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Lierre Keith
Lierre Keith
Lierre Keith
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Lierre Keith (/liˈɛər/; born 1964) is an American writer, radical feminist, anti-transgender activist, food activist, and radical environmentalist.

Key Information

Biography

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She began her public involvement in the feminist movement as the founding editor of Vanessa and Iris: A Journal for Young Feminists (1983–1985).[2][3] During that period, she worked with the Women Against Violence Against Women group in Cambridge, participating in educational events and protest campaigns.[3] In 1984, she was a founding member of Minor Disturbance, a feminist-perspective protest group against militarism.[3] In 1986, she was a founding member of Feminists Against Pornography in Northampton, Massachusetts.[3] She is among the founding editors of Rain and Thunder, a radical feminist journal in Northampton, Massachusetts.[3]

As a radical feminist, and, more recently, as a radical environmentalist, Keith has made numerous appearances, interviews, and speeches around the U.S. and Canada.[4]

Keith was an early public advocate of the U.S. local food movement. In a 2006 Boston Globe report, she said, "I like knowing that I'm supporting the local economy, and not corporate America."[5]

Her views have been criticized by some vegetarians, in what one journalist has called a "Vegan War".[6] During a presentation of her book The Vegetarian Myth at the 2010 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, protesters hit Keith with chili pepper-laced pies. Keith responded by denouncing the act as "coward" and asking her assailants to direct their "herbivorous rage" at the powerful.[7]

The Vegetarian Myth

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Keith's 2009 book The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability is a controversial examination of the ecological effects of agriculture and vegetarianism. In The Vegetarian Myth, she offers evidence of agriculture destroying entire eco-systems, such as the North American prairie. She also argues in favour of animal agriculture over plant agriculture, citing that the latter destroys topsoil,[6] while animal farming rebuilds it.

Deep Green Resistance

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Lierre Keith (left) and Derrick Jensen (right) with Deep Green Resistance at Occupy Oakland in 2011

Keith is associated with the Deep Green Resistance movement, and together with Aric McBay and Derrick Jensen, she co-wrote Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet, published in May 2011.[8] The book describes itself as a "manual on how to build a resistance movement that will bring down industrial civilization and save the planet", and "evaluates strategic options for resistance, from non-violence to guerrilla warfare, and the conditions required for those options to be successful".[8]

After the publication of this book, the authors co-founded an organization by the same name. McBay left the organization in early 2012, saying he disagreed with Jensen and Keith's cancellation of a transgender-inclusive policy.[9] Deep Green Resistance has disputed this account, saying that the women's safe space policy was one issue among many, and that the decision to restrict women's spaces was made by the women of DGR, and not by Jensen or Keith.[10]

Women's Liberation Front

[edit]
Main article: Women's Liberation Front

Keith is a founder of the Women's Liberation Front, and, as of 2021, serves as its chair.[11] Women's Liberation Front is an American legal advocacy organization that primarily litigates on transgender topics, and also supports abortion rights, and favors action to combat violence against women and the introduction of the Nordic model approach to prostitution.[12] Women's Liberation Front has been accused of being a hate group by the University of Wisconsin Law School QLaw student organization[13][14] and the Gender Justice League.[15]

Works

[edit]
  • "Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It" by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert (Monkfish Book Publishing Company). 2021.
  • Earth at Risk: Building a Resistance Movement to Save the Planet (edited by L.K. and Derrick Jensen), PM Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-60486-674-2
  • Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet (written by L.K., Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay), Seven Stories Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-58322-929-3
  • The Vegetarian Myth, PM Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-60486-080-1
  • Skyler Gabriel, Fighting Words Pr, 1995, ISBN 978-0-9632660-2-6
  • Conditions of War, Fighting Words Pr, 1993, ISBN 978-0-9632660-1-9

Notes

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Lierre Keith

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Lierre Keith is an American writer, radical feminist, food activist, and environmentalist whose works challenge prevailing narratives on diet, ecology, and civilization. She gained prominence with her 2009 book The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability, in which she draws on two decades of personal veganism—culminating in severe health decline—to argue that reliance on annual grain agriculture depletes soil, exacerbates environmental harm, and undermines human nutrition, advocating instead for perennial polycultures incorporating ethical animal husbandry. Keith co-authored Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet (2011) with Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay, outlining a strategy for organized resistance against industrial infrastructure to halt planetary destruction, positing that reformist environmentalism fails against systemic collapse driven by overconsumption and extraction. As a radical feminist, she has campaigned against the erosion of female-only spaces and sports by male-bodied individuals, co-founding groups like the Women's Liberation Front to prioritize biological sex in policy and discourse. Her later works, including Bright Green Lies (2021), critique renewable energy solutions as insufficient and misleading, urging a return to low-impact, land-based living. Keith's positions have sparked debates, with supporters praising her empirical grounding in ecology and critics accusing her of extremism, yet her analyses emphasize causal chains from agricultural practices to biodiversity loss and social inequities.

