Museum scraps reference to LGB Alliance as ‘anti-trans hate group’
The text accompanied three drawings supporting the trans community displayed at Weston Museum. (Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)
A museum in Weston-Super-Mare has removed text from an art exhibit that described LGB Alliance as an “anti-trans hate group” after backlash from the group’s supporters.
The text accompanied three drawings supporting the trans community displayed at Weston Museum. It described the drawings as an attempt to “portray the damaging effects of discrimination”, to inform about “the issues facing trans people” and to show that “in the waves of hatred they face, trans people are not alone”.
But references in the museum’s text to LGB Alliance provoked an immediate and angry response from the group and from its supporters on social media.
Before its removal, the museum’s text accompanying the artwork described the LGB Alliance as “an anti-trans hate group with ties to American white supremacist organisations” that it said had been “working to drive a wedge between homosexuals and trans people with exclusionary rhetoric and transphobic abuse directed at trans individuals at LGB Alliance events”.
The LGB Alliance complained to the museum on Thursday 12 October that these references were false and defamatory and demanded that the text be removed. The text was removed the same day.
An LGB Alliance spokesperson told the Daily Mail: “Truth matters in museums. Curators who allow a tiny minority of activists to promote extreme, outlandish – and in this case homophobic – views undermine their institution’s reputation and public trust in our shared cultural spaces.
“Hard-pressed taxpayers expect and deserve better.”
LGB Alliance added on Twitter that it had written to Weston Museum about the text, thanking them for “their prompt action in removing false and defamatory information about LGB Alliance from their display”.
The text now removed from the Weston Museum exhibit also criticised delays the government has made in banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’, as well as previous U-turns the government made over including trans people in a ban on conversion therapy: “The 2022 Conservative leadership race centred on politicians trying to one up each other on attacks against trans people, including withdrawing funds from pro-trans charities and creating anti-trans manifestos.
“This followed the previous government banning the cruel practice of conversion therapy against LGB people but deciding it was still appropriate for trans people to be subjected to.”
LGB Alliance, which was formed in 2019, purports to be as an organisation committed to “freedom of speech and biological definitions of sex”, and has associated with several so-called ‘gender-critical’ activists, including Graham Linehan, Rosie Duffield and Joanna Cherry.
It has been criticised on numerous occasions for its anti-trans stance, including making claims linking LGBTQ+ inclusion to bestiality.
In 2021, LGB Alliance claimed on Twitter that “adding the + to LGB gives the green light to paraphilias like bestiality … to all be part of one big happy ‘rainbow family’.”
The group was awarded charitable status in 2020, and was allowed to remain a registered charity after legal challenges by trans youth charity Mermaids, who claimed it was “fanciful” to suggest LGB Alliance serves lesbian, gay and bisexual people.
In 2022, LGB Alliance Ireland was described by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) as a “far-right hate and extremist group”, with GPAHE adding that LGB Alliance Ireland had embraced “beliefs and activities that demean, harass, and inspire violence against people based on their identity traits”.
PinkNews has contacted LGB Alliance and Weston Museum for comment.
