On Wednesday 14 August, at 3pm, a protest was held against the University of Sydney Philosophy Department’s invitation to Holly Lawford-Smith, Associate Professor in Political Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, to speak at a Philosophy Seminar.
The protest was held in response to Lawford-Smith’s widely-publicised transphobic views as well as her participation in the Melbourne ‘Let Women Speak’ rally, where the attendance of neo-Nazi group National Socialist Network was reported. Speakers from staff, student and community groups criticised Lawford-Smith and the University’s invitation.
The announcement of Lawford-Smith as a speaker came under attack in July as many student activists and former Philosophy students came out against the seminar.
While Lawford-Smith prepared to speak at the Philosophy Seminar Room, a crowd of students and staff gathered outside — in front of the University of Sydney Quadrangle — to lead a protest against the seminar. Introduced by the Chair, Freya Mulhall, USyd SRC President Harrison Brennan was first to speak.
After opening with a land acknowledgement, Brennan spoke about his own experience as a philosophy student, stating that the purpose of the discipline was to “change the world” and “make it better”, and that the invitation of a transphobic speaker such as Lawford-Smith was in conflict with that purpose.
As with many of the speakers, the protest against Lawford-Smith was firmly grounded in the context of larger ongoing protests against the newly implemented Campus Access Policy (CAP).
Speaking to this, Brennan noted the hypocrisy of a University that quashed the free speech of students and staff, while simultaneously platforming and promoting a bigot in the name of free speech. Brennan cited some of Lawford-Smith’s transphobic remarks, including calling trans people “a contagion”.
Sophie Cotton, representing Queer Unionists in Tertiary Education (part of the NTEU), spoke next. Speaking against the frequently deployed narrative of ‘Gender-Critical Feminists’ being silenced, Cotton said that if “being silenced” included two Oxford University Press book deals, that she too, would like to be “silenced”. As with Brennan, Cotton made reference to Lawford-Smith’s role in a Melbourne anti-trans rights rally which neo-Nazis attended, stating that “campus is not safe for bigots”.
Cotton went on to criticise the claim that Lawford-Smith’s platforming is a necessary component of a democratic academia, as made by Philosophy Department chair Kristie Miller in defence of the seminar. Making reference to an Oxford University Press Union petition to block the publication of Lawford-Smith’s work, Cotton stated that Lawford-Smith’s work “is not a scholarly work” and that gender-critical feminism is a “smokescreen for bigotry.”
Cotton also addressed the Philosophy Department’s claims about today’s protest. The Department defended their invitation on two counts; that Lawford-Smith had been silenced and that she had been invited because of her feminist work, not her statements on transgender people. Cotton highlighted Lawford-Smith’s accumulation of book deals and being “welcomed by the bourgeois press”, going on to state that Lawford-Smith’s gender-critical feminism has been “developed in tandem” with her transphobia, and that the two are inseparable.
Cotton finished by quoting Toni Morrison:
“The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.”
Relating this quote to her own experience with transphobia, Cotton spoke to the significant progress still necessary to achieve rights and equality for transgender people, stating that it is “an outrage that we are out here, protesting such an insignificant person.”
Speaking on behalf of Sydney-based activist group, Pride in Protest, Quay-Quay Quade discussed Lawford-Smith’s involvement in the “campaign of hatred and violence to queers”.
Speaking to the University’s insistence that Lawford-Smith’s invitation was as an academic, Quade mentioned how a “veneer of academia” has allowed bigots such as Lawford-Smith into liberal institutions. She went on to state how “there’d be no talks from Alex Jones or Andrew Tate in these hallowed halls” yet that Lawford-Smith, through the guise of academia, was able to spread the same hateful ideology.
Quade finalised by discussing the importance of solidarity against the University, and citing the institution’s historic complicity in bigotry and genocide. Concluding, she stated that “devils shake hands with devils in these walls and you pay for it”.
The final speaker, Willow, represented the Feminist Liberation Collective, a student activist group. Similar to other speakers, Willow emphasised the University’s complicity, who they stated was letting “known transphobes speak while prohibiting student speech”.
Willow explained why they were protesting Lawford-Smith’s invitation, “Women’s liberation is not run on theorising… but solidarity. TERFs do not care about women”. Highlighting the collaboration of TERFs with “neo-Nazis and Zionists”, Willow declared that the claim of TERFs to protect women is contradictory, and that they collaborate “with every group who seeks to do them [women] harm”.
Finishing, Willow accentuated the role of students and community in feminist movements: “we have a responsibility to stop the far right from co-opting our movement”.
The protest concluded with chants of “racist, sexist, anti-queer, bigots are not welcome here!”
Note: Amendments have been made to reflect that neo-Nazis attended the ‘Let Women Speak’ rally from a 20 metre distance. Holly Lawson-Smith is not alleged to be a neo-Nazi.
