This conversation can also be viewed on YouTube! Peter Boghossian had the good fortune to be in Australia in March, the same time Kellie-Jay Keen brought her Let Women Speak (LWS) tour to Australia and New Zealand. They were scheduled to meet, but Kellie-Jay’s tour was cut short when a violent mob of TRAs (trans rights activists) threatened her life.

On March 25, Kellie-Jay was at Albert Park in Auckland for a planned LWS event. These gatherings have a very simple structure: women are invited to speak about women’s issues. Men are also allowed to speak, but they must wait until the end. Hundreds of TRAs came to Albert Park to protest Kellie-Jay, turning violent before the speakers even got started.

The mob toppled metal barriers, dumped tomato sauce and water on Kellie-Jay, and one (a man) punched an elderly woman multiple times in the face, cracking her skull. The mob attacked Kellie-Jay, and according to police, she was lucky to have survived. (Andrew Doyle provides a solid assessment of the situation with clips from the event here.) Obviously, the event was canceled, as was the event planned in Wellington the following day. New Zealand police put Kellie-Jay under protection and advised her to leave the country immediately due to credible threats on her life.

Peter didn’t meet with Kellie-Jay in Sydney as planned. But they did have an extended conversation following this authoritarian display of speech suppression and violence against women. In this conversation, we hear about what happened in Auckland, how she was defamed by Australian media before she arrived, why she’s not “anti-trans” (or a Nazi), why she rejects the idea of gender, what we should do about activist educators, why voting for truth takes precedence over other political issues, and how we can overcome this illogical, authoritarian, and increasingly violent ideology.