By Lucy Mills (she/her)

Most mornings Glasgow’s Central Station consists of bed-headed businessmen and women scurrying to work and don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee attitudes, but this Friday Argyle Street was greeted with an enthusiastic wakeup call from a rolled-in speaker blasting Lady Gaga and amplified local voices chanting “Trans women are women!”

From 8 a.m., wrapped in layers, protesters sprinkle in from every direction to join. Cold fingers hold on tightly to paper signs scrapped together the night before. A girl plants herself next to me with an awkward laugh. “I’m just gonna stand with you,” she tells me, because she’s come on her own. One group of students apologise that they can only stay for so long because they’re joining in between classes. Another tells me she’s come with her trans daughter. A group of strangers soon stand behind the same blue, pink, and white flag.

The protesters organized through social media and chatter among friends when word that an organization called FiLiA were holding their annual conference at a Glasgow venue under Central Station. This is the conference women from an alleged 35 countries came to attend and that J.K. Rowling never publicly announced she’d be speaking at, the event that Glasgow venue Platform attempted to cancel hours prior but didn’t due to legal threats. This is the event about 70 trans-rights activists decided to protest on Friday morning, October 12th.

FiLiA is a charity that promotes itself as part of the Women’s Liberation Movement. For eight years, the organization has held an annual conference, gathering women from around the world to listen to a series of invited speakers and discuss issues around women’s rights. To further promote their message, supporters can follow their active Twitter, blogs, and podcasts.

Their website highlights a series of mission statements, such as ‘building sisterhood and solidarity’ and ‘amplifying the voices of women’, but critics of FiLiA believe there’s a hidden mission behind its feminist guise.

“Did you know,” a protester asks the accumulating line outside the conference, “in 2022, the National Education Union executive passed a motion that described FiLiA as a transphobic organization?”

This claim can be confirmed by an open letter from the NEU LGBT+ organizing forum.

Accusations of transphobic sentiments follow the organization to every appearance. LGBT+ activists criticize FiLiA for their continual stance in favour of same-sex spaces and other controversial takes on women’s issues, including anti-pornography and anti-prostitution projects as well as campaigns against surrogacy.

Sandra, a protester I spoke to, and a regular member of the Glasgow Trans Rally, noted that FiLiA “hide its transphobia really really well. You have to really dig into their website to find out their true allegiances.” She gives them credit: “It is very clever”.

While some speakers at the conference specialize in important issues separate from LGBT+ topics, such as women’s hunger, sexual crimes against women, and issues faced by women in the global south, FiLiA is criticized for other speakers that they give a platform. One such speaker present in Glasgow is politician Joanna Cherry, an SNP member who was cancelled from her Edinburgh Fringe appearance earlier this year due to her controversial views. Another invited speaker, and a larger target for the Glasgow Trans Rally, is journalist Julie Bindel.

With a quick glance at Bindel’s Telegraph column, you’ll find headlines including, “Women are routinely singled out by idiotic trans activist students.” and “Trans extremism is violating vulnerable children’s human rights” – the list goes on. In fact, you’re harder pressed to find an article of hers that doesn’t focus on the many heinous crimes trans lives impose on our modern society.

Bindel’s activism expands beyond her journalism. Principal #1 of ‘The Lesbian Project’, her nonprofit organization, can be quoted as follows: “Our focus is same-sex-attracted females. We don’t think either biological sex, or being attracted to others of the same sex, are choices. By definition, only females can be lesbians, in virtue of their biological sex”. To the ears of trans activists and trans allies, this sounds like blatant transphobia and denial of trans identity. However, to Bindel, the lesbian movement is neglected when put under the LGBT+ umbrella.

What seems to be a common narrative through FiLiA members is the belief that there is something inherently harmful about trans activism to women’s rights. It’s as if one cannot exist alongside the other, as if the two are oil and water, or to the Harry Potter fans, like Harry and he-who-shall-not-be-named.

Protester Tom Harlow, who would later be called a p***k on JK Rowling’s Twitter, sets up the speaker facing the conference entrance. Pasted on top is a QR code that, if scanned, leads you to a donation link to fund the use of the speaker he borrowed from his usual gig as a performer.

The division between protesters and FiLiA attendees is clear. If not marked by Argyle Street, then by age, class, and passion. The line into the conference is largely concentrated by groups of middle-aged to old-aged women, as pointed out over the mic by Harlow: “I have yet to see anyone under the age of thirty.” When one lone girl waved across the road, he responded with shade: “Are you sure?”

On the opposite side, The Glasgow Trans Rally consisted primarily of young people, students and young adults from many backgrounds. One woman feels she is one of few representing her age group at the protest. Sandra, age 62, indulges to me: “I think I’m the oldest woman here, but I wanted to show up to show they,” she points to the line attending the conference, “don’t represent me.”

Glasgow City Council member, Elaine Gallagher made an appearance, delivering a speech at the rally. In response to FiLiA’s media statement where they call GTR ‘anti-democratic campaigners’, Gallagher scoffs, “Here’s the thing, how do they define anti-democratic? Because all the people who were coming to try to shut us up by intimidating us with cameras and shouting at us were from that side.”

She’s referring to perhaps the highest moment of drama in the protest, besides the occasional swearing from across the way. Three to five women from the conference line crossed the street, cameras pointed at protesters’ faces. One woman insistently shouted, “Trans women are men!”, to which 70 protesters shouted back “Trans women are women!”.

Security guards had to separate the interaction.

Gallagher continues, “Several of the people who are speakers there, are very litigious. That is the democracy of money. Trans people tend to not have enough money to fight lawsuits, especially not privileged ones… if they’re claiming to be de-platformed, where are they claiming? In major newspapers.”

Harlow clued me into the happenings around us as he recognized familiar faces outside the FiLia conference entrance that filmed and shouted in our direction. “Ten pound a picture!”, he notified them before leaning in to tell me who the group were. “They’re Glasgow Tactical Feminists. Anti-Surrogacy, anti-sex work, anti-prostitution, which is taking away choice from women and choice from families. They regularly campaign against surrogacy.”

He made sure to shout out in the microphone, “Glasgow Tactical Feminists… are not feminists, they are absolute bigots and fascists against ALL women. Because, once again, if your feminism doesn’t include everyone it’s not feminism – it’s white supremacy.”

He recognizes another woman across Argyle Street. “She was at my bar last night. She got kicked out for being transphobic,” he tells me.

During his drag act, the woman, Jenny Watson, began filming him when he discussed the morning protest. This escalated when audience members recognized her from social media as an outspoken “TERF” (or trans-exclusive radical feminist). She was then kicked out of the bar due to the commotion. Watson posted her account of the event to Twitter, saying she was kicked out for being a lesbian.

Rebecca, a protester, spoke into the microphone, “I am angry that [attendees] who are not actively transphobic but have been drawn in by these lies will now sit and listen to this bullsh*t the next few days. That is how they get you.”

Protesters knew some FiLiA attendees had no awareness of its transphobic sentiments (evident when 2/3 women across the way cheered on the protesters), but these reoccurring characters such as the Glasgow Tactical Feminists and the woman kicked out of Harlow’s bar propose perhaps the most threatening presence: a growing community, right here in Glasgow, projecting anti-trans sentiments.

Khris Greenway is a nonbinary resident of Glasgow with a kid who also identifies as nonbinary. When asked why they came to the protest, they responded, “This is damaging for Glasgow. We have a close trans/nonbinary community. I’m here with my friends. We came because obviously, we weren’t going to stand and watch this.”

Ruadhanó Donnaile is proud of being “multiple letters” of LGBT+.

“I get the gold star” says Donnaile. They, too, could not watch this happen here in Glasgow. “I’m not willing to let the gains that we’ve done in the last few decades now be regressed… In the biggest city in Scotland, in the middle of the city centre, they’ve got transphobic speakers. It’s being completely normalized.” Says Donnaile.

To paint a picture of what groups like FiLiA, or the Glasgow tactical Feminist mean to a trans person, Ruadhanó Donnaile explains to me while propped up on the central station curbside at 9 a.m., wrapped in a rainbow flag, “Whatever they say they’re for, what they actually want is the eradication of trans people in society, so they want me to de-transition. When I say I’d rather die… let me clarify that. I would rather ‘insert very long-winded metaphor of torture here’ than de-transition, and it’s not just me, it’s about all the trans people… our community would be put back another 20-30 years.” The passion of the protesters becomes clear when put in this frame. Some have no choice but to defend their existence.

With show tunes playing in the background, a war of inclusion raged under Central Station that Friday morning, with the fighting spirit of outrage, connection, and faith.

All photos by Afton Murdoch.