Mobbed but Unbowed: An Interview with Kellie-Jay Keen

Two days after her March 18th Let Women Speak event in Melbourne, I sat down with Kellie-Jay Keen in a downtown café to ask her about the new “gender-critical” (my preferred term) women’s-rights movement, of which she has now become a de facto leader.

Since we spoke two weeks ago, a lot has happened.

The Melbourne event was gatecrashed by black-clad members of a fascist group that performed Nazi salutes and held up a banner reading “Destroy Paedo Freaks,” thereby allowing Keen to be smeared by opponents as being in league with far-right elements. The willingness of Australian authorities to protect her freedom of speech appeared to decline at this point. At Keen’s subsequent appearance in the Tasmanian capital of Hobart, there was a minimal police presence and high levels of intimidation from protesters. Things spiralled further during a dangerous fracas in Auckland, which saw Keen and a number of her supporters assaulted by aggressive trans-rights protesters, following which the Auckland and Wellington events were ultimately cancelled.

Keen is now back home in the UK, where she’s announced the formation of the “Party of Women,” with Keen herself running directly against Labour leader Keir Starmer in the parliamentary constituency of Holborn and St Pancras in the next general election. In my March 20th conversation with Keen, we talked about her rejection of the label “feminist,” her rising popularity and media profile, and her thoughts on the movement for women’s sex-based rights. I wrote the interview up based on my notes; these are not her exact words.

HLS: You frequently say that you’re not a feminist. I’ve always understood you to mean that you don’t use the label “feminist” because of the baggage that it brings along with it. But while you reject mainstream feminism, surely you are a feminist in the sense that your work is for women. Is my understanding right, or does your rejection of feminism go deeper?

KJK: To truly stand for all women, you don’t need labels. Any label will end up alienating some women, because they won’t agree with it or won’t feel represented by it. It also matters that feminism has [ignored and belittled] motherhood. It should have embraced and celebrated the power of mothers, but it didn’t. So there are many mothers who feel alienated from feminism. It’s also gone too much in the direction of looking for equality with men, rather than thinking about what women actually need on their own terms. And I guess part of it is also leftist feminists early on, constantly attacking me and saying that I’m not a feminist; I don’t meet whatever their standard is for being a feminist. Fine. I’m not a feminist.

HLS: Why are women rallying around you, and what makes your supporters so passionate?

KJK: Part of it is that I’m often attacked, and I tend not to respond, or at least not to respond immediately, and not to name people. I think that creates a situation where other women feel there’s an injustice going unnoticed and they respond on my behalf. Another part is that I’m relatable, and that the events we do are fun. They’re vibrant, and they’re powerful. Women can meet other women. Some women fly around to each event to volunteer as marshals; they’re happy to contribute. There’s an authentic community. I think what I’m doing is basically just saying to women: go on! You can speak; you can do it. I provide the space, but women take it up because they want it—they need it.

HLS: Who are your main opponents?

KJK: Outside of feminism, the most obvious opponents are TRAs [trans rights activists]; inside feminism, it’s the left-purist feminists [left-wing feminists who think it’s impermissible to work with anyone who isn’t themselves left-wing]. I just ignore the TRAs, but it’s harder to ignore the attacks that are highly personal and extremely persistent coming from other women inside the movement.

HLS: When watching your livestreams, I’m sometimes amazed at how effectively you give voice to the feelings many women are having about the threat to our sex-based rights. I’m curious about how you’re able to do that for the camera, alone in your studio. Is this a kind of acting or political theatre? Or are these your real emotions in the moment?

KJK: It’s real. I think we probably [all] have these feelings and we’re used to suppressing them. I don’t suppress them. If I’m angry, I let myself be angry.

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HLS: In last month’s Quillette column, I wrote about the tensions that arise when academics get involved with activism. And I mentioned some of the comments I’ve heard you make, which suggest you think academic feminists have hurt feminist activism, and so maybe should stay out of the movement. I wondered out loud whether your views might be explained as a kind of defensiveness against academic women you’ve felt attacked by. Can you tell me about your views on this?

KJK: I think academics ushered this TRA nonsense in. It came from Gender Studies and Women’s Studies. Of course, I know that there are academic women with sensible views who were pushed out—such as Sheila Jeffreys. I know those who were pushed out are not the same women as those who ushered this movement in. But when it comes to academia versus grassroots activism, I think giving a voice to women on the ground is much more powerful. When we do Let Women Speak events, we’re bringing women into the movement. The academic job is something else. There are lots of jobs that need to be done. I just wish the academics wouldn’t be so utterly dismissive of the activism. I’ve felt really belittled by some of them.

HLS: What do you think actually happened in Melbourne? And what do you think about the media coverage?

KJK: There’s something really suspicious here. When was the last time there were Nazi salutes seen in Melbourne? I think they [the far-right National Socialist Network] used us for their own ends. I haven’t gotten too bogged down in trying to work out why they were there. We can’t change our views based on what other people think, people who happen to agree with us for whatever reason. But I want to know what purpose it serves for [Victorian state premier] Dan Andrews to erase women, and why the police walked those men out past the TRAs [whom they supposedly opposed] instead of out another way. [As described in further detail below, Andrews appeared to lump the views of the National Socialist Network in with Keen and her supporters.]