Personal Background

Early Life and Education

Lierre Keith was born in 1964. She grew up in the Boston area of Massachusetts and attended Brookline High School. As a child, Keith encountered Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which fused the concepts of silence and seasonal renewal in her mind, instilling an early sense of ecological crisis tied to industrial pollution and prompting awareness of the environmental movements emerging in the 1970s and 1980s. Her formal education concluded at the high school level, after which she engaged with social justice themes through writing and activism. In the 1980s, Keith initiated public involvement in feminist initiatives, including editorial roles that aligned with leftist intellectual currents of the era. These formative experiences laid groundwork for her later pursuits, though details of family influences on her worldview remain sparse in available accounts.

Experiences with Veganism and Health Impacts

Keith adopted a strict vegan diet in the early 1980s during her youth, driven by ethical opposition to animal exploitation and environmental concerns about industrial agriculture, motivations aligned with prevailing ideals in radical leftist and activist communities. She adhered to this regimen for nearly twenty years, initially as a vegetarian before progressing to full veganism, viewing it as a moral imperative for personal integrity and planetary health. Over time, Keith reported progressive health declines that she causally linked to the nutritional inadequacies of a solely , including the complete absence of bioavailable , insufficient long-chain omega-3 s like DHA and EPA, and suboptimal lacking profiles optimized for human metabolism. Specific symptoms encompassed the abrupt cessation of menstrual cycles, severe clinical depression, chronic unresponsive to rest, in the spine and joints requiring medical intervention, and extensive and decay necessitating extractions and reconstructions. These outcomes, per Keith's account, stemmed from the physiological demands of human digestion and nutrient absorption, which empirical data on —such as B12's exclusive animal sourcing and ' incomplete conversion—render unmet by vegan sources alone, corroborated by her self-observed timeline of deterioration despite supplementation attempts. By approximately 2006–2007, amid escalating physical incapacity that confined her to bed and impaired basic mobility, Keith reintroduced animal foods including meat, fish, and eggs into her diet, marking a deliberate shift informed by re-examination of anthropological records indicating human evolutionary adaptation as persistent omnivores reliant on animal-derived nutrients for brain and skeletal integrity. She documented subsequent recovery, with restoration of energy levels, menstrual regularity, mood stabilization, and halted progression of joint degeneration, attributing these reversals to replenished nutrient pathways—such as direct B12 absorption and pre-formed omega-3s—unfeasible via plants, underscoring a first-principles assessment of dietary causality over ideological commitment.

Environmental Activism

Development of Radical Environmentalism

Lierre Keith initially engaged with environmentalism through vegan advocacy in the 1990s and early 2000s, aligning with mainstream movements that emphasized dietary and lifestyle changes to mitigate ecological harm. Her participation reflected a common reformist focus on personal ethics and policy tweaks, such as promoting plant-based diets to reduce emissions from livestock. However, by the mid-2000s, Keith grew disillusioned with these approaches, viewing them as insufficient against the scale of industrial impacts; she argued that mechanisms like carbon trading and cap-and-trade systems merely commodify emissions without addressing underlying exploitation of ecosystems, effectively perpetuating the fossil fuel-dependent economy under a green veneer. This critique stemmed from her observation that such policies prioritize market incentives over halting biophysical destruction, as evidenced by continued rises in global emissions post-implementation. Keith's radicalization intensified through empirical analysis of industrial agriculture's consequences, including severe —estimated at 75% of insect populations in agricultural regions due to and use—and soil degradation, where annual plowing has eroded up to 90% of in some U.S. farmlands since European settlement. She contended that these practices, rooted in 10,000 years of sedentary farming, disrupt natural nutrient cycles and foster , contrasting sharply with pre-industrial perennial systems that maintained through and predation. Rejecting , Keith advocated a causal approach recognizing industrial civilization's incompatibility with planetary limits, calling for a fundamental reversion to land-based practices that emulate rather than annual harvests, which she described as "biotic cleansing" that temporarily boosts human at the expense of . This intellectual shift paralleled Keith's practical turn to sustainable farming, where she adopted omnivorous locavore methods integrating ethical animal husbandry with crop rotation to restore soil health, drawing from observations of regenerative grazing that rebuilds humus layers and sequesters carbon more effectively than industrial tillage. She critiqued urban-centric environmentalism as abstracted from terrestrial realities, arguing that city-based advocates, disconnected from direct land stewardship, propose solutions like widespread veganism that ignore the ecological necessity of integrated food webs and overlook how grain-fed monocultures devastate prairies far more than managed herds. By the late 2000s, these experiences solidified her radical stance, emphasizing hands-on bioregionalism over detached policy advocacy to confront collapse drivers like habitat liquidation.

