Join us for our Festival of Humanism 2025! You can expect a day of informative and exciting talks, discussions, performances, and artistic activities on the themes you, our members and supporters, said you’d like to explore.

Book your tickets here.

Meet the speakers

Jordan Daly is a Co-Founder and Director of the charity Time for Inclusive Education (TIE). The TIE Campaign led to Scotland becoming the first country in the world to commit to LGBT Inclusive Education in schools. Today, the charity addresses homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic prejudice and bullying through an educational approach with schools, creates teaching resources, runs workshops for young people, and delivers professional learning for teachers.

Brian Dempsey is a lecturer in law at the University of Dundee.  First active in the Scottish Homosexual Rights Group in 1983, then ACTUP London in the early 1990s, Brian was involved in lobbying and supporting the Scottish Parliament in repealing Section 28 from 1998.  Brian has published widely on LGBT+ rights and history.

Shgufta Anwar is the founder of Women on Wheels. She leads her team to normalise the idea of women on bikes, particularly women of colour. Shgufta’s passion for cycling started when she had a life-changing moment managing a climate change project for Al-Meezan a decade ago. After that she co-developed a cycling hub, working with hundreds of BAME women and children, and formed a regular cycling group, the Hijabi Riders.

Hazel Darwin-Clements is a writer, performer and climate actioner. Her recent work explores climate accountability in her plays, Human Sacrifice, Maya and the Whale and Ideas Jukebox. She set up an eCargo bike library, a community Fridge and even organised a climate festival in the sea!

Lucy Grieve is an award-winning reproductive rights campaigner with a proven record of impact on health policy in Scotland. As a student in 2020, Lucy founded the campaign group Back Off Scotland to end anti-abortion protests taking place outside abortion care facilities. Following the implementation of the buffer zone law in Scotland, Lucy focuses on improving access to mid-trimester abortion care in Scotland and broader abortion law reform. Lucy also works as Policy and Engagement Manager at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

Rachael Clarke is an experienced policy and campaigns professional, having worked in and around Westminster and Holyrood for more than a decade on policy, public affairs, and law reform. Currently Head of Advocacy for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, Rachael works with parliamentarians, government, the NHS, and clinicians to deliver a framework for the provision of essential abortion care. Rachael currently sits on the Scottish Government’s Expert Working Group on Abortion Law Reform.

Sean Lìonadh is a poet, filmmaker and artist from Glasgow. His BAFTA-winning short film, Too Rough, was praised as a “profound and fearless portrayal of love and trauma”. His poetry explores similar themes, in his first poetry collection Not Normal Anymore, which include his viral poems Time for Love and TedX talk.

Book your tickets here.

[Image caption: clockwise from top left, our CEO Fraser Sutherland and Chair Jennifer Buchan, Lucy Grieve, Rachael Clarke, Sean Lionadh, Hazel Darwin-Clements, Jordan Daly, Shgufta Anwar, Brian Dempsey.]

Timetable

Arrivals from 9.30 am

CEO and Chair’s introductions: 9.45 – 10am

• First session: 10 – 11am: Section 28, 25 years on: where next for LGBT+ inclusive education? With legal scholar and activist Brian Dempsey and Jordan Daly, co-founder of Time for Inclusive Education (TIE).

Coffee break: 11 – 11:15am

• Second session: 11:15am – 12:15pm. Climate change and community activism: performances and discussion. With Shgufta Anwar, founder of Women on Wheels, and artist and performer Hazel Darwin Clements.

Lunch provided by Clayton Hotel: 12.15 – 1pm

• Third session: 1 – 2pm. Reproductive rights: the fight for post-20-week abortion access. With Lucy Grieve of Back Off Scotland and Rachael Clarke, Head of Advocacy at the British Pregnancy Advice Service.

• Fourth session: 2 – 3pm. Humanism and the arts: poetry performances and discussion. With Sean Lionadh, BAFTA-winning filmmaker and poet and one other speaker TBC.

Coffee break: 3 – 3.15pm.

• Holyrood elections 2026 hustings: 3.15 – 4.30/5pm. A chance to put your questions on humanist policy to representatives of the major parties contesting next year’s Holyrood elections. Details TBC.

CEO’s closing remarks and thanks, ending no later than 5pm.

Ticket prices

• £40 (full price) with donation suggested
• £20 (concession, for example: student, unwaged, lower waged)

We subsidise festival ticket prices to keep our events affordable for those on lower incomes. If you can afford to donate to help us keep running festivals, please do so.