Anti-trans rights groups clashed with LGBTQ+ activists as hundreds of protesters poured into Sydney’s Victoria Park on Saturday.
UK-based activist Kellie-Jay Keen, who also goes by Posie Parker online, has traveled to Australia for a series of anti-trans rallies.
Her presence in Sydney is being protested by trans advocacy groups with loud chants of: ‘Posie Parker, you can’t hide, you’ve got the Nazis on your side’ and ‘TERFS go home’ as she takes the stage.
Ms Keen, a self-described transphobic, believes it is impossible to change gender and campaigns to exclude trans women from women-only spaces.
UK-based activist Kellie-Jay Keen, who also goes by Posie Parker online, has traveled to Australia for a series of anti-trans rallies.
He also argues that trans people should have a dead name and not have the right to choose their own pronouns.
Tensions threatened to boil over towards the end of the demonstration, but a heavy police presence, including troopers, stopped it.
LGBTQ+ groups chanted ‘fans left and anti-queer TERFS are not welcome here’ as Ms Keen spoke to the crowd.
TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusive radical feminist and describes those whose views on gender identity are hostile to transgender people and who oppose social and political policies designed to include transgender people.
Speaking at the rally, Ms Keen, dressed in a white jumpsuit with the word “WOMAN” emblazoned on it, described trans women as “men” and said they are “upset that they can’t wear dresses because they’ve never been told to wear dresses before No”. .
She added that when people say they “believe in the rights of trans people,” what they are really saying is that “men should be in girls’ spaces and play girls’ sports.”
Anti-trans rights groups clashed with LGBTQ+ activists (pictured) as hundreds of protesters descended on Sydney’s Victoria Park on Saturday.
Australian TERF groups were there in support of Ms Keen, including divisive Liberal candidate Katherine Deves (pictured), who told the crowd: “We will not be silenced.” We will stand firm. I keep fighting the fight
The activist added that trans people are trying to take ‘all thelittle piece of the world that we women have carved for ourselves’ anddescribed trans men as “human shields for fetishists”.
She also sang for the crowd, saying it was a “wonderful day to be a TERF” and said that LGBTQ+ groups made “even menopausal women look healthy.”
The right-wing speaker added that the ‘pornifcation of society’ is making ‘AGP people breed like rabbits’.
AGP is a term used by anti-trans groups referring to autogynephilia, a pseudoscientific concept that describes a man’s propensity to become sexually aroused by thinking of himself as a woman.
After her speech, Ms Keen gave the microphone to other protesters, one of whom claimed that her teenage granddaughter “is depressed” because her “teachers are trying to convince her that she is a trans man.”
Ms Keen, a self-described transphobic, believes it is impossible to change gender and campaigns to exclude trans women from women-only spaces.
Speaking at the rally, Ms Keen, dressed in a white dress with ‘WOMAN’ emblazoned on it, described trans women as ‘men’ and said they are ‘upset that they can’t wear dresses because they’ve never been told that before No’.
Australian TERF groups were there in support of Ms Keen, including divisive Liberal candidate Katherine Deves, who told the crowds: “We will not be silenced.” We will stand firm. I’m still fighting the fight.
She added that transgender groups “deny women and girls the right to language” and “male free spaces.”
We see them coming for the children. We see them coming in families. Now we have the intrusion of the state into our home and our families.
‘And parents have been told they will be criminalized if I try to defend their children.
‘Race in our educational system that is trying to indoctrinate our children into this way of thinking.’
There is no evidence for these claims.
There was a heavy police presence dividing the two opposing groups, including a row of troopers, with chants of “fans leave and anti-queer TERFS are not welcome here” from LGBTQ+ groups as Ms Keen spoke before the crowd.
Protesters, one draped in the LGBTQ+ Progress flag, embrace
Ms. Keen has been the subject of heavy criticism from many groups in the past, includingfor allegedly posing with an activist who celebrated the death of Winnie Mandela and called out the anti-apartheid fighter‘a whore’ and ‘white farmer murdering c***’.
She has also been criticized by a British MP for saying access to abortion and contraceptives must be reduced for children and adolescents.
