Response to Malicious Complaints to Portsmouth Council and the Guildhall
Local Antifa groups have been posting incorrect information about FiLiA on social media and asking people to send in complaints to Portsmouth council and the Guildhall. This is our response to the specific complaints made.
These complaints are entirely unsubstantiated and from an as yet unidentified source. However, we note that they are materially identical to a post from a local Antifa page. We feel this attempt to enroll Portsmouth City Council is not in good faith and seeks to abuse the Council’s process.
It comes at a time when we are already concerned about escalating hostility in Portsmouth towards Women in recent months, seemingly also coordinated by local Antifa groups. For example, at the vigil for Sarah Everard, local women including one of our own volunteers were abused and intimidated, leading to police involvement and a warning for a Portsmouth councillor who was involved. We have reached out to the council on three occasions to request a meeting to discuss our concerns, but have not yet received a response.
We also note that the Facebook post resulted in a large number of people contacting Guildhall in our support, to the extent that we were asked to stop them from calling to enable staff to continue with their everyday work. Our thanks to those who stepped up in solidarity with FiLiA.
We address the individual complaints below.
• FiLiA has openly called for conversion therapy for those in the trans community
We have never called for conversion therapy for the trans community. This is an outright lie.
We have addressed the topic of conversion therapy as it relates to young lesbian and bisexual women. Our article on “Centring Lesbians in LGB History Month” for example looked at the abuse of conversion therapy and was categorically against it.
• FiLiA continually push the rhetoric that trans women should not be able to access female toilets as it puts 'real women' and children in danger
FiLiA supports the requirement contained within the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 for workplaces to provide separate male and female facilities. We do believe that females should be entitled to privacy from males. We are supportive of third spaces and / or lockable, fully contained cubicles as alternatives. This is an entirely unremarkable viewpoint and one which is widely shared.
Toilets are part of the wider issue of single sex spaces for women and girls in a world where sexual harassment is a lived experience for many females. This was recently highlighted by the Everyone’s Invited social media campaign, as well as by reported research showing that almost 90% of reported sexual assaults, harassment and voyeurism in swimming pool and sports-centre changing rooms happen in unisex facilities.
As such, FiLiA supports single sex spaces where necessary and relevant. We would add that our focus is not toilets, but spaces such as women’s refuges, homeless shelters, and prisons - spaces where women are particularly vulnerable and where there have been incidents of women being assaulted in countries where 'self-ID' is permitted, including in the UK.
We would consider that FiLiA, as a feminist charity promoting women’s human rights, has something to offer to the ongoing discussions in these areas. We would not seek to silence or shut down any organisation arguing against our stance, however much we disagree, and would ask that the same courtesy is extended to us.
• FiLiA has praised the work of the LGB alliance, a transphobic organisation recently awarded charitable status, leading to 44,300 and counting to sign a petition to revoke the status
We do support LGB Alliance. This is an organisation which has recently been awarded charitable status. In a lengthy determination, the Charity Commission confirmed that LGB Alliance was established exclusively for charitable purposes namely the advancement and support of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. We accept that this is a reasonable aim, and note that sexual orientation is a protected characteristic within the Equality Act 2010.
Our support for LGB Alliance should be seen in the context that we regard lesbian rights as a feminist issue, and we have always sought to promote the rights of lesbian and bisexual women. To take just a few examples, we have worked closely with a group that supports lesbian and bisexual women who are seeking sanctuary, who attend the conference and some of whom have volunteered with us. We run the Labrys Lit lesbian book club. Within our podcasts we amplify the voices of lesbians and bisexual women, who are often the least well heard within the wider LGB&T community.
• FiLiA states that Trans rights are not valid
This is quite simply untrue.
We support the rights of trans people to freedom from harassment, victimisation and discrimination as set out in the Equality Act 2010. FiLiA takes a zero-tolerance stance towards sexism, racism, classism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia.
