Students and faculty are preparing a counter protest in response to a planned demonstration by the Westboro Baptist Church of this weekend’s Transgender Spectrum Conference.

The annual conference, now in its third year, will be held at the Brown School of Social Work on Friday, Nov. 4 and Saturday, Nov. 5 and will include presentations on transgender youth, identity and challenges facing the trans community.

Security concerns arose when the Westboro Baptist Church, a group known for their hate against the LGBTQIA* community, announced it will be protesting the event today from noon. to 1 p.m. in the name of “religious protest and warning,” according to its website.

According to Washington University policy on demonstrations and disruption, no outside group is allowed to protest on the University campus. The Washington University Police Department expects the protest to occur on Forsyth Boulevard, on the sidewalk outside of the Brown School buildings where the conference is being held.

“We don’t want this to be about Westboro. We want this to be about the conference, and so we’re going to have our backs to [the protesters] so that we can be focused on the conference and let people know that we’re here to support them,” Molly Smith, a graduate student in the Brown School who intends on participating in the counter protest, said.

The counter protest, organized by a group of Washington University students and faculty who are considering it a “rally” in support of the conference, will occur at the same time as the Westboro protest. The group will convene at around 11:45 a.m. on the walkway between Alvin Goldfarb Hall and Hillman Hall, and will show support with posters and signs. They’ve prepared multiple chants such as, “Peace and love are under attack. What do we say? Stand up, fight back!”

Courtesy of Molly Metzger

Flyers created on Thursday by the organizers of the counter protest that they plan to use on Friday.

The rally will be peaceful in nature, according to organizers, and focus on showing solidarity with the presenters and participants of the Transgender Spectrum Conference. Organizers are also asking people to not engage with the Westboro protesters, who will likely be situated directly across the street from the rally.

“The Westboro protest is an opportunity to remember that our community needs [to be shown] love and support, because there are people out there doing the opposite,” Smith said.

The organizers welcome anyone in the University community to join them in their stand of solidarity with the conference members, whether they are members of the transgender community or allies. The rally will take place for an hour, between noon and 1 p.m.

“This is an opportunity to show the participants that we really care about deconstructing gender and better understanding what it’s like to go through the world without fitting perfectly into a very rigid binary,” Molly Metzger, an assistant professor in the Brown School, said of the conference.