Deep Green Resistance: Origins and Strategies

Deep Green Resistance (DGR) emerged from the collaboration of environmental activists Lierre Keith, Derrick Jensen, and Aric McBay, who co-authored the book Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet, published on May 3, 2011, by Seven Stories Press. This text established the movement's core principles, framing industrial civilization as a driver of irreversible ecological collapse and advocating organized resistance to dismantle it. Keith contributed philosophical and strategic analysis rooted in her critiques of sustainability illusions, while Jensen emphasized cultural pathology and McBay focused on tactical organization. The strategic framework outlined in the book prioritizes "Decisive Ecological Warfare," a multi-level approach targeting the infrastructure of industrial systems over individual lifestyle adjustments, which DGR deems insufficient against systemic drivers of destruction. Activists are divided into aboveground roles—public education, community rebuilding, and legal advocacy to foster sustainable alternatives like localized food and medical networks—and underground roles involving clandestine operations to sabotage critical infrastructure, such as pipelines, power grids, and mining equipment, aiming to interrupt resource extraction and production without targeting human life. These tactics draw from historical resistance models, emphasizing security, recruitment, and coordinated strikes on economic chokepoints to achieve rapid cessation of environmental harm. DGR's rationale rests on empirical indicators of planetary decline, including an estimated 200 species extinctions daily and accelerating resource depletion through soil erosion, deforestation, and fossil fuel extraction, which render reformist policies futile due to civilization's growth imperatives and profit incentives that perpetuate expansion regardless of ecological costs. The authors argue that voluntary measures or regulatory tweaks fail because industrial systems reward short-term exploitation over long-term viability, necessitating confrontational disruption to break the cycle of incentives favoring destruction. This position contrasts with mainstream environmentalism's focus on mitigation, positing that only halting the machine of civilization can avert mass extinction and biosphere collapse.

Critiques of Industrial Civilization and Sustainable Alternatives

Keith maintains that the inherent scale of , reliant on resource drawdown and ecological overshoot, systematically erodes biotic communities, leading to inevitable collapse as demonstrated by every historical , which terminated amid soil degradation and resource exhaustion culminating in extreme measures such as . Industrial expansion exacerbates this through practices like clear-cutting forests, plowing prairies, and damming rivers, rendering long-term impossible without fundamental cessation of such activities. As alternatives, Keith advocates localized , informed by her extensive study of food systems, soils, and , emphasizing grass-based methods integrated with ruminant grazing to rebuild and mimic pre-agricultural ecosystems. These practices, which she contrasts with industrial monocultures, facilitate in soils—potentially offsetting atmospheric carbon—and enhance by fostering habitats shared with rather than displacing them. Keith dismisses left-leaning "green growth" proposals, such as renewable energy expansions, as empirically flawed delusions that fail to address industrial civilization's core incompatibility with life-sustaining limits, perpetuating extraction under a veneer of progress. Instead, she prioritizes deceleration—permanently halting community-destroying processes—and rewilding initiatives, like reintroducing keystone species such as beavers or employing indigenous-style controlled burns, to restore symbiotic human integration within intact ecosystems rather than pursuing technological utopias.

