A Conversation with Kellie-Jay Keen (Posie Parker)
I had the good fortune to be in Australia in March, the same time Kellie-Jay Keen brought her Let Women Speak (LWS) tour to Australia and New Zealand. We were scheduled to meet, but Kellie-Jay’s tour was cut short when a violent mob of TRAs (trans rights activists) threatened her life.
On March 25, Kellie-Jay was at Albert Park in Auckland for a planned LWS event. These gatherings have a very simple structure: women are invited to speak about women’s issues. Men are also allowed to speak, but they must wait until the end. Hundreds of TRAs came to Albert Park to protest Kellie-Jay, turning violent before the speakers even got started.
The mob toppled metal barriers, dumped tomato sauce and water on Kellie-Jay, and one (a man) punched an elderly woman multiple times in the face, cracking her skull. The mob attacked Kellie-Jay, and according to police, she was lucky to have survived. (Andrew Doyle provides a solid assessment of the situation with clips from the event here.)
Obviously, the event was canceled, as was the event planned in Wellington the following day. New Zealand police put Kellie-Jay under protection and advised her to leave the country immediately due to credible threats on her life.
I didn’t meet with Kellie-Jay in Sydney as we’d planned. But I did have an extended conversation with her following this authoritarian display of speech suppression and violence against women. We discussed what happened in Auckland, how she was defamed by Australian media before she arrived, why she’s not “anti-trans” (or a Nazi), why she rejects the idea of gender, what we should do about activist educators, why voting for truth takes precedence over other political issues, and much more. One question I asked Kellie-Jay is how we can overcome this illogical, authoritarian, and increasingly violent ideology. After you watch our conversation please feel free to share your ideas.
This was a great conversation! So many brilliant things that I can't even pull single ideas out. Just a very lucid convo among people who agree about the important things and can still speak civilly and logically even where they don't quite agree. I saw in the comments on the video something about Transhumanism and would love to see you dive into that more, Peter. Was that what you meant when you said there was a bigger topic you were thinking about that was your main issue, not this one, but that this was a part of it?
Kelly-Jay is a working class heroine! She's street smart and brave and swears like a sailor and isn't afraid to call a spade a spade. "I'm not a vet but I know what a dog is!" Damn right. We don't have any leaders like her in the US to speak for women who are being silenced. We're tired of academic and activist grifters and their double speak. She's a breath of fresh air. Thank you for this interview and inspiration!🌹