Women-only spaces under threat? Australian professor assailed for highlighting claims of encroachment by trans people

‘Swift and decisive’ action demanded against University of Melbourne lecturer who started website highlighting women’s negative experiences in shared spaces

About 700 academics and students from the university and elsewhere said the website could ‘incite students’ to hold transphobic views

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Signs for transgender bathroom access are becoming more common, at least in the West. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:08pm, 26 Feb 2021Updated: 8:08pm, 26 Feb 2021

Hundreds of academics have called on Australia’s top-ranked university to take “swift and decisive action” against a lecturer who is attempting to highlight the negative experiences of women who share spaces such as changing rooms with their transgender counterparts.

The controversy at the University of Melbourne is the latest example of the clash of diversity and inclusion versus freedom of speech that is roiling university campuses and other liberal institutions across the Western world.

Holly Lawford-Smith, an associate professor in political philosophy, this week launched the website www.noconflicttheysaid.org to encourage women to anonymously submit their stories of how women-only spaces had been impacted by legislative changes around the world that have replaced biological sex with gender identity.

In Victoria, Australia’s second most-populous state, residents have been able to change their legal gender without surgery or medical diagnosis since 2019. Similar self-identification rules have been adopted in the US state of California and countries including Ireland and Norway.

Lawford-Smith’s website, which went live on Tuesday, expresses concern about “the impacts on women of men using women-only spaces” and has published more than 60 submissions purporting to be from women who have had negative experiences sharing changing rooms, bathrooms, sports teams, drug treatment facilities and dating apps.

“At my former workplace it was decided, without consultation, that one toilet block would become ‘all genders’,” said one anonymous submission published on Friday. “This particular block was female, so there would now be one fewer female toilet block in the building. A number of female staff were upset, but didn’t dare speak up.”

Lawford-Smith, who describes herself as a “gender critical” feminist, said she started the site because people were scared to speak openly about the tensions between the rights of trans women and cisgender women – those whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth.