Dr. Holly Lawford-Smith is an Associate Professor in Political Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, working in social, moral, and political philosophy with a particular focus on radical and gender-critical feminism, and the conflict of interests between gender identity activism and both women's rights and LGB rights. She is the author of several books published by Oxford University Press and is one of the most academically rigorous voices in the international gender-critical movement.
Gender-Critical Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2022)
This book introduces and defends gender-critical feminism — a theory and movement that reclaims the sex/gender distinction, insists upon the reality and importance of sex, and understands gender as something done to people on the basis of sex rather than a way they really are. Women are socialised to conform to norms of femininity, and masculinity and femininity exist in a hierarchy in which femininity is devalued. PhilPapers
Sex Matters: Essays in Gender-Critical Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2023)
A follow-up collection of essays in gender-critical philosophy, continuing her examination of sex-based oppression, transgender policy, conversion therapy bans, and the metaphysics of sex and gender. Hollylawford-smith
Biography
Holly Lawford-Smith was born in New Zealand and completed her PhD at the Australian National University. She previously worked at the University of Sheffield before joining the University of Melbourne in 2017, where she is now Associate Professor in Political Philosophy.
Her research centres on the conflict of interests between gender identity activism and women's rights and LGB rights. In February 2021 she launched the website No Conflict, They Said, which documents the real-world impacts on women of the removal of single-sex spaces. She is also the author of the forthcoming Feminism Beyond Left and Right (Polity, 2025). Substack | University of Reading
