The Trans Justice Project has launched a petition on Change.org calling for Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to stop Kellie-Jay Keen from returning to Australia next month.
The British provocateur, who describes herself as a women’s rights advocate while campaigning against transgender and gender diverse people around the world, drew large protests on her previous tour of Australia.
Keen has shared that she’ll be a keynote speaker at the C-PAC Conference in Brisbane in the beginning of October. The appearance will also bring her into the country for the anticipated third and final week of the defamation case being heard in the Federal Court between Liberal leader John Pesutto and MP Moira Deeming.
The Trans Justice Project has highlighted that there were similar calls ahead of Keen’s 2023 visit which were ignored by the government.
At each step of her previous seven city tour her appearances drew a large number of counter-protesters, but it was her Melbourne appearance that generated headlines when a group of neo-Nazis appeared adjacent to Keen’s open-mike event.
“Trans people deserve to thrive. We deserve to feel safe in our communities, to have the freedom to be ourselves, and to be able to live free from discrimination and hate.
“Allowing Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull to campaign in Australia again puts the safety and wellbeing of our community at risk.” the Trans Justice Project said.
They argue that the requirements set out under section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 state that a person may not meet the criteria of being of ‘good character’ if it is deemed that there is a risk that while you are in Australia you would:
- harass, molest, intimidate or stalk another person
- vilify a segment of the Australian community
- incite discord in the Australian community or in a part of it
- be a danger to the Australian community or a part of it
They say their opinion is that Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull does not meet this standard for the following reasons:
- During her rally in Hobart she verbally harassed multiple community members with offensive and dehumanising slurs. This included alleging that Tasmanian MP Cassy O’Connor was a “groomer” and an “abuser” because her son is trans.
- The group also notes that their 2023 investigation into anti-trans hate in Australia, Fuelling Hate, found that the community experienced a spike in instances of anti-trans hate during the two-month period that directly coincided with Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s tour, specifically experiences of vilification, abuse, and harassment.
The group say this evidence aligns with research by the independent NZ body The Disinformation Project which found that ‘transphobic rhetoric reached “genocidal” levels following the [New Zealand] tour that followed on from Keen’s Australian visit. Her tour of New Zealand was cut short due to large counter-protests that shut down her event in Auckland. - At the anti-trans event that Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull hosted in Melbourne in 2023 media widely reported that a group of ‘neo-nazis gatecrashed’ the event and held up an offensive banner alleging that trans people were ‘pedos’ and calling for our community to be ‘destroyed’.
Directly following these events, there were moves in multiple states to ban Nazi flags and salutes and increased funding was provided to LGBTSBQIA+ organisations to help provide additional support to our communities.
OUTinPerth has contacted the Home Affairs Minister for comment.
