A 'trans widow', former English teacher and prize-winning poet whose collection Out of Eden celebrates the strength and resilience of working class women.

‘As one of the women featured in Behind The Looking Glass, I am delighted that FiLiA has invited me to support Vaishnavi’s work and share something of my story. My interview with Vaishnavi was the first time in 15 years I had felt properly ‘heard’.’

Lawyer, honorary life president of the International Federation of Women Lawyers. Mother of the Colombian gender quota law. Columnist for El País, Cali, Colombia. Hostess of the weekly TV program El Ágora, Charlas con Ángela on Telepacífico. Founder of the matriarchal eco-village Nashira and author of several books including Ethics of Care and Maternalism towards a Colombian Ginocracy? Co-founder the global movement MATRIARCHY NOW.

Political artist, lesbian feminist activist, writer and researcher. Her work is rooted in promoting unapologetic lesbian visibility, building lesbian culture and community, defending women-only spaces and challenging compulsory heterosexuality.

‘Each year, we grow together. Each time, I’m so happy to see that crowd in the room. The hugs! The laughter!

The sobs! The disco! Until one day, you realise… That’s the joy of being part of a feminist community.’

Emeritus Professor of Transnational Studies at the University of Sydney, and a longstanding lesbian and feminist activist in Australia, France, the UK and transnationally.

‘What makes me angry? Male violence against women and girls in all its forms. What do I find both risible and annoying, in pretty much equal measure? Political hypocrisy and opportunism. What brings me hope? A bunch of radical lefty feminists thinking, debating and organising, and standing in solidarity across all the (largely man-made) distances and barriers that divide us.’

Clinical psychologist, specialising in criminology and victimology. Founder of the Moroccan feminist activist group M.A.L.I

‘Feminism is the fight for women’s emancipation and by women. A fight for all oppressed women, who must never be divided so as not to allow patriarchy to reign.’

Activist, author and Campaigns Manager at Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation.

“Sex dolls and robots in the female form function as an endorsement of men’s sexual rights, with women and girls positioned as sexual objects. The production of these products further cements women’s second-class status.”

Feminist campaigner, artist and researcher from the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson) and Diné (Navajo) Nations. Founder of Women’s studies online (WMST) – an Indigenous-women led national non-profit organisation.

‘It has taken me a very long time to gather most parts of myself together. It’s also taken a very long time to do so without debilitating fear.’

Black Radical Feminist. Author. Award-Winning Essayist. FiLiA's Director of Anti-Racism and Lesbian Community Engagement (on sabbatical for 2025).

‘This last year the far-right has gained political power across Europe and in the United States of America, and so it’s crucial that we continue to affirm the dignity and worth of lesbian experiences when our rights are in jeopardy.’

Forty years working on male violence as an advocate, campaigner, conference organiser, crisis counsellor, policy officer, project manager, refuge worker, researcher, strategy developer, trainer, writer and general troublemaker.

“The sisterhood is real and has saved my sanity more than once.”

Political and human rights activist during the Shah regime and also the Islamic regime in Iran. Spent 12 years as a Kurdish freedom fighter against the Islamic regime. Founder of multi-award-wining women’s rights organisation IKWRO.

‘I was shocked when two decades ago, police told me: ‘“honour killing” is your culture and we have to respect it’; I responded to police that ‘honour’ killing is a crime, not culture, I then established IKWRO, in 2002.’

Feminist counsellor, activist, writer. Co-founder of Canada’s first monument to women murdered by their intimate partners. Author of Shattered Motherhood: Surviving the Guilt of a Child’s Suicide (2025).

‘I suspect that women’s debilitating guilt is our own powerlessness turned inward.’

Artist, feminist art activist and survivor of non-State torture in my childhood.

‘Little by little, I came back into my body, making deeper connections with my-Self that I was a girl, now a woman, a person with human rights not to be tortured. With healing came the freedom just to be me!’

Emma Thomas is the founder of Children of Transitioners, which campaigns for the safety and dignity of children whose parents have a transgender identity.

‘I’m so pleased to be back at FiLiA, and this time to be invited to speak! Vaishnavi Sundar’s amazing film Behind The Looking Glass is an expression of so much I have wanted to say for years, and I’m delighted to be part of the screening. I’ll also be speaking about Children of Transitioners and the legal system.’

Psychotherapist, writer, campaigner. Farah Naz speaks because her niece, Zara Aleena, cannot. Since Zara was murdered, Farah has spoken out against the silence that protects the status quo ‒ not just in systems, but in the culture and in the people who look the other way.

She speaks to honour Zara. To honour every woman murdered by a man. And to say what must be said: Violence against women isn’t inevitable. It’s enabled.

‘I speak because Zara can’t. I speak to honour her ‒and every woman who should still be here.’

