On the Front Line of the War Against Women

The fight for our language, our boundaries and our rights

• Kate Harris, co-founder of LGB Alliance
• Victoria Smith, author of ‘Hags’
• Dr Laura Favaro, sociologist and academic

Chaired by Helen Staniland

Thursday 31 August, 7pm

Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea University

£15

Kate Harris

In July, LGB Alliance defeated a legal challenge led by transgender charity Mermaids and the LGBT Consortium to force the Charity Commission to revoke LGB Alliance’s charitable status. This is understood to be the first time a charity has ever sought to strip another charity of its charitable status and LGB Alliance’s victory is highly significant in the fight for free speech, freedom of association and diversity of views in a democratic society. Kate will talk about how LGB Alliance has had to fight threats, harassment and slander every step of the way since its formation in 2019, the toll taken by the two-year legal battle with Mermaids, and why an organisation to represent solely lesbians, gay men and bisexual people is so vital.

Victoria Smith

Victoria Smith is a feminist writer, with a particular interest in motherhood and intersections of misogyny and ageism. Her book Hags, on the demonisation of middle-aged women, was published in March.

Dr Laura Favaro

Laura is an academic who has been researching the silencing, discrimination and harassment of female academics who raise questions about gender identity theory. In 2019, she was invited by City, University of London, where she had completed her PhD in 2017, to return as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to carry out research into the ‘gender wars’. Her work has resulted in her being ostracised, bullied, subjected to false complaints, having her research stopped, her research data taken away, and losing her job. Laura is currently in the process of taking the case to an Employment Tribunal.

Helen Staniland

Helen Staniland is a Welsh speaker born and raised in the Swansea valley. She currently lives in London where she works as a software engineer for an investment bank. For the past decade she has been active in the women’s rights space, first as part of the No More Page 3 campaign, and since then raising awareness around both the erosion and need for women’s spaces and the harms of childhood transition. She is a permanent guest on the popular YouTube show ‘The Mess We’re In’ with Graham Linehan and ArtyMorty, and also hosts her own women centric show ‘Wine with Women’.