02-08-2025
Now Edinburgh Zoo caught up in 'transgendering' row over links with controversial group
Edinburgh Zoo is at the centre of a growing row over its links with a controversial gay and transgender rights group which was once led by a paedophile.
Bosses at the popular tourist attraction said 'engaging' with LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS) provides it with access to staff equality training, as part of a drive to ensure visitors and employees 'feel safe and welcome'.
It is the latest organisation to sign up to the group's charter despite accusations that it promotes radical trans 'ideology'.
The Mail revealed earlier this year that Police Scotland had paid LGBTYS more than £3,500 for training courses - and for 500 'purple button badges' to show solidarity with the gay and trans community.
Now a campaign group is calling for members of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), a wildlife conservation charity which runs the zoo, to raise their concern with zoo managers.
Dr Stuart Waiton, chairman of the Scottish Union for Education (SUE) and a sociologist at Abertay University in Dundee, said families had contacted the SUE about the 'transgendering of Edinburgh Zoo'.
He said: 'Despite the Supreme Court ruling [in April] that raises questions about transgender ideology and the claim that 'sex' is not binary, we still find that organisations in Scotland are continuing to fund organisations that train their staff to believe the opposite.
'Unsurprisingly, we now find that there are families who have decades of commitment to Edinburgh Zoo but find themselves in a position where they can no longer support the work of the RZSS.
'One concerned parent has not only cancelled her membership with the zoo but has drafted a letter to encourage others to do likewise.
'As she notes, there really is nothing in the charitable objective of the RZSS that requires them to sponsor the transgender ideology of LGBTYS.'
A recent SUE newsletter urges RZSS members to send a 'letter of concern' to the charity.
James Rennie, the former chief executive of LGBTYS, is serving life in prison for sexually assaulting a three-month-old after being convicted in 2009 along with seven others on sex abuse charges.
Andrew Easton, who co-wrote a schools guide for the youth charity, was convicted last year of sharing indecent images of children.
He was never an employee or volunteer with LGBTYS but in 2009 he was a young person who attended its services. It was then that he helped to write the guide.
LGBTYS has been supported by SNP ministers and receives £1million per year from taxpayer-funded organisations.
Last year, Rosie Millard quit as chairman of the BBC's Children in Need charity after protesting about grants given to the charity.
The Scottish Tories have said LGBTYS is 'mired in scandal' and that the SNP Government should suspend public funding from the organisation 'until it gets its act together'.
Schools which signed up to the charity's scheme, for a fee normally of at least £850, were ranked on how well they catered for LGBT pupils and received guides on how best to achieve this.
Secondary pupils have been encouraged to sign LGBT rainbow flags, with children asked to 'celebrate the rainbow' through the way they dress, and by decorating their schools - described by the Campaign for Real Education as 'brainwashing'.
LGBTYS insists that 'with [an] increasingly toxic and polarised public debate, it's vital that all young people feel safe, supported and included'.
According to LGBTYS, being accredited with its charter sends a 'positive message… that your organisation is a champion of LGBT inclusion where LGBTQ+ employees, students, customers, or service users will be safe, supported and included'.
RZSS refused to say how much it has spent on the LGBTYS charter process.
It is understood one RSZZ membership has been cancelled as a result of the row so far.
An RZSS spokesman said: 'We are continuing to work through the charter with the aim of completing the process by the end of this year.
'Our support for the LGBTQ+ community doesn't change our mission to care for animals and protect endangered species around the world.
'It simply reflects the belief that everyone deserves to feel safe and welcome, whether visiting the zoo or working within it.'
