When I hear Protect the Dolls, I think that it is time that we have the conversation about protecting the transgender community, especially trans women who are being so heavily targeted. But I think it’s really important that we then finish that sentence and talk about what we are protecting the dolls from. Currently, we’re facing segregation laws. We are facing an inability to participate in public life. We’re already facing an employment crisis, a housing crisis, homelessness, access to healthcare – the wait list for transgender healthcare in the UK is pushing a decade, which is abhorrent, and no one should have to face that. So, I think it’s great that we’re having the conversation about protection, but we also need to turn that into action.

You’ve been working in the fashion industry for a very long time, and there was a huge move towards diversity and inclusion – and a lot of optimism that came with that. Do you think there’s still any cause for optimism there?

I think the fashion industry is still much more diverse than many other industries. I always say that fashion is a window into a world that doesn’t necessarily exist yet, so we often have conversations that aren’t being had in other industries. I’ll always be thankful to the industry for that. I think one of the negatives is that fashion largely revolves around trends and, very easily, important topics and subjects can become trends, which are often subject to fatigue. I have seen some of that – a lot of that, actually, with the pushbacks against DEI, the coining of the term woke-ism for basic empathy and understanding and inclusion and diversity. The way in which fashion presents a ‘possibility model’ needs to be a consistent thing, rather than just a flash in the pan.

Where else do you draw hope or resilience from?

We get asked about ‘trans joy’ a lot and about how we can get through this time, how can we stay optimistic, how can we stay resilient within this moment. I think that we also need to balance that sense of optimism with realism about where we are at, and things haven’t been this bad in a very long time for the trans community. We have a disproportionate level of visibility, which has resulted in us becoming a target.

I think a lot of the opportunity, and a lot of the visibility and progress that we have made, has been within the capitalist frame of reference. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have that, because everybody else does, but I think we also need to be thinking about how we can build resilience outside of it. I think London Trans Pride does this really well by staying away from the capitalistic element of, say, Pride in London or other big city prides, which are so heavily tied to corporate interest.