University of Reading accused of ‘failing trans students’ by hosting ‘dangerous’ anti-trans lecture

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Activists and students have accused the University of Reading of platforming a “dangerous culture war” after hosting a lecture on keeping trans conversion therapy legal.

On Monday (25 April), Dr Holly Lawford-Smith gave a lecture, organised by the university’s school of law, titled “who put the ‘GI’ in ‘SOGI’?”, in which she argued that conversion therapy bans around the world should only cover conversion therapy which attempts to change sexual orientation, not gender identity.

Lawford-Smith is a political philosophy lecturer at the University of Melbourne, who believes conversion therapy for trans kids will “ensure minors don’t make mistakes they may regret deeply as adults”, is a regular contributor to the LGB Alliance Australia YouTube channel, has been banned from both Twitter and Medium for “hateful conduct”, and has literally written the book on “gender critical feminism”.

On the poster advertising her lecture, which was hosted by Reading law professor and so-called “gender critical feminist” Rosa Freedman, Lawford-Smith said that there was “little available evidence on either efficacy or harmfulness when it comes to conversion therapy for gender identity” and that there was no “satisfactory” reason to cover both gender identity and sexual orientation in conversion therapy bans.