Central London venue details will be provided after ticket purchase.
The Free Speech Union in partnership with Transgender Trend.
Why did mainstream claims for women’s rights and statements of biological fact become the objects of such widespread intolerance? How was it possible for commonsense views on sex categories and child safeguarding to be cast as ‘extreme’, ‘toxic’, ‘hateful’ or ‘phobic’ while fringe ideas were promoted by organisations from the top to the bottom of society and even policed by the full force of the state? How did a new, alien, vocabulary become normalised across institutions and even made mandatory?
The transformation of bureaucracies, apparently in thrall to a new ideology, continues across the public and private sectors, while activism designed to produce silence through fear, has been excused and denied. The militant enforcement of the mantra ‘no debate’ has left many people’s livelihoods, reputations and relationships devastated.
Women and men who have fought to keep the debate open have had to face down so-called ‘anti-fascists’ in balaclavas, been subjected to death threats and physical attacks, habitually met in secret, under siege from hostile protestors, and had meetings sabotaged by campaigns of intimidation against venues, audiences and speakers.
In Britain and America, we seem to have reached the stage where debate has finally opened up. This creates a welcome opportunity to reflect on the significance of this extraordinary period in human history during which new tools of censorship have been forged and an astonishing degree of conformity achieved. Those resisting have had to learn hard lessons very fast to keep the doors of debate open, defend democratic norms and re-establish reason.
Who better to help us understand this free speech crisis than two women who have faced down the full range of efforts to silence them, British philosopher and writer Kathleen Stock and French author and activist Dora Moutot. Both women have written books, Material Girls and Transmania respectively, that have transformed the conversation about sex and gender.
There will be plenty of time for audience Q and A and the formal event will be followed by a social.
About the speakers
Kathleen Stock is a contributing writer at UnHerd and a co-director of The Lesbian Project. She is the author of Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism (Little Brown 2021). She has written for a range of national newspapers, and is a sometime columnist for the Sunday Times and the Times. Until 2021 she was a Professor of Philosophy at Sussex University, and was awarded an OBE for services to higher education in 2020.
Dora Moutot is a French women’s rights activist dedicated to combating the excesses of transgender ideology and the biological erasure of women through her association Femelliste. She has authored three books, including Transmania: Investigating the Excesses of Transgender Ideology, a bestselling book co-written with Marguerite Stern. Together, they launched a YouTube interview channel, featuring conversations with dissident voices on gender-related issues.
In partnership with:
Transgender Trend calls for evidence-based healthcare for children and young people suffering gender-related distress and for factual, science-based teaching in schools. Free speech is essential for everything Transgender Trend does. The medical scandal at the Tavistock happened because people were afraid to question or were shut down if they did. The bullying and silencing in wider society is reflected in schools. Without free debate there is no safeguarding of children and authoritarianism is perpetuated into the next generation.
£10 for FSU members.
£15 General Admission.
If you can’t make it to London, you can join online for £5. (FSU members can join free of charge, using the link provided in FSU emails).
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