Speakers

💬 Speaker Lineup

We are continuing to add to our speaker line up

Chris Smith, Lord Chris Smith, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge

Elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, July 2025. Formerly Master of Pembroke College Cambridge; formerly Secretary of State for Culture and then Chairman of the Environment Agency. Born in 1951, Chris was educated in Edinburgh and then Pembroke College, Cambridge, achieving a double first in English (and later a PhD on Wordsworth and Coleridge) and was also a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard. Chris began his political career as a Labour Councillor for Islington Borough, becoming MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 1983. (The following year he became the first MP in UK history voluntarily to come out as being gay.) In 1992 he joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Environmental Protection, and two years later moved to Heritage, then Social Security and Health. When Labour came to power in 1997 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Chairman of the Millennium Commission. During his four years as Secretary of State he restored free admission to national museums and galleries, established NESTA, the Film Council, Creative Partnerships for schools, and the Foundation for Youth Music, expanded funding for the arts and sport, championed the creative industries for the first time in Government, started funding for Olympic athletes, and began the switchover process for digital television. He was the first openly gay Cabinet Minister in the world. He returned to the back benches in 2001, played a leading role in opposing the Iraq war, standing down from the Commons in 2005. Immediately afterwards he was made a life peer, taking his seat in the House of Lords in July 2005. He was Master of Pembroke College in Cambridge from 2015 to 2025.

Sarah Drummond, Director of Don’t Say Gay

Sarah Drummond is a Scottish writer and director, who founded film production and creative studio Anthro Bricolage. She is a BAFTA x BFI Flare 2025 mentee. Her debut short documentary, Stonewall Postal Action Network, showed in 4 continents, winning East London’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival Documentary Award and was selected for BAFTA-qualifying SQUIFF, amongst several UK LGBTQ+ festivals.  Sarah co-founded Snook, an award winning design studio and led the company as CEO for over 12 years. She went on to take a role as the Chief Digital Officer at NEC. She was given an honorary doctorate from the Glasgow School of Art for services to design in 2019, awarded a Google Fellowship for her work in technology and democratic innovation and was named as Good magazine’s 100 extraordinary individuals tackling global issues in creative ways for CycleHack, an initiative to reduce barriers to cycling. Sarah is a Scottish Government appointed board member of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park and previously held trustee positions at Withyou, a nationwide mental health, drug and alcohol addiction charity. 

Catherine Lee MBE, Professor Pro Vice Chancellor and Dean

Professor Catherine Lee MBE is Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Arts, Humanities, Education and Social Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University. A Professor of Inclusive Education and Leadership and a National Teaching Fellow, she is known for her work on LGBTQ+ inclusion and for bringing the history of Section 28 into public view. Her research and her own experience as a closeted teacher during Section 28 shaped her book Pretended and inspired the BAFTA nominated film Blue Jean. She has created national LGBTQ+ leadership programmes and has influenced national policy in schools and universities.  In 2023, Catherine received an MBE for Services to Equality in Education and has featured on a number of Pride and Pink Power lists.

Lord Michael Cashman CBE, Labour Peer

British Labour politician and former actor. He served as a Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands constituency from 1999 until he stood down in 2014. Deeply frustrated by the Labour leadership‘s failure to provide a positive pro- European response to Brexit Lord Cashman publicly resigned his membership of the Labour Party on the 22nd of May 2019. In the 2013 Queen's New Year honours list Michael was made a Commander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for political services and equalities. On 23 of September 2014 Michael was elevated to the House of Lords (Labour) and took the title of Baron Cashman of Limehouse. His memoir One of Them: From Albert Square to Parliament Square was published by Bloomsbury in February 2020 He rejoined the labour party under the leadership of Sir Kier Starmer in 2022 and sits as a Labour Peer.

Prof. Sue Sanders, CEO Schools OUT

Emeritus Professor Sue Sanders of the Harvey Milk Institute, an "out and proud" lesbian, is CEO of Schools OUT UK. In 2004 she co-founded the UK's LGBT History Month with Paul Patrick an annual event which happens every February. She founded ‘The Classroom’ which has lesson plans that 'usualise' LGBT people in all their diversity for all ages across the curriculum. As an educator and activist, Sue works to 'educate out' all forms of prejudice. She has also worked extensively in the criminal justice system attempting to challenge hate crime in all its forms. She has many awards including the National Educations Union Lifetime achievement award in 2024

Femi Otitoju, Challenge Training and Consulting Ltd

Femi Otitoju is a pioneering activist and trainer whose work has shaped equality and inclusion in the UK for decades. She was a founding member of the Haringey Lesbian and Gay Unit, one of the first local authority initiatives to support LGBTQ+ communities during the hostile climate of Section 28. Femi has campaigned tirelessly for LGBTQIA+ rights, bringing an intersectional lens to issues of race, gender, and sexuality. Her leadership spans grassroots activism and strategic consultancy, influencing policy and practice across sectors. Femi continues to champion equity in an age of backlash.