Founder and CEO of Culture Reframed. Professor Emerita of Sociology and Women's Studies, Wheelock College, Boston.

‘FiLiA is the gold standard for what feminist activism should look like, as the world is increasingly being run by misogynist men who hold women and children hostage. I am so happy to be speaking at this great conference on the horrors of the porn industry, and how it shapes men and boys into seeing women as disposable sex objects. Rather than give in to despair, we need to harness our collective courage and bravery to give our rage a voice. Where better than FiLiA to turn that voice into action!’

Feminist lawyer and founding director of the legal charity, Centre for Women’s Justice, which aims to hold the state accountable for violence against women. She is author of Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men, which features some of the high profile cases she has brought on behalf of victims of male violence.

‘So many male perpetrators of violence were successfully claiming that ‘she provoked me because she wouldn’t shut up’ or ‘she was having an affair’ that we dubbed it the ‘nagging and shagging’ defence.’

Executive Director of CAP International, feminist activist and jurist specialised in international human rights law.

Her professional experience includes working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and advocating for The ONE Campaign against extreme poverty.

‘Prostitution is rooted in one of patriarchy’s oldest traditions: men’s sexual entitlement to women.’

Author, speaker and FGM survivor. Founder of Educate Not Mutilate.

‘Oh my goodness, the love that I got is going to carry me for the whole of the next two years to come. This energy is magic. Womanhood magic is here.’

Prostitution survivor, humanities graduate (Master's degree) and currently writing her doctoral thesis. Book author, founder of the German prostitution survivors network Netzwerk Ella, cat mom.

‘Johns are perpetrators.’

Photo credit to Michael Philipp Bader

Relational feminist activist, grassroots science researcher, author, educator, supporter of women’s healing from non-State torture victimisations.

‘Couldn’t say ‘misogyny’ at three, but I damn well refuse to name non-State torture as anything other than a torture crime.’

Julie Bindel is a journalist, author and feminist campaigner against men’s violence against women and girls. Her latest book is Lesbians: Where Are We Now? (Swift Press, 2025)

‘A healthy democracy depends on open debate and the inclusion of diverse viewpoints.’

Feminist idealistic cynic and professional Yorkshirewoman. Co-founder of The Femicide Census and founder of Counting Dead Women. Author of Defending Women's Spaces.

‘ It is in men‘s violence against women that we see some of the most horrific manifestations of sex inequality. Sex differences in victimisation and perpetration of sexual and domestic violence are unequivocal.’

Editor, translator, populariser of feminism, country contact for Women’s Declaration International.

‘An identity that is acquired with a performative speech act crumbles with speech acts that challenge it.’

Co-founder of Persons Against Non-State Torture (NST), educator, grassroots feminist, activist, networker, retired nurse, mother, grandmother.

“Born into an abusive family, I never gave up on my-Self. I refuse to give up on women and girls subjected to non-State torture!”

Founder and host of the Seahorse Planet podcast, a Chinese feminist podcast since 2018. Founder and CEO of the Seahorse Convention, an overseas Chinese feminist annual convention.

‘The answer is women.’

Activist, feminist lawyer, expert on VAW and president of the Portuguese NGO, Association against Femicide.

‘We need to name violence against women as Non-State Torture (NST). We need to address the seriousness of VAW: a system of terror and dehumanization. We need stronger commitments to tackle VAW, but we also need sisterhood to dismantle patriarchy and help each other heal.’

A feminist and socialist her whole adult life. Always an activist across numerous issues, because there are so many to tackle.

‘I rate working with others; with our shared ideas, determination and resilience we are so much stronger and can make positive change.

Oh, and I’m a happy lesbian!’

The most successful female tennis player of the Open era, Martina Navratilova amassed an unmatched number of professional records over the course of a career that spanned an amazing four decades. Still in phenomenal shape on the verge of 50, she became the oldest player to ever win a Grand Slam title.

‘Women are stronger than we get credit for.’

Saudi feminist academic who critiques how authoritarian regimes weaponise women’s rights to silence dissent and whitewash repression. Member of the Board of Directors at the NGO ALQST and trustee of Southall Black Sisters.

‘Feminist solidarity means refusing to look away – especially when the violence is politically inconvenient. Our liberation is empty if it leaves the most oppressed behind.’

Iranian-born campaigner and writer. Spokesperson for Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All. Orginator of Celebrating Dissent conferences.

‘The history of blasphemy is considered male but it is female. Because being a woman is, in and of itself, an act of blasphemy though much of it has been and continues to be erased.

From the witch hunts in Europe to the regimes of sex apartheid in Iran and Afghanistan, and yet still we rise, subverting the established order and the sacred.’

