Dr Holly Lawford-Smith
associate professor in political philosophy, University of Melbourne; author, Gender-Critical Feminism and Sex Matters: Essays in Gender-Critical Philosophy

Holly Lawford-Smith is an associate professor in Political Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. She lectures in courses on everyday ethics, feminism, the metaphysics of ethics, and free speech & hate speech. Her last two books, both published with Oxford University Press, were Gender-Critical Feminism (2022) and Sex Matters: Essays in Gender-Critical Philosophy (2023). She writes a monthly column for Quillette, and along with the philosopher Kate Phelan co-hosts the YouTube channel Feminist Heretics.

Holly has been subject to ongoing pressures because of her heterodox views about LGBTQI+ politics, mainstream feminism, corporate D&I policy, and more. Her most recent book made it to print only thanks to an intervention by the UK’s Free Speech Union. The 2023 iteration of her second-year undergraduate course ‘Feminism’ was taught with security guards after gender identity activists vandalised university property. She maintains a censorship timeline on her personal website that contains more than 20 separate entries.

Find Holly on X/Twitter: @aytchellesse

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Saturday 28 October, 10:15 Hoare Memorial Hall, Church House
Free speech on campus: should hecklers be banned?

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