This weekend the Brighton Centre will host the Filia Conference 2025, an event which bills itself as a feminist event, raising issues about global women's rights. Sounds great, right? Well, it’s a lie. Because behind the branding is a platform for exclusion.

Behind the slogans is a long history of anti-trans rhetoric. And behind the speakers’ smiles is hate dressed up as “debate”. The conference organisers have a long history of exclusionary, anti-trans rhetoric and have invited many transphobic speakers who pretend that women’s rights are being threatened by trans rights. 

The green-lighting of this conference represents an abject failure of the Brighton Centre and the Council's duty to safeguard the vulnerable communities of Brighton.

Although not all speakers are anti-trans, they have invited some of the loudest and most hateful transphobes. Julie Bindel, Martina Navratilova and Joanna Cherry will be there, not to uplift women but to attack trans people, to pretend that our rights threaten their rights. They want to force their bigoted brand of feminism upon all women. They call themselves “gender critical”. Let’s be clear, they are only critical of trans people. Just like anti-abortion campaigners call themselves “pro-life”, rebranding hate does not make it respectable. 

You might be asking why such an obviously transphobic conference is allowed to happen in Brighton, the most trans-friendly city in the country, and why would they want to come here in the first place? The Brighton Centre, owned by Brighton & Hove City Council, which should have policies to protect minorities have failed to carry out proper due diligence in their haste to sell bookings.

They call themselves “gender critical”. Let’s be clear, they are only critical of trans people.

Even a 30-second search shows that the Filia website is a hotbed of transphobia going back many years, using dogwhistle terms and outright denying the existence of trans people. Despite our best efforts to lobby elected members, the council insists that they are powerless to prevent their own buildings being used to spread hate against people with a protected characteristic. We wonder if the Council would say the same thing if an explicitly racist or homophobic group wanted to hold a conference in our city. 

The green-lighting of this conference represents an abject failure of the Brighton Centre and the Council's duty to safeguard the vulnerable communities of Brighton. This is a failure of leadership and is an affront to the city's longstanding values of being a safe haven for trans and non-binary people. Our city is being invaded by transphobes this weekend, and our community's voices have not been listened to. 

The Brighton Centre, owned by Brighton & Hove City Council, which should have policies to protect minorities, have failed to carry out proper due diligence in their haste to sell bookings.

What can you as an ally or a trans person do about this? They may have rented the building but we own the streets. Trans Pride is a protest and we encourage everyone to stand up against hate in whatever creative way they can dream of. There are many protests planned across the city over the weekend, cisgender allies have purchased tickets to infiltrate the venue and there are safe spaces being set up at community venues. 

There is power in numbers and there is pride in resistance. People who believe in and support the basic dignity of trans people vastly outnumber those who don’t. Stand up. Make your voice be heard. Say it loud and say it proud: Transphobic hate is not welcome in Brighton. 

Lead pic by Sharon Kilgannon 

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Written by
Sarah Savage

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