Feminist Activism

Shift to Gender-Critical Feminism

Keith's engagement with feminism originated in radical traditions akin to second-wave analysis, which framed patriarchy as a concrete system of male supremacy predicated on the exploitation of female biology and reproduction. Having identified as a radical feminist since the early 1980s, she emphasized women's oppression as a sex class subjected to material realities of violence, resource extraction from their bodies, and enforced gender roles that naturalize hierarchy rather than innate identity constructs. By the 2010s, Keith articulated a sharpened gender-critical position, critiquing the third-wave pivot toward postmodern gender theory and transgender inclusion as an erasure of sex-based feminist analysis. She argued that this inclusion, by prioritizing subjective gender identity over biological sex, regresses to liberal individualism and reinforces patriarchal stereotypes—such as femininity as submission—under the guise of progress, diverting focus from dismantling systemic power structures like male dominance. Keith maintained that radical feminism demands recognition of concrete oppression, stating, "society is organized by concrete systems of power, not by thoughts and ideas," and warned that uncritical embrace of gender ideology perpetuates the very hierarchies it claims to transcend. Central to her stance is biological realism, underscoring immutable sex dimorphism—evidenced by males' average 40-50% greater upper body strength, 30% greater lower body strength, and higher bone density compared to females—as justification for sex-segregated protections in domains like sports, prisons, and shelters. Keith contends that disregarding these empirical differences, rooted in reproductive roles and evolutionary adaptations, exposes women to heightened risks of injury and violence, framing such policies not as exclusion but as essential safeguards for female safety and equity.

Founding and Role in Women's Liberation Front

Lierre Keith founded the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) in 2014 as a radical feminist organization dedicated to reviving core priorities of second-wave feminism. The group was established to address perceived failures in contemporary feminism by focusing on women's sex-based rights and opposing male violence, including commercial sexual exploitation. WoLF's mission centers on restoring, protecting, and advancing the rights of women and girls through legal arguments, policy advocacy, and public education, with specific emphasis on abolishing pornography and prostitution as forms of violence against women. Under Keith's leadership, WoLF pursued campaigns to safeguard female-only spaces and sex-based protections, filing amicus briefs in U.S. Supreme Court cases related to women's sports, youth safeguarding from gender ideology mandates, and opposition to policies allowing male intrusion into female-designated areas. The organization adopted a nonpartisan stance, collaborating with conservative groups on shared threats to women's autonomy, such as partnerships with Concerned Women for America to advocate against injustices targeting women and girls, while maintaining independence from both left-wing and right-wing ideologies to prioritize female liberation. Keith served as WoLF's founder and initial chair, acting as a primary and in advancing the group's legal and efforts. Although she concluded her formal board term in 2023, Keith remains actively involved as Founder and Special Envoy, contributing to educational initiatives like the 2025 Radfem 101 series and public discussions on and as of October 2025.

Advocacy for Women's Sex-Based Rights

Keith has campaigned against self-identification laws that permit individuals to access sex-segregated facilities based solely on declared gender identity, arguing that such policies enable males to enter female-only spaces, thereby increasing risks of male-pattern violence. Through the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF), which she founded, Keith has filed amicus briefs opposing policies allowing male access to girls' school locker rooms and bathrooms, as in the Boyertown Area School District case, where she emphasized that "male people who wish to enter the intimate spaces that are reserved for female people are invading women’s spaces." She has highlighted prison transfers under self-ID regimes, such as in Washington state where dozens of males convicted of violent crimes, including one-third for sex offenses, were moved to women's facilities, resulting in documented assaults on female inmates. These arguments draw on empirical patterns where transgender women exhibit criminality rates aligning with males rather than females, including higher convictions for violent and sexual offenses. Keith advocates for the preservation of single-sex spaces in prisons, shelters, sports, and other domains to ensure female safety and equity, rooted in immutable biological differences between sexes that self-ID policies ignore. In supporting legislation like the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, she has stated that "women and girls deserve to play in athletic competitions that are fair and safe," noting that even elite female athletes cannot compete equally with males due to physiological advantages like greater strength and speed, which hormones or surgery do not fully mitigate. This stance aligns with second-wave feminist precedents for sex-based protections and international examples, such as the United Kingdom's resistance to expansive self-ID reforms and subsequent policy shifts emphasizing biological sex in gender recognition to safeguard female facilities from male incursions. WoLF submissions to bodies like the United Nations underscore how mixed-sex policies in sports exacerbate violence against females, including sexual abuse by male participants identifying into female categories. Keith critiques liberal feminism's embrace of transgender demands as a departure from materialist analysis, which recognizes patriarchy as a system of male dominance over females grounded in reproductive realities and physical coercion rather than subjective identities. She contends that gender identity ideology, often framed individualistically, reinforces hierarchical roles and undermines women's organizing in sex-segregated spaces essential for recovering from male violence. This accommodation, Keith argues, prioritizes feelings over causal evidence of sex-based oppression, effectively betraying radical feminism's focus on dismantling concrete power structures like male entitlement to female bodies and resources.