Syeda Ali, PhD researcher Cambridge

Syeda is a mature doctoral researcher whose work follows a career in secondary history teaching in inner-city London and international schools. Committed to diversifying the history curriculum and advancing equality in education, she completed an MA in Queer History at Goldsmiths, where she developed her interest in oral history. Her PhD, funded by the Cambridge Trust and Wolfson College, offers a cultural, social, and political history of queer experiences in English schools under Section 28, examining resistance, repression, and the structural forces shaping school practice. Drawing on new oral history interviews with teachers, she explores the law’s uneven impact across England. She successfully defended her PhD in October 2025.

Lisa Hallgarten, Independent expert in sexual and reproductive rights health and rights

Lisa Hallgarten is an independent expert in sexual and reproductive rights and equalities. Lisa is an educator, trainer, speaker, writer and advocate championing the rights of young people to LGBT+ inclusive relationships and sex education and to accessible sexual health care.  She wrote and co-Directed Kind To Women, a short documentary film about the1967 Abortion Act and has written extensively about reproductive rights and young people. She is a member of the Abortion Talk advisory board and a Talkline volunteer.

Tash Walker, Co-author of The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened

Tash Walker is a writer, audio producer and queer historian whose work focuses predominantly on the experiences of LGBTQI+ people and our British LGBTQI+ history, two examples of which are the podcasts The Log Books and The Quilt. Tash has served as a trustee and later Co-Chair of LGBTQ+ charity Switchboard for eight years and is currently a trustee at Galop. Tash is the co-author, with Adam Zmith, of The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline that Listened (Faber, Jan 2026) and co-founder of Aunt Nell production company.

Chiara Capraro, Amnesty International UK

Chiara Capraro is Programme Director for Gender Justice at Amnesty International UK. Chiara has a wide experience of women’s human rights issues, including working with migrant women in Italy, women living with HIV/AIDS, and sex workers in India. She has previously led women’s rights and gender equality policy at Christian Aid and Womankind Worldwide.

She has been part of expert groups lobbying for women’s rights at the United Nations and has been published on women’s rights in various peer-reviewed journals.

Katie Dancey-Downs, Deputy Editor, Index on Censorship

Katie Dancey-Downs is Deputy Editor at Index on Censorship, an award-winning magazine which champions freedom of expression. Her investigation into book bans in UK school libraries hit national media in 2024 and she has since written extensively about book censorship in the UK, USA and elsewhere. Index on Censorship works with dissidents, writers, academics and artists across the world, and has published the likes of Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Hilary Mantel.

Alice Leggatt, CILIP School Libraries Group

Alice Leggatt manages the library of a state secondary school in South West London. She has a special interest in issues of intellectual freedom in the school library having experienced a particularly public book challenge in 2022, and has written, spoken and presented on this subject for CILIP, IFLA and the School Library Association. She is a member of the CILIP School Libraries Group, a recipient of the CILIP 125 award and was honour listed for School Librarian of the Year 2024.  

Lisa Power MBE, British sexual health and LGBT rights campaigner

Lisa Power has been a queer and sexual health activist for 50 years on Switchboard LGBT, Terrence Higgins Trust, HIV Justice Network, Co-founder of Stonewall and, as Secretary General of ILGA, the first openly queer person to speak for lgbt rights at the United Nations. She is currently a Trustee of Queer Britain, the national museum and Fast Track Cymru and a historian advising documentary and fictional media on modern queer history. She’s also an old dyke for trans rights.

Vic Parsons, Freelance investigative journalist

Vic is a freelance journalist specialising in LGBTQ+ issues. They have 11 years experience writing for national and independent media in the UK, including Gay Times, Attitude Magazine, British Vogue, Cosmopolitan Magazine, the i, the Guardian, and Novara Media. Before going freelance in 2022, Vic was the first-ever gender and identity correspondent at PinkNews, and before that they worked as an investigative reporter at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Vic is currently the lead investigative journalist at QueerAF, the UK's only non-profit and regulated LGBTQIA+ publisher.

Lenna Cumberbatch MBA FRSA MCMI, Chair of the Board of Trustees at Galop UK

In addition to her role as a Non-Executive Director and Chair, Lenna provides strategic leadership, advice, and guidance to CEOs, Chairs, and boards of directors across sectors. With 25+ years of experience working on diversity and inclusion change, Lenna has applied her expertise to roles for Ofcom, the Wellcome Trust, the University of Cambridge, the European Commission, and the Royal Society.  

Committed to community, Lenna is a patient representative for King’s Health Partners Haematology Board and is the Chair of Galop the LGBT+ anti-abuse charity.  She sits on the Board of Directors for Rooftop Housing Group and is a Founding Director of the Black Researcher Consortium. Lenna’s speaking engagements have included presenting to the Council of Europe, a video for BBC Scotland’s Black History month programme as well as various webinars and Q&As.

Pam Currie, Teacher and co-chair of The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) LGBT Network 

Pam is a gay, genderqueer teacher and activist. Growing up in a small mining town in Midlothian, she went on to graduate from university in 1998 to pursue a career in Further Education. They made the leap to the Secondary sector in 2019, where they now teach maths and facilitate their school’s LGBT learner group. Pam has been active in the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Scotland’s largest teaching trade union, since 2001. They have been a branch secretary, and EIS Further Education Lecturers Association President, and are currently the co-chair the EIS LGBT Network as well as representing the EIS on the Scottish Trade Union Congress LGBT Committee.