queer club in Glasgow wearing an LGB Alliance T-shirt in what seems like a deliberate attempt to offend. She was asked to turn her T-shirt inside out, and when she refused, was ejected. She was monitored and quickly provided with her jacket. While some TERFs have supported this person, the wider LGBT community, particularly bisexual women, have applauded the club for ejecting someone wearing a T-shirt representing a hate group. At a Manchester Pride protest in August 2021, a man wearing an LGB Alliance T-shirt was escorted away by two police officers whilst protesters chanted "Trans Lives Matter".

Former Chief Executive of Stonewall, Ruth Hunt, has said:

They have been criticised by Out magazine. The  released a campaign supporting the inclusion of the transgender community in response to the group.  released a statement in which they said: "Fuck the LGB Alliance. The climate of transphobia in the UK has been becoming increasingly worrying for years and this group shows that this is not only coming from cis straight people. A stricter understanding of sex and gender is not only damaging to trans folks but will impact cisgender people too. Policing who is 'woman' or 'man enough', or who is 'queer enough' (LGB alliance's obsession with same-sex attraction is also very biphobic) to access services will quickly create discriminatory power hierarchies." A Thousand Flowers bestowed the LGB Alliance with the honour of a slot in their "Weekly Wanker" segment.

A number of notable figures in the gay community have opposed the LGB Alliance. Actors David Paisley and Matt Lucas have been vocal opponents. SNP MP John Nicolson, who is gay, has also been critical of the group. After the LGBA's Malcolm Clark called Nicolson insults including "frothing at the mouth", "self-obsessed", a "bloated ego", a "serial fantasist", an "elephantine ego", and one of a group of "elected mediocrities and narcissists", Nicolson attacked their "record of denigrating people and organisations who support trans rights, including me and many others", and supported Stonewall's bid to have them stripped of charitable status. Gay footballer Josh Cavallo responded to the group with "#LGBwiththeT".

Where criticism falls flat
At the time of the group's founding, several commentators claimed that the LGB Alliance's founding signatories contained a large contingent of heterosexuals. This was in reference to a letter submitted to The Sunday Times in September 2019, entitled "Gay People Losing Faith in Stonewall". It is absurd that a letter purportedly written as a voice of gay people contains signatures from cisgender heterosexuals (e.g. Ann Sinnott). However, enough of the signatories are LGBT+ that this appears incidental.

In 2022, it was revealed under oath in court that the newsletter subscribers to the LGB Alliance are just ~7% lesbian. Analyses of their social media following in early 2020 indicated very little overlap with LGB interest accounts. What this does indicate is that the group has more of a heterosexual support base. It does not indicate that the organisation itself is made up predominantly of heterosexuals. Out of the leadership listed in an above section, only one is a heterosexual. Despite this, some detractors online have been the victim of a game of telephone: "7% of LGB Alliance newsletter subscribers are lesbians" became "7% of the group are lesbians", then "93% of the group are heterosexual".

As has been seen, there are plenty of reasons to criticise the group without reproducing falsehoods. Groups like the LGB Alliance may represent a sliver of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people without being representative of the wider community. More conservative tendencies within the gay community will of course receive support from conservative heterosexual people who don't necessarily have the best interests of gay people in mind. That is nothing new, and not strictly limited to gay people as a minority group. It would be most honest to treat the LGB Alliance as the divisive, self-defeating wing of the LGBT community that it is, than to pretend there are no anti-trans activists who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. After all, the Log Cabin Republicans also exist. Both the LGB Alliance and Log Cabin Republicans have shown a tendency to defend homophobic politicians to some extent or another. This isn't something your average gay person likes, and most gay people aren't anti-trans, either.

Contested charity status
In 2020, a co-founder and director for the group stated: "We're applying for charitable status and building an organisation to challenge the dominance of those who promote the damaging theory of gender identity." In 2021, the UK Charity Commission granted the LGB Alliance charity status. This was quickly appealed by LGBT rights groups, and according to the Charity Times their appeal received widespread support in Britain's LGBT community. The Charity Commission also entered talks with the group after a statement it posted that "Adding the + to LGB gives the green light to paraphilias like bestiality". The statement was removed by Twitter.

The UK Charity Commission had investigated and rejected allegations of LGB Alliance engaging in discrimination against transgender people, though it also "noted some evidence of social media activity (information that was posted or re-posted on social media) by LGB Alliance and considered that some of the language used may be regarded as inflammatory and offensive". The ruling was condemned by over 50 UK LGBT Pride groups, who published a joint open letter in response. An appeal against the decision was lodged by Mermaids, the Good Law Project, and other organisations, due to be heard in 2022. The purpose of the LGB Alliance, given to the Charity Commission, is supposedly to "promote equality and diversity and human rights". This is far from what it does in practice, so it is conceivable that the challenge to their charitable status could successfully overturn it. Then again, plenty of bigoted political groups are registered charities. So, probably not. But that is yet to be determined.

Attempted international expansion
While it remains basically accurate to describe them as a British organisation, they have made some mostly-unsuccessful attempts to establish branches in other countries. It is worth noting that upon analysis, the initial following for many of these supposed "international" branches largely originated from the UK. Those that exist are mainly notable for receiving condemnation from other groups, such as local feminists or LGBT groups. Others have been broadly ignored. Nonetheless, their international branches have been active in lobbying against LGBT rights on various fronts, and they do enjoy at least some supportive attention from right-wing media outside the United Kingdom.

Australia
"LGB Alliance Australia" is a group that appears to share a name with a one-time vandal on RationalWiki. We cannot imagine if there is any relation.

Ireland
In an interesting move, a branch known as "LGB Alliance Ireland" was established in October 2020... as a British company operating out of London. The majority of Irish feminists are not anti-trans. Many consider TERFism to be an imperialist, colonialist movement that is unwanted in Ireland, and over 1,200 organisations and individuals in the Irish feminist movement signed an open letter in 2018 opposing the import of British TERFism.

LGB Alliance Ireland tried to pressure schools into withdrawing from an anti-bullying campaign, designed to help LGBT children. The campaign, BeLonG To, distributes packs to schools across the country that draw attention to the violence, discrimination and bullying LGBT+ young people often face in school. The group was lambasted by Irish scientist and artist Robert Bohan, who branded the LGB Alliance Ireland "an infamous hate group masquerading as a gay rights organisation."

United States
A branch called the "LGB Alliance USA" technically exists, mostly on social media. They apparently get some coverage among right-wing groups: Focus on the Family (an evangelical Christian conservative group) quoted them to attack "Disney Wokeness" — that is, Disney's opposition to the anti-LGBT policies of Ron DeSantis — in 2022. It is perhaps not coincidental that Focus on the Family was also previously found to have been extensively funding and platforming WoLF, another TERF organisation in the United States. One of the LGB Alliance USA's "Detransitioner Peer Group Coordinators" is Carol Freitas, a self-described "transition abolitionist".

Pissed at us


The LGB Alliance submitted a document to the seminar on academic freedom claiming that:

They did not clarify which statements were allegedly false or defamatory. Their submission also objected to the fact that social media companies have begun to consider transphobia on par with racism:

On the bright side, we did get this succinct refutation out of their Twitter screed about Google search results.

Diapers and sea shanties
One supporter of the group, "best-known for making a 'sea shanty'" for the LGB Alliance, once wore a diaper to an anti-trans protest, in a brilliant stroke of "parody".