Millwall tough guys meet their match: Transgender activists

THEIR fans are known as English football’s hard men, once notorious for their skinhead hooligans.

But there’s one group of people Millwall just won’t argue with – transgender activists.

The south London club has caved in to pressure from trans lobbyists to axe a controversial feminist meeting.

Hard-line feminists had booked a conference room at the club for their event, called Transgenderism and the War on Women.

Speakers were due to argue that ‘women’s rights were under attack’ from potential changes to the law that would make it easier for a person to self-identify as a man or woman. But the club, which hires out meeting rooms, quickly abandoned the event following a furious backlash from transgender activists. Organiser Venice Allan said that within hours of the event going public, the club rang her to say they had been ‘inundated’ with demands to scrap it.

Millwall even rushed out a statement saying they did not endorse the event, but eventually bowed to pressure and barred it entirely.

Activist Miss Allan, who runs the events for group We Need To Talk UK, said: ‘The club said they had never seen anything like it. They said they had been receiving constant phone calls and emails calling them transphobic, some from club members.

‘I tried to get them to stick it out but they said it would take years to rebuild the club’s reputation if it went ahead.’ The event, which is due to be held on Wednesday, has now been relocated to a committee room in the House of Commons.

It will ‘look at how concerns raised by women are being shut down through threats, harassment and accusations of “transphobia”’.

These clashes between some feminists and transgender activists are over a proposed change to the Gender Recognition Act, which aims to make it easier for people to legally change their gender.

Miss Allan was suspended by the Labour Party in January after she was accused of transphobia for declaring that ‘ transwomen are men’.

A Millwall spokesman said the the event ‘was cancelled mutually with the organisers’, adding: ‘We were pulled into a drama that we didn’t really feel we should be part of.’