Flanked by seven security guards, the brightly clad petite woman wearing sunglasses could be any politician or pop star being escorted through screaming crowds.
But Kellie-Jay Keen is actually a mother of four from Wiltshire, and those screaming hordes are definitely not all her fans.
The women’s rights activist found herself in the eye of the storm in Australia and New Zealand’s biggest culture war.
She has been called ‘ac***’ by an Australian Green MP, while neo-Nazis invaded her rallies in an attempt to stir up trouble.
Scenes from her Let Women Speak tour have been broadcast across the country’s television channels and newspapers as trans activists challenge her gender-critical views.
And, speaking to MailOnline from his hotel on the eve of his rally in Auckland today, he admitted he had not expected the extraordinary reaction.
Kellie-Jay Keen l- AKA Posie Parker – on her ‘Standing for Women’ international tour in Sydney
Transgender rights advocates are held back by police during a demonstration overrun by neo-Nazis
Ms Keen with her security on the grounds of Tasmanian Parliament House in Hobart on Tuesday.
She said: ‘I feel like public enemy number 1 here, I’m really scared. I am a hate figure.
‘I didn’t realize how much women are hated in some sections of society before I came here.
“I feel like there are some great powers somewhere that don’t want women to talk.
‘I can accept being called transphobic, but calling someone a Nazi? One of the politicians here called me ac***. They used the rhyming slang of ‘dropkick and punt’.
“The war against women in these countries is absolutely terrifying.
I have to have a team of seven security guards here with me. I really feel like my life could be in danger sometimes.
Kellie-Jay Keen (pictured right) at the ‘Let Women Speak’ event outside Victorian Parliament
Senator Lidia Thorpe (pictured) attempted to storm the podium during Mrs Keen’s speech for the Let Women Speak rally outside Parliament House on Thursday.
When she boarded the plane for Australia on March 5, Ms Keen, who also uses the campaign name Posie Parker, could hardly imagine the huge controversy her visit would cause.
At last Saturday’s demonstration outside the Victorian State Parliament, pro-trans protesters turned up to try to counter their views.
But neither side could have expected the arrival of black-clad, masked neo-Nazis who then gave sickening Hitler salutes.
The gruesome scenes saw Keen’s opposition protesters exploit the idea that she had invited them.
But she says nothing could be further from the truth, adding: ‘They still call me a Nazi because these men turned up at my event in Melbourne.
‘They had nothing to do with me, they were not invited.
“All the time I feel like I’m being treated like a real Nazi. I don’t think the Nazis were particularly known for women’s rights.
‘Since I flew here, I have been on all the news channels and newspapers.
‘Politicians seem to have it all sewn up here. It’s about power. I’ve been told that there are many of them who don’t even believe anything they say, they just say it by proxy.
They are literally sterilizing children in this country and putting women’s lives at risk. My conscience would not let me not come.
Feminist blogger Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (pictured) raised £700 to put up the billboard in Liverpool for a fortnight in 2018.
Hours after Dr. Harrop’s complaint, Primesight confirmed that the billboards would be removed that night.
‘I’m an atheist, but who are these people who think they can overwrite biology?
Ms. Keen founded the group SFW which campaigns for rights based on sex and the protection of the word woman.
Earlier this year, one of the movement’s supporters was “roughed up” by a gang of masked trans activists.
She was assaulted during a Manchester Trans Rise Up (MTRU) movement counter-protest next to the city’s statue of Emmeline Pankhurst in St Peter’s Square in May.
Trans activists arrived to disrupt SFW’s speech event in front of the statue as part of an event which it said was aimed at reclaiming “a part of Manchester for women’s voices”.
And in 2018, a billboard defining a Keen-funded woman was removed after a Twitter activist complained it was “transphobic.”
He raised £700 to put up the poster in Liverpool for a fortnight to coincide with the Labor Party conference.
The sign, on the side of the former Gaumont cinema on Gredington Street in Toxteth, Liverpool, had Google’s definition of a woman: ‘adult human female’.
But it was removed after Dr. Adrian Harrop, 31, who is not transgender, complained to billboard company Primesight that it would make transgender women feel unsafe.
Ms Keen says her arrival in New Zealand yesterday was also marked by disruption.
She said: ‘The border force officer took me out the moment I got here.
“They took me to the room and reviewed all my cases; it took about two hours.
‘They asked me what I was doing, if I was married, what my husband was doing, if he had commercial things to do.
The official claimed that she did not know who I was, but I was thinking: “Is this really just a routine?”
‘I’ve had very high numbers on my videos since I’ve been here. What he wanted to do by coming here was try to break the silence.
“I’m not going to convince someone who’s completely in that they’re wrong, but I might think again to someone who’s not sure.”
