From social media to hate crime legislation, women are offered little legal protection in an increasingly violent world. Reports of sexual assault are soaring but conviction rates are falling. Twitter routinely bans women for stating basic biological truths yet allows its users to threaten women with rape and violence. Women who wish to discuss a government consultation which will directly impact their legal rights risk their livelihoods; as the courts have ruled that a belief in the immutability of biological sex is 'incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others.'

Despite all this women are still not protected in hate crime legislation. How can a law be trusted when it ignores the safety of half of the population? What lessons need to be learned? To mark hate crime awareness week Make More Noise decided to invite some of the UK's top feminists, legal minds and academics to discuss what the authorities can do to address this glaring social injustice.

Chair. Selina Todd

English historian and writer, Selina Todd is a Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the history of the working-class, women and feminism in modern Britain. Since 2017, Todd has also been president of the Socialist Educational Association.

Julie Bindel

Journalist, writer, broadcaster and researcher, Julie Bindel has written extensively on rape, domestic violence, sexually motivated murder, prostitution and trafficking, child sexual exploitation, stalking, and the rise of religious fundamentalism and its harm to women and girls.

She is co-founder of Justice for Women, a campaign group set up in 1990 to support women who have fought back against or killed violent men. They recently campaigned successfully for the release from prison of Sally Challen.

Sarah Phillimore

Sarah Phillimore is a family law barrister with an interest and experience in care proceedings, private law children applications an d Court of Protection work.

She will be representing Fair Cop, a pressure-group concerned with the way the police deal with so-called “non-crime hate incidents” and statements deemed to be transphobic. She will be discussing the Judicial Review which the group brought about to challenge the hate crime guidance issued by the College of Policing.

Kathleen Stock

A professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, Kathleen Stock has published on aesthetics, fiction, imagination, sexual objectification, sex/ gender, and sexual orientation. She is currently the vice-president of the British Society of Aesthetics.

She has faced a sustained campaign of harassment for her views on gender identity legislation and it's clash with women's rights. She will be discussing her submission to the Fair Cop Judicial Review, which criticised the definition of transphobia which the police use to investigate hate crimes.

Kate Harris

Kate Harris is a former vice president of American Express who used her position to raise funds for Stonewall. In 2019 she severed her connections with the charity after concerns they had abandoned their lesbian, gay and bisexual members . She now works with the LGB Alliance, an organisation set up to challenge Stonewall and advance the interests of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals at a time when they are under threat from concerted attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender.

She will be discussing Stonewalls Law, by which LGBT+ organisations are misrepresenting the law to public bodies and presenting a definition of transphobia which they argue enforces compliance with a belief system which erases same sex attraction and biological sex.

There will be a live Q&A at the end of the talk

The talk is being held in a secret location in central Manchester. Details of the venue will be released to ticket holders on the day.

Doors open at 18:30 and the talk begins at 19:00

The talk will finish at 21:00 but will be followed by a drinks reception until 23.30

This is an inclusive event open to everyone. The venue is wheelchair accessible.

If you wish to attend but are struggling to afford a ticket please send the organisers a message as there are a number of tickets available for women on a limited income, funded by those who have bought supporter tickets.

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