Major Works

The Vegetarian Myth: Arguments and Reception

, published by PM Press on May 1, 2009, presents Lierre Keith's critique of vegetarianism and veganism as founded on three interconnected myths: nutritional, political, and environmental. Keith, drawing from two decades of vegan adherence, contends that these myths sustain a dietary ideology disconnected from biological, social, and ecological realities, advocating instead for regenerative omnivory rooted in sustainable land use. In addressing the nutritional myth, Keith asserts that humans are obligate omnivores adapted through evolution to consume animal foods for optimal health, referencing archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherer diets high in meat and fat that supported larger brain development and physical robustness compared to later agrarian populations. She highlights biochemical necessities like complete proteins, bioavailable iron, zinc, and vitamins B12 and D, which plant sources inadequately provide without supplementation or fortification, corroborated by studies on vegan cohorts showing elevated risks of deficiencies, anemia, and osteoporosis. Keith differentiates between short-term viability and long-term sustainability of plant-based diets, arguing that historical and physiological data undermine claims of vegetarianism as a natural human default. The section challenges vegetarianism's premise of moral purity and global food sufficiency, positing that vegan advocacy obscures the state's role in enforcing , which relies on monocrops displacing and small farmers through subsidized violence and habitat liquidation. Keith estimates that annual and harvesting in production kill far more sentient beings—via field mice, insects, and birds—than targeted , framing as an unwitting extension of extractive systems rather than a liberatory ethic. She critiques the "feed the world" rationale, noting that perennial polycultures with livestock yield more calories per acre without the social upheavals of dependency that historically enabled empires and famines. On the environmental myth, Keith contrasts the soil-depleting effects of annual row cropping, which accelerates and carbon loss—documented at rates up to 1% of annually in U.S. Midwest farmlands—with regenerative on perennials that builds , sequesters carbon, and mimics natural herd dynamics as observed in ecosystems. Citing principles and data from holistic management practices, she argues that well-managed animal integration restores and fertility, whereas vegan reliance on imported soy and grains exacerbates and use in global supply chains. Reception to the book has been sharply divided, with Goodreads aggregating over 2,800 reviews averaging 3.7 stars as of recent tallies, reflecting strong endorsement from ex-vegans, paleo diet proponents, and ecological realists who praise its empirical grounding and challenge to ideological conformity. Nutritionists aligned with low-carb paradigms, such as Zoë Harcombe, lauded its dissection of dietary myths, while permaculture forums highlighted its advocacy for land-based sustainability over abstract ethics. Conversely, vegan advocates dismissed its nutritional claims as anecdotal and ecologically selective, with registered dietitians arguing that peer-reviewed epidemiology supports plant-based diets' viability when balanced, accusing Keith of cherry-picking data to favor carnivory. Despite criticisms, the work has influenced discussions in carnivore and regenerative agriculture circles, evidenced by sustained citations in debates over food sovereignty.

Deep Green Resistance: Collaborative Framework

, published in by Seven Stories Press, presents a collaborative framework for organized resistance against industrial civilization, co-authored by Lierre Keith, Derrick Jensen, and Aric McBay. The authors divided content by expertise: Aric McBay addressed tactical organization and infrastructure targeting, Derrick Jensen explored philosophical critiques of civilization, and Keith focused on cultural and psychological barriers to action. This division enabled a comprehensive strategy emphasizing both immediate disruptions and long-term cultural shifts. The core strategy, termed Decisive Ecological Warfare (DEW), outlines phased operations including systems diagnosis, intelligence networks, and targeted non-violent sabotage of industrial infrastructure to precipitate collapse, alongside parallel efforts in community building for sustainable, land-based societies. Keith's contributions highlight non-reformist approaches, critiquing liberal environmentalism's reliance on petitions and lifestyle changes as insufficient, and advocating "non-reformist blocks" that reject incremental reforms in favor of radical decoupling from the system. She stresses fostering a culture of resistance through education that dismantles sustaining myths, such as the narrative of inevitable progress under civilization, to enable personal grief-processing and collective commitment. The Deep Green Resistance organization, established in 2011 to implement this framework, prioritizes aboveground activism like public education and mutual aid while upholding security protocols for potential underground actions. As of 2025, it sustains outreach through offered tours by Keith and Jensen delivering Earth-centered resistance messaging to communities, alongside annual conferences such as the August 1-5, 2025, event in Philadelphia focused on strategy refinement and organizer training. These efforts distinguish the framework's evolution from theoretical blueprint to practical organizing model.

