Witch Fever have joined these voicing their opposition to Obtain Pageant’s obvious coverage relating to bathroom entry for trans followers.
Earlier in the present day (Could 27), artists NOAHFINNCE and Pinkshift hit out on the rock and steel competition for upholding a coverage that prohibits trans girls from utilizing girls’s bogs and trans males from utilizing males’s services.
Pop-punk singer-songwriter NOAHFINNCE shared a screenshot that appeared to return from an e mail question to Obtain, exhibiting the competition saying: “We’re pleased with the fame the Obtain group has by way of variety, and can at all times look to advertise the security and luxury of all competition attendees together with transgender and non-binary clients.
“We will probably be following the interim steering issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Fee (EHRC) on 25 April 2025 right here. Their steering states that ‘trans girls (organic males) shouldn’t be permitted to make use of the ladies’s services and trans males (organic girls) shouldn’t be permitted to make use of the boys’s services’”.
Hey @DownloadFest what the fuck are you doing. How have you ever received the gall to ask trans folks like me to play your competition after which ban them from utilizing the bathroom? If the one approach we will piss is by outing ourselves then you definately’ve created an unsafe setting… pic.twitter.com/W0oLIa5P4U
— NOAHFINNCE👹 (@noahfinnadams) Could 27, 2025
NOAHFINNCE responded: “Hey @downloadfest what the fuck are you doing inviting trans folks to play your competition however not permitting them the easy proper of utilizing the proper rest room?”
“I had a good time enjoying final yr however is not going to be attending once more if I’ve to queue up for the women’ rest room and my trans sisters need to danger outing themselves within the males’s rest room. All this does is put trans folks at risk,” he added. “For those who’re enjoying @downloadfest, attending it and even simply conscious of it, say one thing about it.”
Now, Manchester band Witch Fever have additionally criticised Obtain. On their Instagram Tales on Tuesday, the band responded to the query: “Have you ever learn the Obtain Festivals coverage relating to trans followers bathroom entry?”
They replied: “The risk to trans folks’s security by forcing them to enter bogs which are assigned to a gender that they don’t affiliate with is a whole fuckin tragedy. We hope this choice will get modified.”
The band have been persistently outspoken on behalf of the rights of transgender and non-binary teams, they usually performed at Obtain Pageant in 2023.
In 2022, bassist Alex Thompson advised NME: “Empowerment is at all times going to be on the core of something we do, as a result of that’s why we do that. We wanna present folks – particularly girls and gender non-conforming folks – that you would be able to specific your self in the way in which you’ve been advised your complete life you shouldn’t – and there’s an influence and positivity to doing that.”
NME has reached out to Obtain’s organisers for remark relating to the coverage.
The coverage outlined by Obtain organisers seems to narrate to the UK Supreme Courtroom ruling on April 16, through which judges unanimously dominated that the authorized definition of a lady relies on organic intercourse below the Equality Act.
As outlined by the Equality Human Rights Fee, the April ruling from the Supreme Courtroom signifies that, in locations open to the general public, trans girls shouldn’t use girls’s services reminiscent of bogs.
BBC later reported that over 1,000 cultural figures then signed an open letter which claimed that the ruling “overlooks the necessity to shield trans, non-binary and intersex folks from discrimination”. It additionally added that many leaders throughout the UK’s cultural sector have been “unwilling” to police which bogs folks select to make use of.
Charli XCX, Self Esteem and Wolf Alice are among the many many artists to have additionally signed an open letter of solidarity to the trans group from the UK music trade. On high of that, quite a few figures within the leisure world expressed their assist for these affected. Those that have spoken out in assist of the trans group embody Scissor Sisters, Fragrance Genius, Rubbish, Rachel Chinouriri, JADE, Lambrini Women and Billy Bragg.
This yr’s Obtain Pageant takes place at Donington Park, Leicestershire from June 13-15. Inexperienced Day, Sleep Token and KoRn will all be first-time headliners, and different names on the invoice embody Weezer, Intercourse Pistols that includes Frank Carter, Jimmy Eat World and Poppy.