Alert readers will be familiar with this site’s ongoing quest for an explanation as to why controversy-plagued charity LGBT Youth Scotland continues to operate in dozens of Scottish primary and even nursery schools, pushing gender ideology onto children as young as four despite only having a remit to support 13-25-year-olds.
Last month we were, to coin a phrase, stonewalled by Scotland’s charity regulator, the OSCR, but we filed a review request and today we received – a couple of weeks past the deadline – a response.
We are far from the only people raising concerns about the charity – we know of at least 17 separate formal complaints against LGBTYS in the past year alone, yet the OSCR has declined to open any sort of formal inquiry into them. (It carried out three such inquiries in 2024.)
But despite the OSCR’s assertion that “we strive to be transparent and accountable”, when we went to find those complaints (including, of course, the one from ourselves) to link you to them, we hit a brick wall that rapidly turned into a whole new concern.
In relation to yesterday’s article, we’ve now filed the following with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.
I request a review of this decision.
Firstly, I wish to note that since the response I received was a wholly generic one containing no reference or relevance to any of the specifics of my case, it should not have taken until the 28th day of the 28-day deadline to deliver. This appears to be a deliberate stalling tactic.
The information I sought did not involve the disclosure of any sensitive identities or data. It is in fact an attempt to establish the answer to an extremely basic question of first principles: why is LGBT Youth Scotland operating so far outwith its stated remit?
Since the fact that it IS doing so is not in any question – its own public statements declare that it is operating widely and openly in primary schools – it is a matter of plain and overwhelming public interest that this glaring anomaly be explained. The charity itself refuses to do so, or even to enter into any discussion of the matter, so it becomes a matter for its ostensible regulator.
Since the public is unable to ask the OSCR to speak on behalf of LGBTYS, the only remaining option to achieve transparency, accountability and public confidence is to seek the information requested and thereby discern the answer via the OSCR.
Why is an organisation whose remit concerns intrinsically sexual matters and exclusively encompasses 13-25-year-olds being allowed to operate in primary (and indeed nursery) schools and discuss such sexual matters with children 10 years below its minimum stipulated age range?
Given LGBTYS’s refusal, that duty then lies with the OSCR, and it should not evade it. The public deserves to know both that OSCR has in fact complied with its own responsibilities and carried out a satisfactory investigation, and what the outcome of that investigation was, given that nothing has changed in respect of the charity’s actions since concerns were raised with the OSCR a year ago and LGBTYS continues to far exceed its stated brief.
There are in this case no redactions which would reveal any sort of information that would place anyone at risk. The identities of LGBTYS and/or OSCR employees could be safely redacted if appropriate, while the substance of the discussion remained visible. What matters is that the question was asked, and that the public be told the answer.
None of OSCR’s stated objections to answering the FOI request are pertinent to this particular enquiry. It has no valid excuse to refuse. We fully expect it to do so anyway, because nobody in Scotland is answerable for anything any more. But we’re required to give them another 28 days to waste everyone’s time before we approach the only person in Scotland who appears to still believe in their civic and professional duty: the Information Commissioner.
Barring a miracle, we’ll see you on the 15th of May, readers.
Having received no response from multiple emails to the charity, we raised the matter with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator last year, and heard nothing from them about the results of their investigation – or indeed, come to that, about whether they’d actually conducted an investigation at all.
So a month ago we sent them a Freedom Of Information request to find out. At the last possible second before the deadline to reply expired, the OSCR have this morning deigned to grace us with their response, which you can read below.
It’s increasingly common now for the Scottish news to feature another prison scandal or employment-tribunal judgment highlighting the extent of gender-ideology capture in the country’s public authorities.
But it’s normally quite hard to get an overall picture of just how captured any particular public body really is, so we should offer some thanks to the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) who’ve helpfully provided us with a comprehensive primer in the form of a briefing for a board update later this week.
Innocent readers might have thought that the people managing a national park would be most concerned about attracting visitors, protecting wildlife, repairing paths and keeping local businesses sustainable, that sort of thing. But that’s not how things work in Scotland any more.
Because the CNPA are about to present the organisation’s 19 board members with an 91-page report and annex detailing all their vital work on… equalities issues.
So as promised, and having now spent 11 months trying to get answers any other way, this afternoon we had a live chat with controversial charity LGBT Youth Scotland.
