Lush promotes self-harm
The cosmetics shop is encouraging young women to bind their breasts
Lush is a British cosmetics retailer with nearly 1,000 stores in 49 countries, and it might be the greatest example of big business adopting a woke ideology in which it supplies girls with the tools for self-harm.
In 2018 Lush joined forces with Morgane Oger, a male who helped defund a rape crisis centre because it didn’t cater to men who identify as women, to “raise awareness” for trans rights.
In 2019 LGBT youth group Prism was invited by Lush to fundraise from the sale of its charity pots - in which Prism’s mentors represented the group in one store in Coventry. One of those representatives was Aimee Challenor.
That same year, Lush issued an apology after it emerged that some of the money from its charity pots had gone to a women’s group, and this upset trans activists. To make up for this, its Oxford Street store raised money for Trans Media Watch, while Lush has raised money for several other trans organisations, such as Mermaids.
In 2020, amid the height of the pandemic, a Lush store in Edinburgh, in response to a sticker that had been placed on a Lush store window saying prisons should remain single-sex, erected a sign telling customers, underneath a statement saying ‘All are welcome. Always’, that said that people should not enter the store if they have signs of “Covid-19 … or transphobia”.
But in 2021 the activism took to a new level of grooming.
Its Paddington store, which recently promoted books about transitioning genders and raised money for My Genderation, posted on Instagram that it is now stocking breast binders.
The store is offering a ‘Binder collection point’ in which anyone can purchase a breast binder provided they donate at least £7 to G(end)er Swap, a ‘clothing outreach organisation that supports trans and non-binary individuals’, and provide contact details.
If anyone is unsure what a breast binder is, there are several pages on Transgender Trend about them, while one study found over 97 percent of 1,800 young women who used a binder reported at least one negative outcome attributed to binding. The BBC once had a doctor answer questions about trans issues, and one of them was from a girl who wears a binder, and was in pain because they had resulted in her ribs popping out. This post from last month on breast binding is common online.
As one online commentator put it: “Lush are like the [corporate] stranger who wants to give kids sweets. Except now it’s binders and they’re collecting their contact details, so they know where to find them again.”
UPDATE:
Have just done a v quick email to paddington@lush.co.uk.
Please can you supply the health and safety risk assessment tool Lush has used to assess your policy of supplying breast binders on behalf of a 3rd partner organisation?
I do not give permission for my name or contact details to be passed to any individual or organisation outside Lush.
Please also forward this email to the Lush head office.
Kind regards,
I've asked to see their safeguarding assessment, evidence of their consultation with medical, mental health and safeguarding professionals, and consideration of the impact of helping young women and girls hide potentially damaging practices from the adults at home.