“It’s 10,000 people saying – we are with you”: Inside Trans Mission, a night of solidarity and joy for a community under pressure | music

‘W“I wanted to put out something as big as possible,” says musician and actor Olly Alexander. He’s talking about Trans Mission, a night of solidarity with the trans community that he put together with Mighty Hoopla director Glyn Fussell in aid of the Good Law Project and the charity Not a Phase. Wembley Arena’s jam-packed bill includes Christine and the Queens, the Sugababes, Romy and Wolf Alice.

For Alexander, Trans Mission is about “celebration, joy and unity.” For Christine and the queens, it will be a “place of collective compassion.” For Not a Phase founder Danny St James, “It’s basically a very quick Royal Variety show, but with me and Ollie kissing twice and not Charles shaking hands.”

The concert came from a moment of panic for the organizers. On April 16 last year, the UK Supreme Court ruled that “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 only referred to biological sex, creating shock and uncertainty in the transgender community. The government has not yet approved or rejected guidelines issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that could exclude trans people from places such as public toilets, but trans women and girls have already been forced out of institutions such as the Women’s Institute and Girl Guides.

“This ruling made a lot of people wake up,” St. James says. “It was harmful not only for what it was, but also because of the confusion it caused, the social stigma it heightened, and the anti-trans voices it enabled. It was really important that we step forward and do something.”

Immediately after the ruling, musician and writer Tom Rasmussen began drafting an open letter calling on the music industry to stand in solidarity. “I feel like trans people and queer people are always bracing for another dangerous attack on our rights,” Rasmussen says. “You’re kind of ready to go.”

By May 2, the letter was available online, and its signatories included Charli XCX, Sam Smith, CMAT, Dua Lipa, Florence Welch, Self Esteem, and hundreds of music industry professionals. “The names keep coming in,” Rasmussen says. “Knowing that an artist you love loves you as a trans person is a huge thing. That feeling can carry you through some very dark times. It definitely does for me.”

The very well-connected Fussell, whom Alexander and St. James describe as the Bob Geldof of the operation, was already thinking about fundraising for the transgender community. The letter accelerated his plans and provided a long list of potential artists, as timelines allowed. “We filled all the vacancies quickly,” says Alexander. “We could have spent several nights with the response we received.”

One inspiration, of course, was Live Aid in 1985. Another was the 2014 film Pride, which depicted the solidarity between LGBTQ+ activists and miners during the 1984-85 miners’ strike. The lineup duly combines trans artists (Kae Tempest, Jasmine.4.T) with cisgender (Beth Ditto, Adam Lambert) and straight (Beverley Knight, Sophie Ellis-Bextor). This broad alliance extends to the selection of speakers, from Munro Bergdorf and Juno Dawson to Nicola Coughlan and Ian McKellen.

“I would say that’s the vital ingredient,” St. James says. “It’s great that we can give some trans artists the opportunity to perform on such a globally known stage. But to amplify this message through high-profile voices from outside the community will make people listen that much more.” As Grammy-nominated artist MNEK said: “There is strength in numbers.”

While the concert has a fundraising dimension, through ticket and merchandise sales and donations, its goal is also to stimulate awareness and action. “Our slogan is ‘A Night of Solidarity for Change for Life,’” Alexander says. “I’m concerned about this loud anti-trans sentiment taking over the mainstream media. I hope this will be a beacon that will say, “Okay, actually, there are a lot of people who love and support trans people, and we’re not going to stay silent either.”

Not long ago, an event like the Trans Mission wasn’t so necessary. When St. James began its transformation in 2009, “it was a completely different time.” In 2017, Theresa May promised to reform the Gender Recognition Act to legitimize self-identity. “In the 2000s, there was an explosion in visibility, and the whole thing seemed very cool and exciting, but that also creates problems,” Rasmussen says. “There was a lot of hope and then resistance to that hope.”

At the turn of the decade, negative coverage of trans people in the British press increased dramatically, along with a large number of well-funded lawsuits. Anti-trans activists, who began by focusing on women’s sports and women’s prisons, have escalated to restricting trans health care and excluding trans people from all single-sex spaces. According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, transphobia is the only form of prejudice that has increased in recent years, with the rate of those describing themselves as non-biased falling from 82% to 64% between 2019 and 2024.

“It’s crackers,” Rasmussen sighs. “I really don’t know who it is that restricts the rights of marginalized people. It’s hard to get work and housing. It’s hard to maintain relationships. There are high suicide rates. Don’t get me wrong, transgender life is amazing and beautiful. But walking down the damn street is still hard.”

Alexander is reminded of Section 28, the notorious law imposed by the Thatcher government in 1988 that prohibited local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality. “Some of the things that are said about trans people are literally inspired by what was said about gay men in the 1980s – they are not safe with children, they are perverts, they are cheaters,” he says. “These messages have been used against queer people throughout history. I see transphobia as the cousin of homophobia, and it’s the cousin of misogyny. I think we’re all in this together.”

St James argues that trans people have become convenient scapegoats in a time of political crisis: “It’s a classic case of the bogeyman tactic: it’s not us letting you down, it’s these demonized trans people.”

Unsurprisingly, the only politician on the bill is Green Party leader Zach Polanski. The Labor government has banned puberty blockers, delayed a blanket ban on transitioning practices, introduced new restrictions on social transitioning in schools, and manipulated its response to the High Court decision. “I would say it was cowardice,” says Alexander, who no longer votes Labour. “The Labor government being afraid to take a stand on this only shows the weakness of our leadership.”

Given the dearth of supportive voices in politics and the press, musicians and actors have become key advocates for transgender rights. “The music industry has always been a place where marginalized identities have the opportunity to thrive,” Alexander says. “There’s more alliance there.”

Well, to some extent, several top music executives refused to sign Rasmussen’s open letter. “It didn’t surprise me at all,” Alexander says. “My experience with people who work at big brands is that they are all very afraid of losing their jobs.”

Christine and the Queens – the pseudonym of Raheem Redcar, who transitioned in 2021 – believe attacks on trans people play a role in the larger project of far-right politics, with its reactionary insistence on strict gender roles. “Trans identities become stories of pain, mistakes, punishment, and loneliness,” he says. “I myself experienced that loneliness but then I realized that this is what they want – to divide us as a community. We question the entire system of oppression. I would like to remind people of the dignity of the choices people make to live life in a system that is so cruel to everyone.”

St. James hopes Trans Mission will encourage ground-level progress in the form of “people having not-so-nice conversations with their uncle who made a terrible comment at the kitchen table, or overheard something in the office.” For trans people themselves, the concert will send a message “that 10,000 people came together and said, ‘We are with you,'” she says.

“I’m hoping for a high-energy night,” says Redcar. “I would like there to be some kind of collective revolution where we can stop feeling bad about everything. We can stop feeling so helpless.”