Indeed, one of our campaigns, supporting the LGB&T block in Kakuma refugee camp, benefits trans and gay male refugees there as well as lesbian refugees. While the women in the camp were the focus of our campaign, as we are a feminist charity, the campaign notes that volunteer counsellors must be aware that the role is not women only and extended to all LGB&T refugees at Kakuma. The campaign has involved interactions with UNHCR and is ongoing.
• FiLiA are a hate group masquerading as a feminist charity
FiLiA has been a feminist charity since our registration in 2015. Our charitable objects can be found here. Since our registration as a charity, we have covered multiple topics of interest to feminists internationally, including (but not limited to) FGM, Femicide, Eco-feminism, Male Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), refugee women, lesbian rights, women’s history, women’s representation, women and peace, secularism, women’s health, sex-based rights, race, class and disability, and much, much more.
This will be our 7th national conference. We have featured speakers and delegates from 49 countries. It is an opportunity for Portsmouth to welcome this international community and showcase its status as a forward thinking, progressive city. Currently, women are voicing their concerns about attending a feminist conference in a place where malicious and vexatious complaints about a feminist charity are being given credence without any accountability. This is a real shame considering the vibrancy of the Portsmouth feminist community, where we have had over 40 meetings with local community groups, and provided training in county lines for council youth group leaders, sessions on domestic abuse and facilitated a feminist leadership course run by the Women’s Resource Centre. We have organised consciousness raising sessions for Black and minoritised women. We have had excellent feedback from all sessions.
Women have the right to meet and organise in the UK without fear of reprisals and we would hope for robust support from the Council in respect of our rights under Articles 9, 10 and 11 HRA - the rights to freedom of belief, freedom of expression, and freedom of association.
We note the comments of Mr Justice Julian Knowles QC in the case of R (Miller) v College of Policing at para 250:
First, there is a vigorous ongoing debate about trans rights. Professor Stock's evidence shows that some involved in the debate are readily willing to label those with different viewpoints as 'transphobic' or as displaying 'hatred' when they are not. It is clear that there are those on one side of the debate who simply will not tolerate different views, even when they are expressed by legitimate scholars whose views are not grounded in hatred, bigotry, prejudice or hostility, but are based on legitimately different value judgments, reasoning and analysis, and form part of mainstream academic research.
We suggest that the complainant is one who will not tolerate different views. And yet different views, freely held, expressed and discussed, are central to democracy; Kokkinakis v. Greece - 14307/88 - Chamber Judgment [1993] ECHR 20:
As enshrined in Article 9 (art. 9), freedom of thought, conscience and religion is one of the foundations of a "democratic society" within the meaning of the Convention. It is, in its religious dimension, one of the most vital elements that go to make up the identity of believers and their conception of life, but it is also a precious asset for atheists, agnostics, sceptics and the unconcerned. The pluralism indissociable from a democratic society, which has been dearly won over the centuries, depends on it.
The Women and Equalities Select Committee has run a series of oral evidence sessions at which FiLiA was invited to give evidence. Our views are legitimate feminist analysis of a relevant, if contentious, issue of the day.
Belief (or disbelief) in innate gender identity, and belief (or disbelief) in the material reality of sex, are protected beliefs. Many freely expressed viewpoints are controversial: for example, abortion rights and gay marriage. The remedy for a person who is opposed to abortion or opposed to gay marriage is that they should not have an abortion or a gay marriage. For the complainant who is opposed to FiLiA’s wide-ranging and valuable international women’s rights work on the basis that he disagrees with our analysis of the importance of sex based rights, his remedy is to avoid the conference. He is welcome to do so. However, that does not mean that the Council should seek to prevent everyone else accessing an event which is unique in its breadth of subject matter, rich in international speakers, and which offers an unapologetically feminist analysis to women and girls.
In view of the seriousness of the allegations, and our concerns for the safety of women coming to Portsmouth for the FiLiA conference, we request a meeting with Portsmouth City Council (Guildhall representatives are, of course, welcome to attend) to review this complaint in detail with a minuted right of reply.