Children in Need’s trans-pandering has got to stop

For a charity that’s supposed to be all about helping children, BBC Children in Need (CIN) seems to be remarkably blasé about child safeguarding. Last week, it emerged that CIN – the BBC’s charity for disadvantaged children – had been funding a trans-youth charity with connections to historic child-sex abuse.

In a scathing resignation letter seen by The Times, former CIN chair Rosie Millard accused the organisation’s management of ‘institutional failure’, after it took three months to suspend funding to the controversial trans charity, LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS).

Until 2009, LGBTYS was headed by convicted child abuser James Rennie. He was sentenced to life in jail for sexually assaulting his three-month-old godson, and for conspiring to gain ­access to children in order to abuse them. He and another man were revealed to be the leaders of Scotland’s biggest paedophile ring.

Incredibly, Rennie’s conviction did not deter CIN from doling out funds to LGBTYS. Nor, as Janice Turner reported earlier this year, did it prompt an investigation into the charity’s operations or culture by either the police or the Scottish Charity Regulator.

In fact, the first tranche of cash from CIN was awarded to LGBTYS just seven months after Rennie was sentenced. Then, in 2010, LGBTYS distributed ‘coming out’ guidance co-written by a Scottish drag queen called Andrew Easton. Easton was later convicted of child sex offences, which included sharing disturbing pictures of newborn babies.

Things continued to get worse for LGBTYS. In 2022, two men claimed to have been groomed at the charity around the time that Rennie was still chief executive. In response to the allegations, LGBTYS suspended one staff member and referred itself to the police. Yet it wasn’t until two years later in September 2024 that CIN announced that funding for LGBTYS had finally been suspended. In the interim, the charity was awarded £466,000.

In Millard’s damning resignation later, she writes that, upon questioning CIN’s decision to continue funding LGBTYS, members of management ‘did everything in their power to distract the board from its duty to sever funding’. She alleges that CIN chief executive Simon Antrobus only agreed to withdraw funds ‘out of fear of publicity’. Millard claims that when Antrobus was informed of the historic child-sex abuse, he complained that the news had spoiled his evening out at a Bruce Springsteen concert. According to Millard, other CIN employees were similarly dismissive, with one suggesting that a victim was simply ‘out to get’ LGBTYS.

LGBTYS is also on the defensive. Rather than expressing sympathy with any of the victims or concern about the culture that may have been fostered, current LGBTYS head Mhairi Crawford has claimed that ‘those with anti-inclusivity motives point to historic allegations in attempts to destroy our reputation. Allegations that have been investigated and cleared by Police Scotland, and proven to have had no link to our work.’

Sam Cowie is one former service user of LGBTYS who accused the charity of serious safeguarding failures leading to abuse. Now, a 28-year-old gay man who is critical of transgender ideology, he is undoubtedly one of those Crawford would accuse of being ‘anti-inclusivity’. Cowie told me:

‘For Children in Need to have started funding LGBTYS only months after their CEO was convicted of raping a baby and running a large paedophile ring is shocking to me. For the funding to have continued on for years after, and amid other scandals, speaks volumes. Unfortunately, safeguarding concerns appear to be chucked from a window when they involve an LGBT charity.’

As Cowie suggests, LGBTYS is not the only LGBT charity funded by CIN that has made safeguarding errors. In 2019, CIN gave funding to Mermaids, the scandal-hit trans-youth charity. Mermaids is infamous for encouraging minors to take puberty-blocking drugs and sending children dangerous breast-binders behind their parents’ backs. It also appointed Dr Jacob Breslow as a trustee, an academic who once gave a speech to a symposium for ‘people who are attracted to minors’. During this, he compared child abuse to masturbating on to a shoe. He resigned following the revelations. CIN has never apologised for awarding Mermaids funding.

In fact, CIN has not hidden its embrace of trans ideology in the slightest. It boasts on its website that it is ‘currently funding 37 projects to the value of over £2.6million specifically focussed on young people affected by issues of sexual identity and gender identity’.

As with LGBTYS, those Millard accuses at CIN have insulated themselves with ideology. From funding charities linked to convicted paedophiles to ignoring safeguarding concerns, their actions have betrayed the trust of donors and endangered children. While its telethons rake in millions, CIN seems more focussed on protecting reputations than protecting the vulnerable. For a charity dedicated to children, complacency in the face of such harm is inexcusable.

Jo Bartosch is a journalist campaigning for the rights of women and girls.