The Lush Campaign: A Dangerous Ideology

I went on Spirit Radio this morning to talk about the Lush controversy. In this interview, I spoke about what it feels like – both as a parent and as someone who works with people who have medically transitioned, as well as those who have detransitioned – to witness childhood being colonised by ideas that were once confined to Tumblr blogs and the weird world of queer theory.

The idea that concepts like "trans kids" and "gender-affirming care" are being promoted in such a light and breezy way by a cosmetics retailer beggars belief. Is this the work of hapless marketers – or, more likely, part of a well-funded, highly organised campaign driven by trans lobby groups?

Last week, The Times and Daily Mail reported a story that’s stuck with me. A mother had taken her seven-year-old to a birthday party at a Lush store. The children did what you’d expect—made bath bombs, played with glittery soaps, and came home with party bags.

But tucked inside those bags, alongside the lavender fizz and sparkle, was something else: a leaflet about trans kids and “gender-affirming care.”

That detail stopped me cold.

At first, the mother thought it must have been a mistake. Some over-eager staff member is handing out the wrong flyer. But no, this was part of an official campaign. Not just in one store, but in more than a hundred across the UK and Ireland. Posters promote “gender affirming care” and ‘the dream of trans liberation’ as if it is a positive approach rather than a discredited model of care that has caused untold devastation to children and their families.

A member of Genspect Ireland spoke to a Lush shop assistant in Dundrum Town Centre and was enthusiastically told how to obtain puberty blockers without going through the health system. Demonstrating the worst of corporate activism, the staff in Lush hand out literature about transitioning, even to children, in party bags.

Children are gullible. They believe what adults tell them. If a trusted adult says, “Maybe you’re a boy in a girl’s body,” or “Being trans is your path to joy,” they presume this is the truth. And when companies like Lush repeat those messages, with their branding, their social power, their access to kids, we are putting vulnerable children on a dangerous trajectory.

Let’s be clear about what’s happening here. This isn’t about inclusion or kindness. It’s about pushing a medicalised ideology on vulnerable young people, disguised in the soft language of self-care.

At Genspect, we wrote about this in depth last week:
👉 Bath Bombs and Body Politics: How Corporate Activism Markets Medical Transition to Kids

This campaign by Lush is just one example of how corporate activism has overstepped, moving from “allyship” to full-on ideological promotion of medical pathways for children. It’s not just in activist spaces anymore. It’s at the shopping centre. It’s in your shopping bag. It’s being marketed to seven-year-olds at birthday parties.

This isn’t harmless. This isn’t just rainbow soap. This is a marketing ideology that leads, in many cases, to lifelong medicalisation: puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, mastectomies. And we are meant to smile and nod as it’s packaged in bath bombs and glitter.

You don’t have to be political to care about this. You don’t have to be religious. You just have to believe in safeguarding. You have to believe that it’s wrong to push irreversible medical interventions on children, especially when we know that most gender-questioning kids, if given time and support, will grow out of it without medical treatment.

This campaign erases those kids. It erases boys who don’t conform to gender stereotypes and who will, if they are allowed to experience puberty, will typically grow up to be gay, lesbian or bisexual. It erases autistic girls who are more likely to struggle with identity and need time, not affirmation. It silences detransitioners—young people who now live with regret, pain, and permanent physical damage.

And yet Lush, a soap company, has taken it upon itself to suggest to families that "gender affirming care" is a joyful experience rather than an unevidenced and discredited medical pathway that leads to infertility, sexual impairment and a host of health complications such as osteoporosis, cardiac problems and early Alzheimers.

While Lush may have lost the plot, we parents and laypeople can still exercise our spending power – here's how you can join the fightback against this wave of corporate activism.

What You Can Do

When I speak to people privately, many tell me they’re deeply concerned, but they don’t know what to do. They feel outnumbered, silenced, and uncertain.

So here are a few practical ways to push back:

• Contact Lush. Email them directly and tell them how you feel: wecare@lush.co.uk or lushpr@lush.co.uk - Let them know you won’t be shopping there anymore.

• Contact Dundrum Shopping Centre customerservice@dundrum.ie or any local store or shopping centre that hosts a Lush outlet. Ask them whether they’re comfortable with a brand promoting medical ideology to children.

• Contact standards@asai.ie (The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) are responsible for promoting, regulating, and enforcing the highest standards in advertising.)

• Contact Liveline and ask them to cover this joe@rte.ie If you're in Northern Ireland, try reaching out to Stephen Nolan or other local radio shows across Britain that discuss topics like this.

• Share the reporting. Link the Genspect article and the Times piece with other parents - especially beyond your echo chamber. Most people don’t know this is happening.

• Support groups that speak out. We need more people willing to challenge the narrative—not with hate, but with facts, care, and courage.

• Talk to your children. Give them space to explore without labelling, without ideology. Explain the concept of corporate activism. Equip them with the knowledge they need to understand that there’s no wrong way to be a girl or a boy.

Children deserve joy. They deserve creativity, play, and fun. They deserve to wear what they want, like what they like, and grow up without being told their bodies are wrong.

They don’t need corporate activism selling them trans ideology. Let’s make sure our kids’ birthday parties are full of sparkles, not slogans. And let’s tell Lush that we're not buying what they’re selling.