Witch Fever describe Obtain Competition’s trans bathroom entry coverage as “a whole fuckin’ tragedy”

Witch Fever have joined these voicing their opposition to Obtain Competition’s obvious coverage concerning bathroom entry for trans followers.

Earlier at this time (Could 27), artists NOAHFINNCE and Pinkshift hit out on the rock and metallic competition for upholding a coverage that prohibits trans girls from utilizing girls’s bogs and trans males from utilizing males’s amenities.

Pop-punk singer-songwriter NOAHFINNCE shared a screenshot that appeared to come back from an electronic mail question to Obtain, exhibiting the competition saying: “We're pleased with the repute the Obtain group has by way of range, and can all the time look to advertise the security and luxury of all competition attendees together with transgender and non-binary clients.

“We might be following the interim steering issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Fee (EHRC) on 25 April 2025 right here. Their steering states that ‘trans girls (organic males) shouldn't be permitted to make use of the ladies’s amenities and trans males (organic girls) shouldn't be permitted to make use of the boys’s amenities’”.

Hey @DownloadFest what the fuck are you doing. How have you ever acquired the gall to ask trans folks like me to play your competition after which ban them from utilizing the bathroom? If the one method we will piss is by outing ourselves then you definately’ve created an unsafe surroundings… pic.twitter.com/W0oLIa5P4U

— NOAHFINNCE👹 (@noahfinnadams) May 27, 2025

NOAHFINNCE responded: “Hey @downloadfest what the fuck are you doing inviting trans folks to play your competition however not permitting them the easy proper of utilizing the proper toilet?”

“I had a good time taking part in final yr however won't be attending once more if I've to queue up for the women’ toilet and my trans sisters should danger outing themselves within the males’s toilet. All this does is put trans folks at risk,” he added. “In case you’re taking part in @downloadfest, attending it and even simply conscious of it, say one thing about it.”

Now, Manchester band Witch Fever have additionally criticised Obtain. On their Instagram Tales on Tuesday, the band responded to the query: “Have you ever learn the Obtain Festivals coverage concerning trans followers bathroom entry?”

They replied: “The risk to trans folks’s security by forcing them to enter bathrooms which are assigned to a gender that they don’t affiliate with is a whole fuckin tragedy. We hope this resolution will get modified.”

The band have been constantly outspoken on behalf of the rights of transgender and non-binary teams, they usually performed at Obtain Competition in 2023.

In 2022, bassist Alex Thompson advised NME: “Empowerment is all the time going to be on the core of something we do, as a result of that’s why we do that. We wanna present folks – particularly girls and gender non-conforming folks – you can categorical your self in the best way you’ve been advised your complete life you shouldn’t – and there’s an influence and positivity to doing that.”

NME has reached out to Obtain’s organisers for remark concerning the coverage.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjIgde_TFBI[/embed]

The coverage outlined by Obtain organisers seems to narrate to the UK Supreme Court docket ruling on April 16, by which judges unanimously dominated that the authorized definition of a lady relies on organic intercourse below the Equality Act.

As outlined by the Equality Human Rights Commission, the April ruling from the Supreme Court docket signifies that, in locations open to the general public, trans girls shouldn’t use girls’s amenities corresponding to bathrooms.

BBC later reported that over 1,000 cultural figures then signed an open letter which claimed that the ruling “overlooks the necessity to shield trans, non-binary and intersex folks from discrimination”. It additionally added that many leaders throughout the UK’s cultural sector had been “unwilling” to police which bathrooms folks select to make use of.

Charli XCX, Self Esteem and Wolf Alice are among the many many artists to have additionally signed an open letter of solidarity to the trans group from the UK music business. On prime of that, quite a few figures within the leisure world expressed their assist for these affected. Those that have spoken out in assist of the trans group embody Scissor Sisters, Fragrance Genius, Rubbish, Rachel Chinouriri, JADE, Lambrini Women and Billy Bragg.

This yr’s Obtain Competition takes place at Donington Park, Leicestershire from June 13-15. Inexperienced Day, Sleep Token and KoRn will all be first-time headliners, and different names on the invoice embody Weezer, Intercourse Pistols that includes Frank Carter, Jimmy Eat World and Poppy.