You many recognise the name Posie Parker, from her debates about feminism or her acclaimed podcast Women by Definition, but we find out the outspoken women behind the pseudonym, Kellie-Jay Keen really is.
LM: Tell us a bit about your background?
KJ: I was actually raised in the West Country, Somerset to be exact and from the age of 11 we lived a sweet shop. My parents got married very young at just 17 and 18 and had two girls, me and my older sister. I then packed my bags and headed to Leeds University where I studied studied theology. I then went on to train as a teacher, but I never ended up teaching.
I went into a sales job and did very well in a mostly male environment, excelling past my peers. That was where I met my husband and it was love at first sight. I'm now 46 and I have been happily married for 12 years. Our fourth child was born just three days after our wedding and we later went on to have two more sons and a daughter and all were traumatic. All were born by c-section and the first was an emergency one, the second under general anaesthetic which was a became a life or death emergency and we both had to be resuscitated (my husband waited to see if we both lived), the third was planned but it took ages as many organs were fused with previous scars and the fourth was a 57 second knife to skin in a senior registrar attended section.
He asked me "would you like to be sterilised today?" (like "would you like fries with that?" as I lay there).
LM: How did you become a warrior for Free Speech?
KJ: I would say I've have always thought free speech was important. As someone who has a lifetime of being outspoken, I'd be foolish not to carry on. I guess I became a warrior when I realised free speech was under threat.
I've always said that those with the least power have the greatest need for all of us to uphold the value of Free Speech.I'm am also an atheist and thoroughly enjoy debates with the likes of Hitchens, Grayling, Dawkins and so on who all lamented the ideal of free speech.
LM: Tell us about the organisations you run?
Standing For Women
KJ: I run Standing For Women, which recently celebrated it's 2nd birthday.
SFW is a campaign that protects the language around females, women and girls. It's goal is to keep saying things which are gradually becoming unsayable; transwomen are women; women are adult human females; women have the right to exclude men at any time for any reason; women have the right to female only space; predatory males will go to great lengths to have access to women and children; erasing women's boundaries is not okay; children deserve to experience the world as children through a child's eye not as vehicles for politically motivated causes. Basically things we could all say without fear about five years ago.
I am also, to the annoyance of many, synonymous with Woman - Adult Human Female.Standing For Women has illuminated the Royal Opera House, West Yorks Police HQ, the BBC and various with the definition of woman, has organised billboards with it (which were all removed), refused the permission to put it on Edinburgh buses.
Women have been removed from political parties and pubs for wearing our t-shirts.
Woman By Definition is my podcast, using the "brand" I've created, I interview guests including Gad Saad; Graham Lineham; Claire Fox, Abigail Shrier and Jackie Doyle-Price Tory MP. The interviews are friendly, non confrontational long form.I am continuing the theme of facilitating the unsayable to be said.
LM:Career highlight so far?
KJ: My career highlight so far is either hosting a talk at the House of Laws about medical harms of "transing" children, and that is having an influence right at the top of government, or talking to staffers in the Capitol. And, I loved being on TV. A fun fact is that in 1993 I was on the TV show Blind Date. I was picked and we went to EuroDisney.
LM: What would you like to achieve in the future?
KJ: To encourage everyone to see free speech as a fundamental human right.
