Man charged after gender-critical event
Let Women Speak event by Sussex Incidents
A man has been charged with assault and possession of a knife after being arrested at a gender-critical event and counter protest in Brighton.
Two more people – a man and a woman – who were arrested at the Let Women Speak event in Victoria Gardens on Sunday have been released pending investigation.
Craig Thomas, 50, of no fixed address, was originally arrested on suspicion of sexual assault by touching. He has now been charged with assault and two counts of possession of a bladed article.
He has been released on bail to appear before Brighton Magistrates’ Court on 13 October.
A woman, 19, was detained on suspicion of assault and a man, 20, was arrested on suspicion of obstructing a police officer.
They have both been released under investigation pending further enquiries.
Photos and videos of the event posted online showed police officers lined up to separate protesters and counter protestors.
Chief inspector Nick Dias said: “Our officers worked to facilitate the event and counter-protest to enable both to take place peacefully.”
Hundreds gathered throughout the day to counter the event held by Standing For Women, a gender-critical group led by Kellie-Jay Keen also known as Posie Parker.
Ms Keen holds the view that trans rights are in opposition to women’s rights.
The counter protest organisers Reclaim Pride said on Twitter: “Amid misinformation and dogpiling and right wing violence, today the queer and trans community stood up for ourselves.
“We will never be deterred or intimidated.”
In a statement, Standing for Women said: “What women faced on Sunday, a nasty thuggish mob masquerading as activists, is exactly what we’ve come to expect.
“The trajectory of any quasi religious cult is to eventually eat itself and devour all those beholden to its tenets.
“We were really impressed by Sussex police and felt much safer with their efforts.
“It’s extraordinary that people get so angry when women gather to speak. What are they afraid we might say?”
Reclaim Pride were contacted for comment.
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The queer and trans community were the ones responsible for the violence and the ones who got arrested. They were also screaming abuse including at a babe in arms. Please report accurately.
I’m confused – it was previously reported three men had been arrested, not two men and a woman.
Did one change sex or is this a reporting error?
Three men were arrested. One of them claims a special gender.
Please correct this article. Three MEN were arrested. They were activist extremists. Nothing to do with Standing For Women.
I was in the centre at the “gender critical” event, the only violence & intimidation was coming from outside from the queer and transgender counter-demonstrators. The arrests were from that group and NOT from supporters of the gender critical event. Also contrary to impression given by B&H News, this was not a speaking tour BY Kellie Jay Keen (Posie Parker) but was what it said on the tin a #LetWomenSpeak event compered by Posie and I have gone through the video counting the speakers and there were 32 individual speakers all female who spoke movingly with history and poetry and mathematical evidence of the impact of transgender extremnism upon their lives.
“The ‘q-word’ and trans community brought knives to a peaceful event”, that’s all you needed to say, it speaks for itself.
Thank you Clare B Dimyon. I was there too and I agree entirely with your description.
This was not a protest and a counter protest. It was an event for free speech. Anyone can speak and would be listened to so there would be no need to behave in this way. A minutes silence for the Queen was met with boos and shouts and noise from a hooter from the trans rights side. Smoke bombs and a tomato were thrown, a woman was knocked off her mobility scooter and a baby less than a year was shouted at by the policy adviser to a serving MP. Yes a baby! She was called a fascist!! A white woman threw glitter at a black Lesbian woman which will take years to remove. This was all coming from the trans rights side. The police were not separating one side from the other. They were protecting the original free speech event from a violent mob.
I’m going to hazard a wild guess and say that those arrested – including the allegedly blade-carrying sexual assailant – were not from Standing for Women
It was a #LetWomenSoeak event that was protested by misogynists. It’s really simple. Women want to retain the legal right to spaces (including prison cells/wings, post trauma internal examinations and support groups and places where naked) without being screamed at about hurting men’s feelings.
Adults in schools are telling children that they can choose their gender or change their sex. Sex is universal and unchangeable. Neither gender nor trans are defined. We are all single sex and will remain so for life. Single sex spaces exist for a reason and no one has proposed a different workable system. Removing existing sex-specific protections is a direct attempt to undermine female safety & dignity. We need to step up to protect children from life long medicalisation and harm and ensure women rents in the legal protections that took so long to secure.
