Open Letter to the British Film Institute

I dont think BFI realises how much this is starting to feel like we can't women unless we are born male.

Stop this, promotion of women cannot be done by men

This is a disgrace. I'd the BFI honestly suggesting that there are no women working on film worth listening to, and they'd rather garner publicity by inviting a trans activist, who is very keen to denegrate women, and has nothing to do with film?

How can you even imagine this within 12 months of #MeToo.

Who chose this man to take a place that would be much more pertinently filled by a woman in the film industry?

As women who work within the film industry and as those in solidarity with these women, we are writing to ask why you have selected a male as the keynote speaker.

Bergdorf is a privately-educated, privileged MALE. He knows nothing of women’s oppression; every door he has ever leant on has been opened for him by money and male privilege, even his feminised body was bought from other men. He can never represent women. He can only represent transwomen, who are drug-and-surgically altered males performing a pornsick, man-pleasing version of femininity, which demeans and oppresses real women and girls.

This is a slap in the face to all women, but particularly the thousands of gifted and creative women working in the British film industry who have been fighting for decades for parity in terms of job opportunities, commissions and income. Women are chronically underrepresented in the film and television industry in all senior positions and technical grades. We are 51% of the population, yet we only get to direct 13% of British films. You know this well, yet you’ve still done this, squandering a brilliant opportunity for women AND men in the industry to be inspired by a female keynote speaker who has worked against the odds to create beautiful and intelligent work. There is no woman on earth as inexperienced as Bergdorf who would have been given such a prestigious opportunity: it is insulting and shameful choice and a criminal waste of public funding.

Please stop pushing women aside .This event is supposed to be about women. Transwomen do not speak for women. We are not the same sex.

I was so pleased you were going to address this issue and assumed you would choose one of the few women in the industry to speak. Instead you have chosen someone who constantly undermines women's interests in favour of trans rights. Shame on you.

You should be ashamed and embarrassed to have disgraced female filmmakers in such an insulting manner.

This is a slap in the face to women.

I agree that this is not the right choice

How utterly predictable. Another institution jumping on the "woke" bandwagon.Men are what they say they are, and women are what men say they are.... Women have been disregarded and abused throughout history because of their SEX. They cannot "identify" out of that. Gender is a social construct, Human beings cannot change sex I also note that your Equal Opportunities information is wrong. Gender is not a protected characteristic. Perhaps some more study is needed.

What a shame there are no actual women to ask. At least the Men’s Rights Activists will be pleased.

what in the hell.

MB is a man.

It is, without doubt, completely inappropriate.

I struggle to understand how you could possibly arrived at the decision that this person was the best candidate for this role. It beggars belief.

Please protect women's opportunities in line with the equalities Act 2010. I noticed that you haven't got the correct protected characteristics on your Equal Opps info. There is no mention of Sex only Gender. This is wrong and until it is changed by law you are misleading the public and possibly making policy decisions that are unlawful.