In spite of council executives who had canceled it because her beliefs “fly in the face” of their stance on trans rights, feminist author Julie Bindel held a talk outside a library.
At the city’s Aspley Library today, Ms. Bindel was scheduled to discuss “feminist activism to eradicate male violence in Nottingham.”
The city council, however, acknowledged it had canceled the lecture owing to a disagreement of opinions. The city council is a “close partner” of the contentious charity Stonewall, which in turn rated it one of the top LGBT employers in the nation in 2019.
The authority said that Ms. Bindel’s opinions on transgender rights were incompatible with its plan for equality, diversity, and inclusion.
Despite the presence of transgender rights activists protesting against her, the author still went ahead with the talk, offering it to dozens of listeners outside the library.
Ms. Bindel, a feminist activist and longtime opponent of male violence, stated: “My discussion was going to be centered on how in many respects things are worse for young women than when I was a teenager in the 1970s.”
The speaker’s topic, according to the author, would be “how we work together to solve problems facing young women today.”
With Roe v. Wade being overturned, she continued, “Right now we have a scenario in the US that will have a major reaction here.”
I wasn’t even going to discuss that topic here today, she said as she criticized what some have called transphobia.
‘That statement that they put out today makes it very very apparent that they have barred me from meeting in a public library with inhabitants of Nottingham because of my beliefs, which are protected by law,’ Ms. Bindel said, calling the council’s decision to cancel her sold-out talk “despicable.”
“Telling women and girls in Nottingham they can’t hear a feminist voice is discriminatory in law, it’s humiliating, but more importantly it’s rude and insulting to them.”
Several members of Nottingham Against Transphobia demonstrated against the author and her talk, calling them “hateful and transphobic.”
Liam McClelland, a 34-year-old civil worker, stated that transphobia is not a recent problem. When there is so much else going on in the UK right now, it is just unfortunate to watch it.
Anna Preston, a 34-year-old employee in the hospitality industry, continued, “They said they would give a safety discussion.” We were able to contact the council since we knew who they were, and they said, “No, you can’t propagate hate at the library.”
We are here to demonstrate to fellow LGBTQ+ supporters that they are not alone and that a beautiful trans flag will always fly, even in the midst of adversity.
I was asked to speak to (mostly working class/young) women about feminism activism to end male violence in Nottingham, Ms. Bindel said in a thread on Twitter after learning she would not be able to speak in the library.
The event, which was scheduled to take place at @NottmLibraries, was rapidly sold out. We just learned that the talk has been postponed.
‘Why? Because misogynistic men’s rights activists, who were disguising themselves as transgender advocates, badgered and tormented the venue until they could bear no more annoyance.
They responded, “No, you’re not allowed in,” whereupon the organizers stated, “Fine, we won’t have the private room, we will meet in the library.”
In response to the cancellation, the portfolio holders for neighborhoods, safety, and inclusion on Nottingham City Council, Neghat Khan and Labour deputy leader Adele Williams, jointly issued a statement.
“This was a private booking at Aspley Library by the “Nottingham Women for Change” group, and all ticket sales and marketing of the event had been conducted independently with no assistance from the council,” they claimed.
Although it was recognized that the program would be from a feminist standpoint, the Library Service was not made aware of the speaker’s opinions on transgender rights. We decided to cancel the reservation once we became aware of this.
“Nottingham is an open city, and as a council, we support our LGBT community and have vowed to defend trans rights as fundamental human rights through Stonewall.”
We didn’t want the use of one of our library facilities for this Pride Month event to be interpreted as implied support for the speaker’s opinions that go against our stance on transgender rights.