A plague of crickets at the LGB Alliance conference

Disrupting a gay-rights conference by unleashing sackfuls of live crickets is the kind of behaviour you might expect from far-right loonies or a niche sect of religious extremists. It is not – in normal times, at least – the sort of thing that people who believe themselves to be progressive would get up to.

Yet on Friday, as one of the final talks of LGB Alliance’s annual conference was beginning, six trans-rights activists emptied bags full of live insects into the 600-strong crowd. The protesters – believed to be teenagers – were seated among the attendees in the auditorium of the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster. Whistleblower Jamie Reed was set to talk about her experience working at an American gender clinic, which was allegedly medically transitioning minors with severe psychiatric problems.

As roughly 6,000 crickets swarmed the auditorium, security guards swiftly evacuated the room, detained the protesters and called the police. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said ‘an investigation into the circumstances remains ongoing’ but that no arrests had been made. Reed’s talk did eventually go ahead, but some sessions had to be cancelled while staff removed the bugs.

Those responsible come from a group called Trans Kids Deserve Better (TKDB). According to a press release on their website, the activists felt moved to action to stop ‘LGB Alliance’s hate and cruelty’. By which I think they mean the alliance’s determination to push back against gender ideology, which it rightly sees as a threat to the rights and safety of gay, lesbian and bisexual people. The aim of the stunt, apparently, was to spread the message that ‘trans youth are powerful and we will let them fucking know it’.

This is by no means the first rodeo for the pint-sized protesters of TKDB, who seem only to be ramping up their direct action. In August this year, 14 members of the group – all under 18 years old – ‘occupied’ the Department for Education’s headquarters in Westminster. For a week, they camped outside in protest against what they perceived as the Labour government’s failure to protect ‘trans rights’.

Just a few months earlier, TKDB camped outside the NHS England offices for three days, in protest against the then Tory government’s ban on puberty blockers. During the demonstration, activists were entertained by drag shows, as well as arts and crafts. Cardboard coffins were fashioned to represent a supposed epidemic of dead trans kids.

TKDB is being rewarded for its attention-seeking. It set up a crowdfunding page in the aftermath of its NHS England demonstration, amassing over £13,000 in donations. Since releasing the crickets on the LGB Alliance conference, a similar fundraising page has earned over £4,000 so far for the ‘crick-kids’.

Clearly, this group of precocious teens and their adult handlers have every intention of upping the ante for future protests. Having released thousands of large, live insects into a conference for one of the UK’s only charities dedicated to protecting the rights of same-sex-attracted people, who knows what will be next.

As with every other group in the trans-activist set, TKDB demands ‘respect’, ‘safety’ and ‘to be heard’. But when it comes to affording some respect, safety and public platforms to lesbians, gays and bisexuals, it’s crickets.

Lauren Smith is a staff writer at spiked.