OCTOBER 2024
Tania Sturt
The LGB Alliance ‘Our Lives Our Future’ Conference 2024 in London was well planned with nineteen speakers plus the compere, Rhona Hotchkiss, and speaking slots from Bev Jackson, Kate Harris (co-founders) and Kate Barker (CEO). The keynote speaker was James Dreyfus who gave a blistering, moving, anger-barely-concealed speech about gender ideology that brought people to their feet in a well deserved standing ovation.
First up though, Jo Bartosche interviewed a fantastic young lesbian, Alison Ellis, who creates TikTok content (@alison.ellis.6.0) which has remarkable Magdalene Berns-esque vibes. Alison discussed her coming out and her difficulty finding any lesbians in her age group as they all considered themselves trans or queer with a myriad of identities that were considered so much more valuable than plain old lesbians. Her main message was that we are losing an entire generation of lesbians due to the erasure from the TQ+ crowd. I strongly recommend supporting this woman who really is standing alone among her peers - for every gay or bisexual youth who holds fast to their sexual orientation in spite of the pull from the genderites, there are hundreds who fall victim to a very specific type of propaganda which plays on their personal feelings of shame and very legitimate fear of social ostracism.
Shame was one of the common themes from the speakers today. The gay men on one of the panels represented different backgrounds and lifestyles and also each represented a decade in gay history… with one exception: the 20 to 30 year old age group. Apparently they could not find gay males in that age group who were brave enough to speak out. The panel all spoke eloquently of the shame and isolation they experienced as gay men coming out… and they all despise the word ‘queer’!
On the other hand, there was also a common theme from the comments and questions from the audience. People want to know what we can do about the ideology; how do we keep fighting and how do we win! That answer was encapsulated in Julie Bindel’s off the cuff response which was echoed through other speeches for the rest of the day - one of those eventualities that wasn’t planned by the organisers, but was so important that Bev specifically highlighted how that had turned out to be the message for this year’s conference. When a commenter said that she feared loss of employment if she was open about her gender critical stance and asked what we could do in the fight while constrained by that situation, Julie recognised her difficulty and acknowledged her own career losses and how other people have been vilified. But she also said “if you can speak up, you should speak up”. She pointed out that sometimes people can speak up more but they choose to give a potential minor social loss more importance than the opportunity to add your voice to be heard. I couldn’t help but agree. If all the people who disagreed with TQ spoke up at once, the powers-that-be couldn’t ignore us so easily and they would be less able to apply insidious pressure to force us to toe the anti-biology line.
Of course, it wasn't just men and women gathering today. Extras in the form of crickets and allegedly other insects (I only saw crickets myself) made a surprise appearance. A trans activist group sent out four young girls with ‘valid gender identities’ to dump bags of insects in the conference room while we were all out on a break in the afternoon. If misgendering is “literal violence” then what can we call this? I’m sure they thought they were doing a fine job of protesting hate with this juvenile, self righteous, homophobic act. But lesbians, gays and bisexuals have gone through much worse throughout history and we’re not going to be dissuaded from the new fight against those who will erase us.
Ultimately some amazing men and women gathered together today to recognise the work that's been done, the work that needs doing, our anger at having to fight for our rights again in the face of the new homophobia, and, most importantly, our pride: our genuine fetish-less, preferred pronoun-less, sex-based pride.
We learned that we need to speak up if we can. Keep speaking up even if it scares you, even if it means someone doesn’t like you. Keep writing, complaining, holding to account.
Just speak up!