Other Writings and Contributions

Conditions of War (1993), published by Fighting Words Press, portrays a for radical feminists confronting societal violence and serial predation, highlighting themes of resistance and female solidarity. Skyler Gabriel (1995) centers on a bass player in a rock band probing the suspicious death of a pro-choice , weaving personal investigation with broader motifs of autonomy and cultural defiance. Keith's essays extend her thematic concerns into critiques of entrenched ideologies. In "The Girls and the Grasses" (2015), she analyzes patriarchy's normalization of oppression through sexualized violence, connecting it to human disconnection from natural systems. Similarly, "Patriarchy is an Environmental Issue" (originally 2015) argues that male dominance drives ecological destruction by prioritizing exploitation over relational sustenance, advocating interdisciplinary feminist-ecological analysis. These pieces, often published via activist platforms, challenge progressive assumptions on gender and sustainability without delving into her primary book-length arguments.

Controversies and Reception

Debates on Diet, Nutrition, and Ecology

Keith argues that vegan diets inherently lead to nutritional deficiencies, particularly in , which is absent in plant foods and poorly absorbed from bacterial sources without animal intermediaries, resulting in widespread deficiency risks for vegans even with supplementation. She further contends that plant-based diets exacerbate omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid imbalances, promoting chronic inflammation due to high from seeds and grains versus limited alpha-linolenic acid conversion in humans. These claims, drawn from her analysis in The Vegetarian Myth, have resonated with former vegans who report improved upon reintroducing animal products, citing resolved and cognitive issues linked to such imbalances. Ecologically, Keith critiques annual monocrop agriculture—common in vegan staples like soy and grains—for eroding topsoil at rates up to 10 times faster than natural replenishment and causing habitat destruction through tillage and pesticides, which kill more wildlife per calorie than sustainable grazing. She advocates regenerative grazing, where rotational livestock management mimics natural herd dynamics to build soil organic matter, enhance biodiversity, and sequester carbon, as evidenced by studies showing increased soil carbon stocks and microbial activity in grazed systems versus tilled fields. This approach has influenced proponents of holistic management, demonstrating yield improvements and drought resilience in arid regions through practices like those developed by Allan Savory. Critics, including vegan nutritionists, accuse Keith of cherry-picking data on deficiencies while overlooking evidence that B12 supplementation—via fortified foods or cyanocobalamin—effectively prevents neurological risks in compliant vegans, with large cohort studies like EPIC-Oxford showing manageable outcomes through planning. They argue her ecological dismissal ignores successes in no-till plant-based farming and perennial crops, which can restore soil without livestock, and contend that industrial meat production, not grazing per se, drives most environmental harm. Keith counters that supplements treat symptoms of an unnatural diet, ignoring evolutionary adaptations, but detractors maintain her narrative understates viable, low-impact vegan systems. Supporting her omnivore thesis, Keith references archaeological and isotopic evidence indicating meat consumption drove hominin brain expansion from around 2.6 million years ago, providing dense nutrients like iron and DHA essential for , as fatty acid-rich diets correlated with encephalization quotients tripling in early humans. Evolutionary biologists note that scavenging and enabled energy surpluses for larger brains, with from meat aiding neural development, though modern ethical critiques highlight that such historical necessities do not justify current farming scales. These debates underscore tensions between ancestral physiology and contemporary , with Keith's framework prioritizing causal integrity over ideological purity.

Conflicts over Gender Ideology and Transgender Issues

Keith's gender-critical positions, which emphasize biological sex as the basis for women's rights and protections, have sparked intense disputes with transgender advocacy groups since the early 2010s. She argues that gender identity ideology erodes sex-based categories essential for safeguarding female-only spaces, sports, and services, viewing transgender inclusion in these as reinforcing patriarchal stereotypes rather than dismantling them. This stance contributed to internal conflicts within Deep Green Resistance around 2013–2014, where critics accused her of transphobia, leading to organizational splits and public condemnations from environmental and leftist circles. In rebuttal to transphobia charges, Keith has asserted that her advocacy prioritizes empirical realities of sex differences—such as male physical advantages and patterns of violence—over subjective identity claims, framing opposition as a defense of women's material interests rather than hatred. Through the (WoLF), which she co-founded in 2014, Keith has backed briefs in federal cases challenging access to sex-segregated facilities. Notable filings include support for the Gloucester County School Board in G.G. v. G.G. (2017), opposing a transgender male student's use of female bathrooms under , and briefs in prison housing disputes like Jane Doe v. Bondi (2025), urging segregation by biological sex to mitigate risks of male violence against incarcerated women. These efforts aligned with court outcomes in some instances, such as injunctions preserving 's sex-based distinctions in education and athletics amid challenges to expansive interpretations. Mainstream LGBTQ+ organizations have denounced Keith and WoLF as transphobic, particularly for perceived alliances with conservative litigants on "bathroom bills" and prison reforms, claiming such positions endanger transgender lives. Keith has rebutted these by highlighting documented assaults in women's prisons under self-identification policies, including a 2024 Rikers Island lawsuit alleging rape of a female inmate by a biologically male prisoner identifying as transgender, and similar incidents in Illinois facilities where females reported sexual violence shortly after co-housing. She further cites detransition data, such as a 2021 survey of over 100 detransitioners where 55% attributed cessation to realizing their dysphoria stemmed from trauma or societal pressures rather than innate gender mismatch, with average detransition age at 23, to underscore potential long-term harms of affirming unproven identities over biological sex. These arguments underscore Keith's causal view that ignoring sex realism exacerbates vulnerabilities for both women and those with unresolved dysphoria, prioritizing evidence of male-pattern criminality and transition regrets over ideological inclusion.

