Join Pink Therapy Conference 2026 Online

In this keynote, Dr Jay Stewart MBE, CEO and co-founder of Gendered Intelligence, explores what it means to support trans, non-binary and gender-exploring people in a time of heightened social, political and cultural pressure. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience leading a trans-led charity, Jay reflects on how increasing hostility, structural inequality and public discourse are shaping both individual wellbeing and organisational life. He explores how this external pressure is not only felt “out there”, but is entering our bodies, relationships and organisations, influencing how we relate to ourselves and one another. The keynote will highlight how community-based support, therapeutic practice and systems change intersect in rich and hopeful ways. Jay will share insights from Gendered Intelligence’s Youth and Community Services, foregrounding the role of community and belonging as key mechanisms for change. Jay will also explore how therapeutic work can support trans people to build “psychological rank” — developing resilience, self-worth and the capacity to process internalised oppression. This inner work not only supports individual wellbeing, but has wider ripple effects across systems and social justice movements. At a time of significant stress within the trans movement and beyond, this keynote offers both reflection and invitation: to recognise the vital role of therapeutic practice within a wider ecosystem of change, and to consider how cultivating resilience, generosity and connection can support both individuals and the movement as a whole.

The politicisation of transphobia, the hatred embedded within the Manosphere, war in the Middle East, and the global Climate Crisis. There is so much for us to be afraid of in the current cultural climate. It can feel therefore in so much of the work that we do that this is a very bleak time. Clients feel fear and anxiety, there is an undoubted rise in mental health conditions linked with these wider societal issues, and for many of us in the helping professions we can often feel like so much of what we are doing is fruitless. Yet, there will always be shoots of hope. As we work with and discover the intersecting identities within us and our clients, this presentation recognises that through doing the work on ourselves, and therefore with those clients who are most impacted by the hatred in the world, there is a chance to discover something powerful within. The Ally Archetype, which will be needed by all of us to get through these darkest of times. Which will be needed for us to feel that most essential of qualities. Hope.

This keynote conversation brings together writer and journalist Shon Faye and psychologist Ali Bromley for a thought-provoking and engaging dialogue exploring the themes of Shon’s latest book, Love in Exile. Building on the critical impact of The Transgender Issue, the discussion turns towards questions of love, desire, mental health and the conditions under which flourishing becomes possible. Drawing on an intersectional feminist lens, Faye and Bromley will explore how cisgender and transgender women are often positioned in opposition within public discourse, and instead consider the shared structures of inequality which shape their lives. What might shift if these experiences were understood as interconnected rather than competing? How can solidarity become a site of hope? In keeping with the conference theme, Intersections of Hope, the conversation will also engage with wider questions of queer liberation, inviting us to reimagine intimacy, belonging and collective care. Alongside this, the speakers will reflect on the specificities of trans experience in the current social and political climate, and consider how neurodivergence shapes experiences of connection, desire and mental health. Blending critical insight with accessible conversation, this session offers space to think expansively about justice, connection and the possibilities for building more liveable futures.

Raawiyah’s talk will broadly cover three main areas related to asylum in the UK. First, the talk will explore asylum claims in the UK with a particular focus on claims based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity-based reasoning. There will be a discussion of the asylum journey, beginning from the state of origin to the state of asylum application to fully understand the potential experiences of applicants and how this may impact ability to engage with the demands of legal process. Second, alongside this understanding, the talk will unpack the legal stages of the asylum process to scrutinise the ways in which demands of the asylum process negatively impact health and wellbeing of applicants. The concept of vulnerability will be explored to better understand the needs of applicants during the process as well as the high evidentiary burdens of the asylum system that disproportionately impact sexual orientation and/or gender identity based claims. Finally, the talk will end with future steps of culturally competent trauma-informed asylum processes and how professionals in the sector can support applicants in practical ways in the ever divisive political climate and social landscape in the UK.

This presentation invites therapists to think beyond “kink-friendly” practice and move toward a more reflexive, intersectional, and queerly attentive understanding of kink, trauma, and healing. Drawing on the largest qualitative study to date into kink, BDSM, and Leather in the UK, the session explores what queer kinksters wished therapists knew about their practices, identities, bodies, and relationships. Kink cannot be understood in isolation from queerness, race, transness, disability, and systemic fetishisation. What does it mean to offer safety to clients whose bodies and desires have already been shaped by stigma, pathologisation, and shame? What might the therapeutic gaze miss when we meet kink with neutrality, but not with cultural, historical, and embodied understanding? And what if hope is found in practices therapists have been trained to mistrust? Rather than offering kink as pathology, provocation, or simple reclamation, we will follow anonymised narrative invitations and explore kink as a complex site where survival, agency, intimacy, identity, pleasure, and trauma may be negotiated. Attending to the intersections of queerness, race, transness, disability, and other marginalised positions – often overlooked in research and clinical frameworks – allows a fuller, more nuanced picture to emerge, where what is usually unseen becomes central to how we make sense of kinky clients’ lived experience. For therapists, the hopeful invitation is not instant expertise, but a deepening of reflexivity, humility, and GSRD-affirmative practice: a willingness to let queer kinksters teach us how to queer kink-informed therapy.