A University of Melbourne professor has launched a website where people can anonymously submit anecdotes about being “impacted” by trans women using women’s-only spaces, as if trans women didn’t already have enough to deal with.
NoConflictTheySaid is run by Dr Holly Lawford-Smith. It offensively refers to trans women as “men” and aims to collate anonymous, unverified anecdotes from a variety of spaces such as bathrooms, women’s shelters, festivals, quotas and even dating apps.
The website was launched on Tuesday, February 23, in response to laws in Victoria and Tasmania which let trans people affirm their gender on their ID. The website’s already received heaps of submissions, but a huge portion of those are actually from the UK.
It’s tricky to verify some of the claims that’ve been submitted to the website so far, but the myth that allowing trans women into women’s spaces is somehow inherently harmful has been widely debunked.
“I give women the option to provide their contact details, which quite a few have done, so in principle we can verify some of the stories if we need to,” Lawford-Smith told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“But given the danger to women, for example in losing their jobs in some cases, of telling these kinds of stories – because it goes against allegedly progressive views to not accept that any man who says he feels like a woman is a woman – it’s important to provide an outlet for their stories that protects them from social repercussions.”
According to Lawford-Smith, roughly a fifth of submissions have included contact details for potential verification.
NoConflictTheySaid also lists several Liberal politicians as allies of the cause: Tasmanian Senator Claire Chandler (who’s conversations with Lawford-Smith inspired the website) and Victorian state politicians Louise Staley and Bev McArthur.
This is not the first time Lawford-Smith has publicly campaigned against including trans women in women’s spaces.
In 2019, supporters of trans rights protested outside a talk given by Lawford-Smith at the University of Melbourne, in which she claimed those same laws allowing Victorians to affirm their gender on their IDs could threaten women’s-only spaces.
She has also expressed support for the Bell v Tavistock court case in the UK, which makes it harder for trans young people to access puberty blockers.
The court case – in which two other Aussie professors also advocated against allowing trans young people to access treatment – was described by the UK’s leading trans rights org as “a dangerous betrayal of trans youth.”
Lawford-Smith told P.TV that she’s “surely” taught trans or non-binary students because how how many young people identify as such nowadays.
However websites such as this might make those same students feel even less safe from now on.
