Government-owned venue ‘content’ to host LGB Alliance conference despite its anti-trans rhetoric
Graham Linehan and Rosie Duffield are both slated to appear at the LGB Alliance conference. (Getty/Parliament)
A government-owned conference hall has said it is “content” to host the LGB Alliance’s upcoming conference.
The Queen Elizabeth II Centre, otherwise known as the QEII Centre, is one of the largest conference spaces in central London and has hosted both political party campaign launches and Stonewall workplace conferences alike.
It is operated as an “executive agency” sponsored by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, meaning it is not reliant on taxpayer funds and runs independently from but is accountable to government.
The sprawling building will welcome the LGB Alliance conference Thursday (21 October), with tickets ranging from £50 to £100.
Organisers describe the conference as “packed with inspiring speakers”, including so-called “gender-critical” lawmakers Joanna Cherry and Rosie Duffield as well as Maya Forstater, Helen Joyce and Graham Linehan.
The LGB Alliance shared this conference schedule. (Twitter)
Topics on the schedule range from whether the term gender identity amounts to “child abuse or child conversion”, to a talk on “cancel culture and free speech”.
QEII ‘content’ with hosting LGB Alliance conference
A QEII Centre boss told PinkNews that the venue is “apolitical” and “impartial”. The LGB Alliance hiring the space, it said, is not representative of the centre’s views.
Mark Taylor, chief executive of the QEII Centre, told PinkNews: “The QEII Centre hosts events attracting diverse groups, sectors and speakers from across the globe.
“The venue is apolitical and operates as an impartial hub for trade, education and communication and does not represent, endorse or support the views of any organisation hiring its event space.
“Having undertaken due diligence, the QEII Centre is content for the LGB Alliance, a government registered charity, to proceed with their event.”
The LGB Alliance is among Britain’s most high-decibel anti-trans groups – one awarded charitable status in April this year by the government’s charity regulator, Charity Commission for England and Wales.
Mermaids, a trans youth charity, is set to launch a legal appeal against the commission’s decision. The appeal is being supported by the Good Law Project and the LGBT+ Consortium alongside LGBT+ groups Gendered Intelligence, Trans Actual and the LGBT Foundation.
In its appeal, Mermaids argue that the LGB Alliance’s claim that it fights for lesbian, gay and bisexual Brits is one that acts as a smokescreen to disguise its real campaign, “[rejecting] the rights – and in some cases, existence – of trans people”.
Indeed, countless LGBT+ activists, politicians and advocacy groups have branded the LGB Alliance a “hate group”, including Pride in London, gay Scottish National Party MP John Nicolson, the LGBT+ Lib Dems, journalist Owen Jones and gay Scottish actor and activist David Paisley.
The LGB Alliance has compared LGBT+ inclusion to bestiality, refused to denounce its neo-Nazi and homophobic support base and defended working with the anti-LGBT+ and anti-abortion Heritage Foundation.
Labour’s new shadow minister for women and equalities, Taiwo Owatemi, recently said the group “should be rejected by all those who believe in equality”. The Tories recently welcomed the LGB Alliance to its party conference.