Criticisms of Radical Tactics and Associations

Critics of Deep Green Resistance (DGR), co-founded by Keith in 2010, have focused on its advocacy for militant strategies, including sabotage of industrial infrastructure and support for underground actions that could involve violence, arguing these approaches risk alienating potential allies and inviting severe state repression without achieving systemic change. The group's 2011 book explicitly endorses "decisive" tactics like property destruction to disrupt civilization's ecological impacts, positing that such measures could trigger cascading failures in industrial systems based on analyses of supply chain vulnerabilities. However, leftist environmental reviewers contend this framework overlooks historical evidence that isolated sabotage alienates mass movements, citing low participation rates in radical actions and the absence of broad working-class support as empirical barriers to success. The (FBI) scrutinized DGR from 2008 onward as part of inquiries, classifying it alongside groups like the due to rhetorical calls for attacks, despite internal probes uncovering no plans for . Anarchist critiques further argue that DGR's strategic model conflates targeted with broader ethical justifications for force, potentially excusing escalation without accountability mechanisms, as evidenced by the group's rejection of non-hierarchical organizing in favor of elite-led resistance. Keith and co-authors have countered that reformist tactics have empirically failed—pointing to unchanged rates exceeding 10 million hectares annually and declines of 68% since 1970—necessitating industrial as a proportionate response to ongoing , while distinguishing it from by limiting targets to machinery rather than human life. Keith's associations through DGR and the (WoLF), which she co-founded in 2014, have drawn accusations of from former leftist collaborators, who view partnerships with conservative entities as a departure from progressive , evidenced by WoLF's 2017-2020 collaborations with Republican lawmakers on policy advocacy. These alliances, including joint legal briefs and amicus filings, were criticized by ex-allies in environmental and feminist circles as enabling right-wing agendas, contributing to perceptions of a rightward pivot amid DGR's declining membership and internal strategic debates post-2011. Keith has responded that such coalitions arise from causal realities of institutional capture, where leftist dominance on certain issues forces pragmatic engagements to defend core principles, substantiated by documented policy shifts like California's 2017 expansions that WoLF challenged. Analysts have also linked DGR's anti-industrial rhetoric to eco-extremist fringes, noting overlaps in accelerationist logic with far-right environmental militants, though DGR maintains aboveground operations to avoid direct violent endorsement.

Influence and Legacy

Impact on Ex-Vegan and Omnivore Movements

Keith's 2009 book The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability has been referenced in numerous ex-vegan testimonials as a catalyst for abandoning plant-based diets, with readers citing its nutritional and ecological critiques as pivotal in their transitions to omnivory. For instance, former vegans have described the book as exposing the health damages of prolonged veganism, mirroring Keith's own experience of physical deterioration after two decades on the diet, which prompted her shift to animal-inclusive eating. This has contributed to the visibility of ex-vegan narratives within online communities, where her work is frequently discussed alongside personal health recovery stories. The has played a in popularizing ancestral and diets by arguing that aligns with pre-agricultural patterns emphasizing and foraged foods, influencing paleo and low-carb advocates who integrate her ecological arguments against grain-heavy . Keith's emphasis on regenerative farming practices, including on perennial polycultures, has resonated with advocates seeking sustainable omnivory, positioning animal as compatible with restoration over annual crop monocultures. In environmental discourse, Keith's analysis challenges vegan land-use efficiency claims by highlighting the hidden ecological toll of plant agriculture—such as soil erosion and habitat destruction from tillage—which she contrasts with the potential for grazed grasslands to sequester carbon and support biodiversity without annual plowing. This perspective has informed omnivore movements' pushback against vegan dominance, underscoring metrics like topsoil loss rates under industrial cropping (estimated at 1% annually in the U.S.) versus regenerative grazing's restorative effects. Her work aligns with broader data showing high attrition from veganism, with surveys indicating up to 84% of adherents revert to omnivory, often due to health or sustainability realizations akin to those she articulates.

