The Violence in Auckland Last Week Was Appalling – & Entirely Predictable

Societal tolerance of trans activist aggression & reckless behavior by a leader combine to create a predictably volatile situation.

The clash between trans rights activists and women campaigning to claw back rights to sex-segregated prisons, shelters, sports, restrooms and change rooms, infringed by gender identity policy and law, turned violent last week in Auckland. UK campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen’s Let Women Speak tour, which features an open mic for women to discuss their objections to gender identity policy, drew increasingly larger counter-protests as it progressed through Australia, finally drawing about 2000, compared with an estimated 250 LWS supporters, in Auckland, NZ.

Immediately upon arriving to the rotunda stage in Albert Park, Kellie-Jay was doused with tomato juice by a trans rights activist who later said,”I want her to be full of blood… because she is advocating for our genocide.” Amid police failure to separate the opposing camps, and TRAs aggressively closing in on the rotunda stage, Kellie-Jay’s security team decided to escort her out and cancel the event before she even had a chance to speak. Alarming video shows an angry mob pushing against Kellie-Jay’s security team, which encircled and tightly gripped her as they struggled to move her out of the venue. Kellie-Jay later said, “I thought I was going to be crushed to death.”

Thankfully, she was delivered into a police vehicle relatively unscathed. Her supporters, however, were not so lucky. Without private security, and police standing down, the mob attacked with impunity. Women reported being kicked, grabbed, thrown to the ground, and having projectiles thrown at them. One woman’s foot was broken; another, a 70 year old, was punched repeatedly in the face by a young male trans activist.

The violence was shocking, but predictable for many reasons, primarily because aggressive de-platforming and violent threats from trans activists have been allowed to continue unchecked in many countries for years and years. Violent imagery on social media has been prolific and prompted creation of the website “Terf Is A Slur” to document the threats. So normalized is the threat of violence, that in 2018 San Francisco Public Library thought it worthwhile to put on an exhibit celebrating symbols of violence against so-called “terfs,” a slur meant to indicate “trans exclusionary radical feminists,” that included baseball bats, axes, and a tee shirt splattered with red paint to indicate blood.

No analysis of factors contributing to women’s vulnerability to aggression and violence by TRAs at LWS events would be complete without consideration of Kellie-Jay’s own actions. Too often she appears to be unwilling to heed the advice of local activists when planning her events.

Moreover, she has a propensity to taunt counter-protesters in ways that are personal – and counterproductive.

Taunts and jeers are part of street protest, but personal attacks such as these reinforce the stereotype of gender identity critics as “transphobes” and “haters.”

Kellie-Jay’s dubious connections, and the dangerous right wing characters drawn into her orbit, also increase the risk of violence at her events.

Feminists alarmed that such connections would damage the movement, and about the intentions of far right actors, asked Kellie-Jay to distance herself from them. She refused, arguing that her events platform free speech and anyone may attend.

The problem of far right actors getting involved became so obvious that even her long-time friend and colleague Kara Dansky, current president of Women’s Declaration International USA, made a point of distancing herself from the far right at Kellie-Jay’s Washington DC event.

It is unlikely that Kellie-Jay will moderate her rhetoric or her stance on far right actors. But one hopes, with planned tours in Canada, Ireland, and Northern Ireland, she will at least heed the advice of local activists and more carefully plan her events to minimize the risk of violence to her supporters.

Source: The Violence in Auckland Last Week Was Appalling – & Entirely Predictable