Marzia was forced to flee Afghanistan in 2008. The Taliban targeted her for establishing a foundation to educate girls. They attempted to kill her in a high-speed hit-and-run incident. Although this attempt was unsuccessful, she suffered severe injuries and spent six months recovering in hospital.

‘When women stand together in solidarity, we become unstoppable. Our unity is our strength. It is a shield against injustice, a voice for the voiceless and a light in the darkest times.’

Granddaughter of a British suffragette! Megan was the Executive Director of the London Abused Women’s Centre (Canada) for 24 years where she developed ground breaking programmes to help women exit from trafficking and prostitution. She was at the forefront of developing Canada’s Equality Model.

‘I will not settle for mere equality with my oppressors. My goal is to end oppression.’

Feminist psychologist and author. Founder of Prostitution Research & Education.

If we recognize that domestic violence has a perpetrator and a victim, we hold the batterer accountable.

If we recognize that rape has a perpetrator and a victim, we hold the rapist accountable.

If we recognize that prostitution has a perpetrator and a victim, we hold the sex buyer accountable.’

(Keynote speech, International Abolitionist School, Barcelona, March 2021)

United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences.

‘I want to thank FiLiA for inviting me... congratulations to everyone for making this happen. It was important for me to be here to connect with women, to listen to their concerns, to show my solidarity.’

Dilettante-filmmaker-sculptor-lesbian-feminist who loves to create/visit/inhabit lesbians spaces. In search of intergenerational communication to envision a better future.

Author of three documentaries on/about women/lesbians: Feminista (2017), Lesbiana (2012) and On A Moving Path (2007).

‘Lesbiana... It became my country, a space where I belonged.

A territory beyond borders, made up of islands linked to each other by love, ideas and political affinities.’

From the documentary Lesbiana: A Parallel Revolution (2012)

Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol, specialising in gender-based violence across diverse contexts, with a particular focus on both adults’ and young people’s experiences of intimate partner violence and the intersection of cultural and structural factors.

‘When women’s voices are silenced, we animate their truths ‒ transforming whispers into visual resistance. Through digital storytelling, we expose the unseen, challenge coercive control, and reclaim narratives that have long been suppressed.’

Award-winning Filipino author and political activist.

Detained, interrogated and exiled, Ninotchka is proud to be a Feminist dissident. Co-founder AF3IRM.

“Women's Liberation is a Revolution”

Co-founder and co-director of Project Resist and former director and founding member of Southall Black Sisters.

‘There is a growing sense of urgency to find ways of overcoming persistent violence, inequality and injustice with every year – and every conference – that goes by. But true freedom still eludes us. It might require us to re-commit ourselves to a multidirectional feminist politics of protest and resistance shaped by the values of empathy, solidarity, universality and democracy’

A Swiss-Australian biologist and social scientist, Renate Klein has been an international feminist critic of reproductive and genetic engineering since the 1980s.

See her book Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation.

‘ I can’t wait to see the next glorious wave of the Women’s Liberation Movement with radical lesbian feminists at the centre of the actions. Every woman can be a lesbian, don’t leave it too long!’

Unapologetic feminist and human rights advocate, CEO of AkiDwA Network of Migrant Women in Ireland. 2024 Women of Concern honouree.

‘The woman you see today has taken time to become. My courage to speak and stand up has been shaped by the strength of many women who have faced and overcome immense challenges before me.’

Award winning journalist, writer and broadcaster,

Samira Ahmed, has spent her career reporting on news, culture and social change across Channel 4 News, BBC TV and radio.

‘I think that you can tell, Nazanin, that people have been waiting to welcome you home, and we are thrilled that you are here. I guess a year ago, no one could have imagined that you’d be at the FiLiA conference...’

I’ve been campaigning since losing my daughter to suicide, as she was in a coercive controlling relationship, and her perpetrator received a short sentence for pushing my daughter over the edge. I’m now an advocate for many families and a voice for the ones who can’t speak out yet.

‘Never underestimate the love of a mother.’

Lesbian, researcher, sister and feminist.

Sue is an Honorary Fellow at Durham University.

Sue has a long and continuing involvement in feminist and lesbian projects and campaigns.

‘I am so delighted to be presenting my research at FiLiA ‒ a magnificent, necessary and joyful expression of global feminism.’

Susan Hawthorne has been writing about lesbians for 50 years. A poet, novelist, theorist and former circus aerialist, you can read about her life and thinking in her latest book, Lesbian: Politics, Culture, Existence..

‘…that the lesbian is as old as humanity ‒ and maybe older how to conjugate the verb to love in any tongue’ ~ from the poem ‘Things a Lesbian Should Know’

Feminist, self-taught filmmaker and writer.

‘Wake up, show up, speak up, repeat!’