Money from the Tampon Tax designed to support women used to fund trans youth conference

[OrchidInTheSun]

The Proud Trust received nearly £100,000 from the Tampon Tax "to improve the safety, mental health and social inclusion of disadvantaged lesbian/bisexual women, and intergenerational opportunities benefiting older lesbian/bisexual women."

They used some of this money to fund a trans youth conference. This event is for young trans people - including those who identify as non-binary or non-gender – who will come together to meet each other and to take part in workshops and discussions. In allocating places at the conference, NTYN will give priority to them. So, we will not be able to accommodate others who wish to attend.
The theme for this year’s event is ‘Trans Representation in the Media’. The day will include some workshops, speakers and a chance for you to share ideas you have about how to increase diverse representation of trans young people in the media.

The event was also sponsored by GIRES and Mermaids.

Incidentally, the Proud Trust is based in Manchester and received regional funding from the Tampon Tax. The conference was held in London.

(Via @womanhavewombs on Twitter - sorry can't figure out how to copy the tweet)

How dare they.

I work for an organisation which will give out grants as a result of tampon tax money. I can't say more because it will be outing so you will have to trust me that grass roots groups benefited before (supporting almost 18,000 women and girls) and will do again (only this time far more!)
At first I was absolutely disgusted by the premise of the fund but then I decided to be pragmatic about it and so I applied for funding.
I know the good it has done. I'm immensely proud of the good it has done. I think my organisation has used it in an extremely responsible way.

Perhaps a lesbian/bisexual woman from the Northwest could write to them (address attached) and ask for a breakdown of expenditure of this money, and ask how much was spent on the Trans conference?

An organization like WEP or MP would carry more weight, but I'm sure they wouldn't want to get involved.

If no satisfactory answer is obtained, then a complaint could be made to the Charity Commission or to the government office which allocated the money.

Thank you crome. I'm going to write to the Charity Commission tomorrow. Fucking arseholes.

But this tax isn't applied to bog roll etc is it.

The fact that we can't change it without Europe is also an issue, why does the eu think that these products are not staples.

Or maybe it is...

Until recently it was taxed at full whack though so what was that about

Sanitary products used to be taxed at the luxury rate but are now at 5% which is the lowest allowable under EU law apparently.

This raises what I think is one of the key successes of transactivism. Huge sums of money are going to the tragender movement through LGBTQ charities--not just Stonewall but lots of local ones with lower profiles. It comes from our taxes, funnelled through NHS, schools, and local government, plus charity donations like BBC Children in Need. Then of course many private and public organizations pay these LGBTQ charities for diversity training, which is another source of funding.

Whatever you think of Mermaids or Gendered Intelligence, they are open about their agenda. The LGBTQ organizations push the same agenda but covertly.

To give another Manchester example, the LGBT Foundation supports Morf which provides free breast binders to girls--and will send them secretly so that the parents don't know.

It''s very strictly illegal under EU law to exempt anything from VAT because the EU want their grubby mitts on it, they get a fixed % of VAT receipts.

In most EU countries VAT is charged on EVERYTHING, including the most basic foodstuffs.

I wish they would use the money to supply free products to girls in the UK who can't afford them and to girls abroad who live in a way were they don't only miss out on education but could for as a result of having a period (and the treatment of girls when they do/insanitary conditions

This raises what I think is one of the key successes of transactivism. Huge sums of money are going to the tragender movement through LGBTQ charities--not just Stonewall but lots of local ones with lower profiles. It comes from our taxes, funnelled through NHS, schools, and local government, plus charity donations like BBC Children in Need. Then of course many private and public organizations pay these LGBTQ charities for diversity training, which is another source of funding.

Yes, I know someone who is still working for an LGBT organisation (although becoming increasingly disillusioned). She told me that funding is being massively diverted from the work with lesbian/bi women (which of course now includes men anyway....) to the trans projects. The women's support groups etc are all now run by volunteers from the universities - young, inexperienced students who are heavily indoctrinated in transactivist ideology - so it's a triple whammy for any women needing the service - the funding has been cut, the women's groups now include males and the volunteers running them aren't just inexperienced but actively promoting an agenda which disadvantages them.

