Holly Lawford-Smith
Dr Holly Lawford-Smith is an associate professor of political philosophy at the University of Melbourne. Holly is a women’s rights activist and creator of the website, NoConflictTheySaid.org, which seeks to gather anecdotal evidence of the ways in which sex self-identification impacts women. As a result of the website launch, Holly has been targeted by her colleagues, who penned an open letter to university administrators denouncing her as transphobic. In addition, over the weekend of April 2nd, trans activists staged a protest on campus condemning her and the site. She is currently working on a book about gender critical feminism.
Holly Lawford-Smith joins Spencer to defend her website, No Conflict They Said (.org). This collects anonymous stories from women who say they have been negatively affected by the intrusion of biological males into what have been female only spaces. Critics allege that this website is transphobic. Spencer and Holly discuss these criticism, the extent to which trans-activism is influencing academic philosophy, and some potential downsides to anti-"conversion therapy" laws.
Dr Holly Lawford-Smith is an associate professor of political philosophy at the University of Melbourne. Holly is a women’s rights activist and creator of the website, NoConflictTheySaid.org, which seeks to gather anecdotal evidence of the ways in which sex self-identification impacts women. As a result of the website launch, Holly has been targeted by her…
[Posted to Medium October 15th 2018; last updated June 2019].The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 was amended in 2013 to introduce protection against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status. It is complemented by Australian Government Guidelines on the Recognition of Sex and Gender, commenced in 2013 and updated in…
Abortion rights march in Warsaw 2018.[Posted to Medium 3rd December 2018].A march for reproductive rights is happening in Wellington, New Zealand, on December 5th. A poster advertising the march features the slogan “your body, your choice!”, and pictures of a woman’s face, a coathanger, a pregnant belly, a woman’s fist raised in solidarity, and…
[Image credit: David Walker/Stuff][Posted to Medium 4th December 2018].There is a class of people who suffer from psychiatric disorders to do with their body or appearance. Those with ‘body integrity identity disorder’ suffer the desire to amputate healthy limbs. Those with ‘body dysmorphic disorder’ suffer from obsessive thoughts about their bodies or appearance; this…
Image credit: pannapadipa via Pinterest[Posted to Medium 3rd January 2019. Addendum added 8th January 2019].A friend of mine works in a small company which has recently shifted offices. In their old building, they had the standard bathroom setup, one room with urinals and a few cubicles for men, and one room with cubicles and…
[Image credit: radicalwomen.org].[Posted to Medium 22nd January 2019].If you’ve been paying attention to recent mainstream feminist activism, you’d be forgiven for thinking that feminism is a movement for everyone, everywhere. The mistake that leads to this position is actually kind of interesting. It comes from a misunderstanding of the idea of ‘intersectionality’. “If your…
[Posted to Medium 1st April 2019].Yesterday, Natalie Wynn (ContraPoints) posted a new video[1] to YouTube titled ‘Gender Critical’. As usual, it’s funny and beautifully produced, and she does a great job of digging into the topic. But as in her last video[2] on this topic, she gives the impression of being more charitable than…
[Posted to Medium 12th May 2019].Part II of Slate’s Hi-Phi Nation Episode ‘For Women Only’[1] was posted today. It started with sociologist Laurel Westbrook talking about ‘gender panics’, then had alternating segments of me and Robin Dembroff, giving voice to the contemporary gender critical and the contemporary transactivist/genderqueer positions respectively. I had some thoughts…
Radical feminist and gender-critical philosophers challenge their opponents to avoid some obviously bad argumentative movesWritten by Sophie Allen, Jane Clare Jones, Holly Lawford-Smith, Mary Leng, Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, and Kathleen Stock.[Posted to Kathleen Stock’s Medium account 23rd May 2019. Edit made 28th May 2019 – a new fallacy added (fallacy 9, section 1) and…
[Posted to Medium 26th May 2019].In a piece[1] that several radical and gender critical feminist philosophers, including me, published yesterday on Medium, we set out the following as a question for our opponents:“We think that patriarchy is, definitionally, a system which structurally oppresses females, on the basis of their sex. What do you…