Ms Keen raised eyebrows recently after criticizing British MP Jess Phillips for reading the name of a teenage trans murder victim, Brianna Ghey, in the House of Commons during an International Women’s Day speech.
He has also spoken alongside various figures from far-right groups, includingChristopher Barcenas, member of the Proud Boys, who was deposed by the United States government due to his presence at the Capitol riot on January 6.
Activists from Pride in Protest and the National Union of Students were among the counter-protesters in Sydney’s inner park (pictured)
The groups held up signs saying ‘trans rights are human rights’ and chanted against Ms Keen
Protesters’ banners read ‘no TERFS on our TERF’
Pride in Protest activists, as well as the National Union of Students, were among the counter-protesters in Sydney’s inner park.
‘TERFs/SWERFs in an anti-queer culture war. This far-right politics must stop,’ Pride in Protest said in a facebook postbefore the event, referring to the acronym for ‘feminists’ who exclude trans women and sex workers from their activism.
The National Union of Students has also called for a series of counter-protests against Ms. Keen.
“We protest Keen’s speech events for two reasons: first, because these events call for the removal of trans rights and we strongly support transgender people,” a spokesperson said.
‘Secondly because these events are supported and assisted by the political right.
Heavy police presence at the protest
“Allowing the right to network and grow under the guise of supporting women poses a threat to all progressive causes and everything unions stand for.”
Before his trip to Australia, Stephen Bates, spokesman for the Greens on LGBTIQA+ issues, he wrote to Immigration Minister Andrew Giles asking him to revoke his visa.
Mr Bates argued that Ms Keen had a long history of “promoting or excusing hate and violence towards trans and other marginalized communities”.
Speaking to 2GB with breakfast presenter Ben Fordham on Friday, Ms Keen described herself as a “transphobic” but argued that it’s “not scary” because she’s “really small”.
He argued that people had “tried to write her off” and that she “doesn’t do anything to create controversy” but is “so influential that problems follow her.”
I’m not scary. I am also very small,” the British commentator told Fordham.
Groups chanted that Ms Keen ‘had the support of the Nazis’
The police prevented the counter-protest group from approaching Ms. Keen’s demonstration.
Asked by Fordham why people were afraid of her, Ms Keen said: ‘It is my ability to speak directly and tell the truth.
“I think that’s pretty scary for some people. We have lost the ability, both in the UK and in Australia and elsewhere, to speak clearly, just to tell the truth.’
“In today’s money, because being transphobic means you say ‘a woman doesn’t have a penis,’ and I’m probably transphobic.”
When asked if she is an anti-trans activist, she replied: “I am a women’s rights activist” and that she defines a woman as an “adult human female.”
“Because so many people are completely cowardly, social media has been able to manifest itself as a mass silencing tool,” Ms Keen added.
‘There is a strange social currency of acceptance. And I think endorsing that is really not caring about women at all.’
A protester holds a sign reading ‘No one is translating their children’
LGBTQ+ protesters took force against anti-trans group
Asked what she would say to people who were assigned male at birth but feel like they’re stuck in the wrong body and want to be a female, Ms Keen said: “There are a lot of people who feel things that are”. not true. So we don’t say they are a different category of person.
She said she has “no objection” to people “doing whatever they want in life” but that it should “not affect her”.
She added that she also has a problem with calling trans people by names and pronouns that don’t align with what they were born with, because it “opens the door” to more trans rights.
LGBTQ+ rights activists were out in force against the TERFS
Asked by Fordham why he uses the name ‘Posie’ instead of his birth name ‘Kelly’, he added: ‘If I wanted to be called John it would be difficult.
I am so influential. The problem just comes. I don’t do anything, I don’t really do anything to invite him,” she added.
“What’s happening in a country like this, the state is tricking women into pretending they can’t see the truth in front of their eyes and they can’t name it.”
The New South Wales Police warned that the protests must be done legally.
‘NSW Police respect the right of individuals and groups to protest; however, those involved must do so peacefully and in compliance with the law,’ a spokesperson said.
