Under the name Posie Parker, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull is on an international tour fighting against the rights of transgender people.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Source: YouTube
A posting showing potential upcoming Canadian stops for globe-trotting anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s current speaking tour has been quietly removed from the activist's website.
Better known as Posie Parker, Keen-Minshull is a self-described women’s rights supporter and an anti-transgender campaigner living in the UK.
On a multi-country tour titled “Let Women Speak,” the focus remains on how “sex-based rights” for women are being threatened by gender-affirming care and what Keen-Minshull calls gender ideology – a claim refuted within Canada by the Canadian Bar Association. Keen-Minshull indicated on her website that she was interested in adding a Canadian leg to her tour.
Slated to take place in May, with exact locations and dates to be determined, the website said Keen-Minshull listed Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, and Ottawa as the intended stops. However, after heavily protested appearances in New Zealand, the listing of the events was removed from the events section of Keen-Minshull’s website. Captures of her website recorded in the Internet Archive show that in January 2023, there was a “Canada Let Women Speak” planned for April, but with no firm dates. Despite Keen-Minshull posting a message reading “Canada is on” on January 13, the status on the website shortly changed and listed “possibly Canada” as recently as March 27. By March 31, the graphic had been removed along with a similarly vague event in Geneva.
This does not mean the rest of the tour is off, nor that Canada is off the agenda forever. Several upcoming stops are still listed in Ireland, as well as within the UK, though one event in Northern Ireland has been cancelled due to “safety concerns.” During a recent interview, Keen-Minshull said this was due to the increased terror threat in the region.
Keen-Minshull's most frequent outdoor rallies take place in her home country of the United Kingdom. She often appears at London’s Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, a traditional historic site for political speeches and debate, where anyone can turn up and speak.
Sparking controversy and gaining attention are tools Keen-Minshull easily pulls from her belt. In 2018, in response to Liverpool City Council declaring its support for transgender people, she paid a reported £700 ($1,175 CAD) for a billboard display with the Google definition of the word woman. The billboard company pulled the ad saying they had been “misled” about the messaging, according to the BBC.
Since that time, Keen-Minshull’s statements and activism against transgender people have gained her a much larger audience – and much closer connections to the far and radical right.
Parker is listed as a special adviser to the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF). WoLF reportedly took a $15,000 donation from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), according to The Byline Times. The ADF is an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ advocacy group that, among other victories, was on the legal team that fought and won the challenge against abortion in the US Supreme Court.
Besides her “gender critical” views, Keen-Minshull is often criticized for her proximity to white nationalists. In 2019, Keen-Minshull appeared on French-Canadian white nationalist and conspiracy theorist Jean-François Gariépy on his live stream. Other guests of the same program have included former KKK leader David Duke and British neo-Nazi Mark Collett.
On her own podcast, Keen-Minshull also once stated she “had a bit of an idea,” and proceeded to explain how American men should carry guns into women’s washrooms.
“I’m talking about you dads, who maybe carry – I think that’s what you say, I’m so down with the American lingo. Maybe you carry, maybe you don’t,” she told her audience. “Maybe you consider yourself a protector of women, maybe you’re that sort of man.Maybe you have a daughter or a mother, or a wife, maybe you have a sister. Maybe you have friends, maybe you just think women are human and you don’t need any absolute connection with them to feel compelled to protect us.
“I think you should start using women’s toilets, men.”
Keen-Minshull refers to transgender women as men, transgender men as “lesbians,” and those that support transgender people as victims of a “quasi-religious dogmatic cult, a bit like Scientology.”
Declaring 2023, “the year of the TERF,” – a term referring to Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist – the Let Women Speak website that lists her appearances ahead of time states that “Kellie Jay will be going on tours spanning several continents and filming everything with a professional documentary crew.”
While in Australia for multiple events, a March 18 rally in Melbourne organized by Keen-Minshull attracted a group of supporters from the National Socialist Network (NSN), an Australian neo-Nazi group founded by Thomas Sewell. Keen-Minshull said during a recent interview on a podcast that she has no contact with NSN.
Mickle also helped create propaganda for National Socialist Network at the Posie Parker anti-trans event, seen here on the far-left standing next to Nathan Bull, with a GoPro strapped to his chest and Sieg Heiling. pic.twitter.com/7LR1I78LkY
— [email protected] (@WhiteRoseSocAU) April 1, 2023
When making a single New Zealand stop, however, Keen-Minshull and her supporters met with heavy resistance from those who oppose her message. According to the New Zealand Herald, between 150 to 200 of her supporters were outnumbered by upwards of 2,000 counter-protesters.
One individual is facing assault charges after allegedly pouring tomato juice over Keen-Minshull, though told the media they were attacked and spat on after the incident. The event was cancelled and Keen-Minshull ushered through throngs of protesters by security before speaking.
Local media reports that Keen-Minshull has vowed to return to New Zealand, stating during a Twitter live stream that “I will come back and I will come back at the invitation of the Prime Minister who wants to make an all-out apology to everyone.”
“I mean he will apologize and if it’s not him it will be the next Prime Minister because he is not going to last.”
New Zealand’s new Prime Minister, Chris Hipkin, did publicly weigh in and condemned the aspects of the protest he views as violent. He maintained his support for the overall message of protecting the rights of transgender people and said that most protesters exercised their right to free speech respectfully.
“That was about supporting fellow New Zealanders and I think that is something we should celebrate,” he said during a press conference.
“As I've said, I'll never support people who resort to violence.”
After the incident in Auckland, New Zealand researchers at The Disinformation Project told RNZ they had seen an unprecedented rise in transphobia since Keen-Minshull’s appearance.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network has been advocating to keep Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull from entering the country. Read our full letter to Minister Marco Mendicino and other members of parliament.
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