I stopped any involvement with formal LGBT organisations some time ago due to the transactivist bollocks but, towards the end of my involvement, I noticed a few events for lesbian/bi women (e.g. one-off workshops for International Women's Day) which were run by trans groups - not necessarily on trans issues but on stuff like 'empowering women', 'being a strong woman', 'being a creative woman' or whatever and these transwomen/trans-identified males would come in to 'educate' us.

Thinking back, I think this was probably another way to divert funding - Presumably they were being paid to run these sessions so the money would be recorded as being spent on support/projects for lesbian and bi women (possibly from a grant which had to be spent on that specific group) but the money would end up in the hands of transactivist groups.

Wow, LazyMonday.

That's interesting to hear from the front lines, LazyMondayMornings, though depressing.

It is outrageous, because when the average person hears "LGBTQ" s/he assumes that the funding is shared equally.

It's relevant to consider population estimates: 0.7% of women are lesbian, 0.5% are bisexual. Therefore 0.6% of the population are lesbian/bi women.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q_Fgszba3tS8fpoYxHcvJQO2VEcXpQP7v6ds0-PEFrQ/edit#gid=2

In comparison, 0.26% are trans in the sense of having undergone or contemplating medical transition.
fairplayforwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Monitoring-Gender-Nonconformity.pdf

So to achieve parity in funding per person, you'd need to spend about twice as much on lesbian/bi women as on trans people.

When i go to lgbt+ things at work it is all about trans, gay men / lesbians and bisexual people hardly get a mention.

In a place near where I work soon there is an event where the boxing promoter (maloney?) is going to be speaking to discuss being a woman in a male dominated industry. I was [FFS].

Good on them for raising awareness

When I looked into this earlier, I looked up the Pride Trust on the Charity Commission. Their income in the last financial year was over £600k. There a lot of money sloshing around in 'diversity'

Bang out of order
Glad I don't use tampons I hate them.
If you can, try CSP or other reusable sanitary protection.
Tampons are full of chemicals and an element of their existence is pandering to the idea that our menstrual blood is dirty and smells once it is outside the body i.e. protecting men from the horror of acknowledging menstrual blood

Just to clarify what I suspect may be a misunderstanding- it's not just tampons that are taxed. All disposable sanitary protection is. So towels, tampons and panty liners. I'm not sure about menstrual cups (my favourite). The name is hides the true story a little bit!

A little dated, but some good FOI data here.

Whatever you think of Mermaids or Gendered Intelligence, they are open about their agenda

"Despite its influence, it is worth noting what Mermaids is not. It is not a research body. Its activities are support (for families) and advocacy: based on its contacts with those families, it argues for what it sees are better policies and practices by the NHS and others. It does not carry out or commission clinical or academic research. Its most recent annual report lists among its charitable activities “campaigning and advocacy” and says: “Mermaids has also become more active in lobbying”.

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/why-are-some-mps-trying-to-shut-down-the-transgender-debate/

The tampon tax will be used for the benefit of people who don't need sanitary protection, because they don't have female organs.
How is that fair?

This is so outrageous I don't even know where to begin

It''s very strictly illegal under EU law to exempt anything from VAT because the EU want their grubby mitts on it, they get a fixed % of VAT receipts. Tbf that has already been changed and in the future it will be possible for each EU country to set the tax even at 0%

VAT is a tax on luxury items, to help curb inflation. It would be possible for the EU to list sanitary protection in a different category, so it is not liable for VAT.

From 2015;
''George Osborne has refused to slash the much-debated "tampon tax" in his Autumn Statement, saying that the £15m raised from VAT placed on sanitary products each year will be ploughed into women's charities, including domestic abuse refuges.''
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/autumn-statement-george-osborne-says-tampon-tax-will-fund-womens-charities-a6748241.html

Archived link;
archive.is/5VgD0

When in fact George is ploughing money in to groups busy erasing women, and in particular lesbians.

Well done George, mum must be so proud.

I am lesbian and will no longer use the word LGBT as anything to do with me. It isn't. I haven't been happy with it for a while, but when I saw the plan for grooming the public into having paedophilia forced on them as a lovely inclusive idea and saw P had appeared in the LGBAlphabetSoup that was it.

It's a political label now, not a reference to a general section of the community, and I want nothing to do with it. It revolts me.