In April last year we wrote to LGBT Youth Scotland asking them to explain why they were conducting activities in primary schools (and even with pre-school children) about sexual matters despite only having a remit to work with young people aged 13-25.
We received no reply, so we contacted the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, who sent a rather sniffy acknowledgement saying:
“If your concern leads us to making inquiries with the charity, we are unable to update you on the status of those inquiries. For more information about what to expect after you submit a concern, read our guidance on how OSCR deals with concerns and inquiries.”
That link, you’ll be amazed to hear, leads to a dead page.
Much of Scotland, and indeed the rest of the UK and beyond (the story below ran in the London Standard), has been grimly gripped this week by the ongoing and scarcely believable trainwreck that is Sandie Peggie Vs NHS Fife.
The tribunal has now overrun the time allotted to it, and will reconvene for another 10 days in the second half of July, ramping up the already considerable costs incurred by NHS Fife, which is in the middle of a huge financial crisis.
According to legal experts, there is little doubt about the law surrounding the dispute. NHS Fife is clearly and unambiguously in the wrong – Dr Beth Upton, the transwoman at the centre of the problem, is legally as well as biologically male, and had no lawful entitlement to be in a female changing room. The authority also appears to be in very considerable potential trouble over failing to disclose key documents and evidence when ordered by the original judge.
So it seems remarkable that the board of NHS Fife is allowing the case to continue rather than immediately conceding to save money and any more public humiliation of both itself and its staff, like the hapless nurse manager Esther Davidson who endured a very uncomfortable two days in the witness box this week, and the clearly manifestly incompetent Equality And Human Rights Lead Officer, Isla Bumba, who yesterday deleted her LinkedIn page after being identified as the person who gave Davidson incorrect and unlawful guidance.
Readers may have noticed recent speculation in the media (based on the wording of a press release) that Police Scotland had ended their investigations regarding Operation Branchform. As it happened we’d already submitted a Freedom Of Information request aimed at finding that out, and the response arrived this evening.
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agent x on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: ““Nicola Sturgeon knew she would lose independence court case – but still spent £250k of public cash on proving this”…” Aug 13, 20:50
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Nae Need! on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Spot on Sally for the first 3 paras. Personally, I don’t believe a word of her PERSONAL account. She’s a…” Aug 13, 20:41
Southernbystander on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “I have lived here all my life and I can tell you England is not collapsing. Of course I understand…” Aug 13, 20:35
Hatey McHateface on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “@ James says: 13 August, 2025 at 6:42 pm You’ll need both hands free to check this out, but the…” Aug 13, 20:35
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Nae Need! on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Dan says: 13 August, 2025 at 7:44 pm Hmm, as stated several times already, I’m fairly sure that’s a different…” Aug 13, 20:28
Nae Need! on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Dan says: 13 August, 2025 at 7:44 pm Hmm, as stated several times already, I’m fairly sure that’s a different…” Aug 13, 20:27
Southernbystander on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “I think Beckett wrote most if his work in French, then translated it into English. I think he liked to…” Aug 13, 20:27
Nae Need! on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Hatey McHateface says: 12 August, 2025 at 10:38 pm Perhaps more true to the actual, lived reality: Frankly, My Queer,…” Aug 13, 20:23
Dan on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Hmm, as stated several times already, I’m fairly sure that’s a different Liz Lloyd. https://archive.is/RaImG” Aug 13, 19:44
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George Ferguson on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “@Dan Thank you for enquiry previously into my health. I am doing great, a brilliant operation done by the SNHS.…” Aug 13, 19:31
Nae Need! on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Indeed. LL working for Starmer? I didn’t know that. Makes sense. She’s a good fit.” Aug 13, 19:17
TURABDIN on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “should have read…BESIDES it is for Scotland to reclaim her sovereignty rather than for England to relinquish it, however unwillingly.” Aug 13, 19:15
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agent x on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Was there a reason to give a French translation as opposed to Mandarin Chinese, Swahili or evens Scots?” Aug 13, 19:08
Nae Need! on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Indeed. And government disrupting society, in this way, can in some instances be called treason.” Aug 13, 19:08
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Nae Need! on The Endless Evil Of Everyone Else: “Straight answers . . . you only get a straight answer from a narcissist when it’s a categorical denial of…” Aug 13, 18:53