The baby clearly provoked the “Head of Policy” for the Muscle-Royal.
Why wasn’t the baby arrested?
But seriously why on earth hasn’t the MP for Kemptown sacked her?
Brighton Hove News – your bias is showing! All the violence on Sunday came from the so-called trans activists, desperately and aggressively trying to shut women up, even going so far as to swear and scream abuse in the face of a man present holding a baby. I get that here in Brighton you don’t dare to write anything critical about the extremes of transactivism, but as journalists, please: have a bit of self-respect!
I was there as a passer-by. This reporting paints a very different picture from what I saw. ALL the violence was coming from the side of the radical trans extremists, many of whom were dressed like terrorists in balaclavas etc. and behaving in an extremely aggressive and threatening way towards the women who had gathered to share stories and express their concerns. This is very poor, extremely biased journalism!
The violence was soley from the thuggish trans activists.They are vile ideologues and have very dim understanding and lack insight into why women are speaking out against their stupoid post modern ideology
Once again, comments all coming from the same like 2 people.
Bigotry never welcome in Brighton. Always support trans people x
San Pelly said:
I count 13 commenters so far:
Mandy Neeson
John
T. Steele
Clare B Dimyon MBE
SophiaPangloss
Una-Jane Winfield
Susan Swan
Rob Jessel
Alex Dunlop
Martha Gunn
Gerry
David Cochran
Cheryl L Mulholland
Are you alleging they are just two individuals posing as different people? If so, please feel free to show your evidence.
Gays fought for gay rights and got them.
Trans are now fighting for women’s rights and they are quite prepared to use violence to get them.
Richard Windus said:
Well, they are certainly fighting for men’s rights and have used violence to further their aims.
I hear that a TRA women is going to be charged with a hate crime for throwing glitter into a Rastafarian woman’s hair.
Fighting *against* women’s rights, you mean?
Fighting “for” ad in the want to take them for themselves.
What even does “gender critical:” mean? B and H Hove News, how about writing in ordinary English rather than woke slogans .
Gender Critical are the people who are critical of Gender Identity. They believe sex is real.
All as mad as a bag of frogs..
Oh I do hope so. I failed to mention in my comment that the glitter takes years to be removed from dreadlocks. What an affront to someone’s cultural expression! A young white woman attacking a young black lesbian woman. What has the world come to? I really really hope she faces consequences.
#blm (except for…)
I keep hoping that one day the world will become sane again. What we get now is black is white, up is down, fire is cold, truth is lies and the sky is whichever colour we want it to be.
We can’t change facts by the act of WANTING them to be different. Facts are facts, but it seems politicians and their equally-insane dupes can’t accept this, so they pretend everything is different to what it really is.
I was there all day. There was a lot of intimidation from both sides. This was an anti trans rally being counter protested. Preaching over a microphone that trans people should be sterilised and extinguished from society is more than provocative. People were really upset.
Bryn said:
Can you say which side was using sirens, horns, loud hailers, whistles and vile chants in their intimidation and which side was trying to listen to speakers talking about the rights of girls and women?
All the speeches are available for everyone to watch on youtube:
#letwomenspeak #brighton part one
#letwomenspeak #brighton part two
Could you point out where anyone said “that trans people should be sterilised and extinguished from society” as you claimed?
I was actually there and nothing of the sort was said.
The whole event is on Kellie/Poseys youtube channel for anyone interested in seeing the actual events.
Accusations about “trans people should be sterilised and extinguished from society” are serious and potentially highly defamatory, Bryn, so I do hope you are able to substantiate them by pointing out exactly who said those things, on which video and at what timestamp.
Are you able to do that, Bryn?
That would appear to be a resounding ‘no’ from Bryn…
The Chinese Uyghurs, Women in Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistani flood victims and Ukrainians living on the front line will, no doubt, all send their condolences to these people for the horrifying conditions that they must find themselves enduring…
1st world problems eh?