HLS: What have been some of the best moments from the Let Women Speak events you’ve done internationally?

KJK: For me, it’s when women who are clearly anxious or scared finally step into their confidence, they relax, they’re relieved to finally be speaking out, they get to say what has happened or what they’re seeing and to be supported by other women while they’re saying it. They might have quivering voices or shaking hands, but at some point there’s a physical transformation: they stand up, their back straightens, their shoulders set. They leave the microphone bigger in some way. There have been some amazing moments at Let Women Speak events: Jean from Aberdeen, a Scottish grandmother who spoke in Glasgow; Natalie, a domestic violence survivor in a wheelchair who spoke at Reformer’s Tree in London; and in Melbourne most recently, a young mother.

HLS: You’ve started ending your YouTube livestreams with the slogan, “You know why else we’re going to win? Because I. Never. Lose.” This confident rhetoric aside, how do you actually feel about the chances of success for the movement—what I would call the gender-critical feminist movement, but which I think you would call the movement for women’s sex-based rights?

KJK: We will win. People are beginning to see the bad intentions behind [our opponents]. The problems created by self-identification [for one’s legal sex] will eventually touch everyone. Detransitioners, boys in your daughter’s changing rooms, medical malpractice suits, the number of corrective surgeries needed [for sex-reassignment surgery]—awareness of those problems will bring many more people in.

Since Keen’s Melbourne event, the mainstream media have repeatedly characterised it as an “anti-trans rally,” and insinuated that the National Socialist Network attended as the movement’s allies. This, predictably, has had negative repercussions for many of the women at the event, including me.

In my case, the Dean of Arts at the University of Melbourne (my employer) sent out an email to everyone in our faculty, referring to “last Saturday’s anti-transgender rally,” and commenting:

You’ll be aware, I imagine, that a UK anti-transgender activist with a well-documented history of association with various extremist individuals and groups is currently on a speaking tour of Australia. At her rally in Melbourne last Saturday, black-clad members of a local neo-Nazi group gave Nazi salutes in an effort, it seems, to protect the anti-trans campaigners and to antagonise the peaceful counter-protest.

Student activists later chalked up the university’s Old Arts building with “No TERFs” (this being a reference to “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist,” a term of abuse directed at people like Keen), and “Remember ‘HLS’ spoke with Nazis.” (HLS are my initials.)

John Pesutto, the leader of Victoria’s Liberals, moved to expel MP Moira Deeming from his party, for “organising, promoting and attending a rally where Kellie-Jay Keen (also known as Posie Parker), was the principal speaker in circumstances where Ms Keen was known to be publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists.” And Andrews, Victoria’s Premier, spoke during Question Time about “the events of Saturday,” saying “I want to make it very clear that that was an ugly, evil, harmful gathering long before the Nazi salute was used” (my emphasis).

The hosts of The New Flesh podcast asked Keen about the media description of her as “anti-trans.” She responded:

I think it’s dishonest. It lends itself to the idea that women can’t be anything if they’re not centring men. Calling me ‘anti-trans’ means that I’m more preoccupied with men than actually protecting women, and it’s not the case. This is about women, and actually it’s about men in women’s spaces. It’s not about women [who] call themselves trans, it’s about men in women’s spaces.

For her part, Deeming provided a full response to Pesutto’s allegations, decisively refuting the allegation that Keen has a history of association with extremists, including far-right extremists or neo-Nazis. Deeming was compelled to do this as a means to clear her own name, as she stood accused of guilt by association twice removed: associating with Keen, who had herself allegedly associated with extremists in the past.

The unresolved puzzle, to me, is why many journalists, politicians, and academics seemed so ready to believe that a group of women advocating for women’s sex-based rights were shills for the far-Right—a preposterous idea. Speaking to British journalist Brendan O’Neill, Keen suggested that, somewhat ironically, these attacks can be traced to groundwork laid by (some) fellow gender-critical feminists, who’d made hyperbolic allegations about her alleged far-right associations in the course of attacking her brash tactics. By dint of sheer repetition (including on Keen’s now-locked Wikipedia page), these claims have taken on the ring of truth to some observers.

Here’s an example of how one misrepresentation spread: After spending years searching for people who would help speak out about the impact of gender ideology on children and their parents, a group of women in the United States finally decided to schedule their event at the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. The event was called, “The Inequality of the Equality Act: Concerns from the Left.” All four speakers were left-wing; three were radical feminists (meaning that they subscribe to a branch of feminism that views society as fundamentally male-dominated), and one was a detransitioner. But simply because the venue belonged to a conservative organization, the women involved were subject to relentless smearing as being “in bed with the right,” a smear that was then, in turn, weaponized against Keen. (Those looking for more examples should read Deeming’s response to Pesutto.)

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Not so long ago, this kind of intellectually dishonest campaign to defame Keen and her supporters might have been successful. Deeming, in particular, might have been expected to offer a cringing apology full of all the usual slogans. But that hasn’t happened in this case: all of the protagonists are fighting back, giving as good as they’re getting. As many have noted, moreover, the mob that shut down Keen’s last Australian tour stops did much to turn her into a victim, while presenting her opponents as misogynistic—which, of course, was always Keen’s point to begin with.