Role in Challenging Progressive Orthodoxies

Lierre Keith has critiqued progressive environmentalism by arguing that veganism and vegetarianism rely on industrial agriculture, particularly annual monocrops that deplete soil through tillage and require fossil fuels for production, contradicting claims of sustainability. In The Vegetarian Myth (2009), she contends that these diets exacerbate ecological damage via habitat destruction for soy and grain fields, rather than regenerative practices like holistic grazing that mimic natural herd movements to build topsoil and biodiversity. Her personal experience of health deterioration after two decades of veganism, including dental erosion and chronic fatigue resolved by reintroducing animal foods, underscores her rejection of nutritional orthodoxy favoring plant-based diets as universally ethical or healthful. Keith extends this analysis to industrial civilization itself, co-authoring Deep Green Resistance (2011) with premises that civilization—defined by sedentary agriculture, deforestation, and resource extraction—cannot be sustainable and inevitably leads to ecocide through overshoot and drawdown. She advocates dismantling infrastructure like pipelines and dams, prioritizing ecosystems over reformist incrementalism often endorsed in progressive circles, which she views as enabling continued planetary degradation. This stance challenges left-leaning faith in technological fixes or green consumerism, emphasizing causal links between settled societies and biodiversity loss dating back 10,000 years. On gender, Keith defends biological sex as immutable and binary, rooted in reproductive dimorphism, against progressive expansions of "gender identity" that she argues erode women's sex-based protections in prisons, sports, and shelters. As founder of the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) in 2013, she has mobilized against self-identification policies, contributing to campaigns that influenced restrictions in multiple U.S. states by 2023, such as bans on male-bodied access to female facilities. Her radical feminist framework prioritizes material reality—e.g., male physical advantages persisting post-puberty—over subjective claims, earning praise from some for resisting ideological capture amid pressures to affirm transgender demands. Supporters commend Keith's insistence on empirical ecology and biology as bulwarks against politicized narratives, fostering ex-vegan advocacy and policy wins like Idaho's 2020 fair play law for women's sports. Critics, however, label her positions reactionary or ecologically unsubstantiated, arguing her anti-veganism ignores scalable plant efficiencies and her anti-civilizational views overlook adaptive technologies; mainstream environmental groups often dismiss holistic grazing's soil benefits as overstated, citing meta-analyses showing variable carbon sequestration without net reversal of deforestation trends. Despite such pushback from institutionally aligned sources, Keith's work has prompted reevaluation in dissident circles, highlighting trade-offs in progressive ideals like universal veganism versus verifiable land restoration metrics.

Ongoing Activities as of 2025

As of 2025, Lierre Keith maintains her involvement with the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) as founder and special envoy, advocating for women's sex-based rights through podcasts and organizational efforts, including a September 10, 2025, appearance on the "Let's Talk Lake County!" podcast alongside board secretary Elspeth Cypher to discuss WoLF's initiatives. She has spoken at gender-critical feminist events, such as a October 11, 2025, conversation in Brighton hosted by Feminists Against Antisemitism focusing on Jewish and Israeli feminist perspectives, and Women's Declaration International's Feminist Question Time at the FiLia conference. Keith continues her association with Deep Green Resistance (DGR), participating in their annual conference from August 1-5, 2025, in Philadelphia, which emphasized resistance strategies against environmental collapse. The organization promotes tours featuring Keith and co-founder Derrick Jensen to deliver earth-centered messaging to communities. In her advocacy on diet, agriculture, and ecology, Keith delivered a presentation at the PHC Conference in December 2024 titled "Diet: What I Wish I Knew When I Was a Teenager," highlighting health risks of veganism and critiquing industrial plant agriculture's soil degradation. She co-authored the article "Vegans in Danger" published August 12, 2024, arguing against long-term vegan diets based on nutritional deficiencies observed in her own 20-year vegan experience. Keith sustains her influence through an active X account (@lierrekeith), posting on feminism, environmentalism, and sustainable farming critiques as recently as October 2025.

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