Former Liberal party candidate Katherine Deves says she wishes she had not apologised for crude comments she made about transgender people.
Warning: This article includes blunt descriptions of transgender people and may be upsetting to some readers.
Deves was personally selected by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison as the Liberal candidate for the seat of Warringah at the 2022 federal election. After comments Deves had previously made about transgender people in the past were highlighted in the media, it became a major focus of the election campaign.
Appearing on the SBS program Insight on Tuesday evening, Deves said her comments may have been “provocative and confronting” she “did not apologise for the substance of the arguments” she was making.
Deves said none of her pubic comments could ever be considered as hate speech, and she was simply sharing her opinions. She said in the future her approach will be to “never apologise, never explain, just continue on.”
Student activist Amelia Bright, who was also appearing on the show, said while both sides of discussions about transgender rights should be heard, it would be preferable if the media focused on the voices of experts and facts, rather than opinions.
When asked if she would use the description “surgically militated” in a face-to-face situation, rather than an online forum, Deves said it would depend on the context. The lawyer said her description of “surgically mutilated” was the correct legal terminology.
“It depends on the context of the conversation that particular Twitter thread was to do with a very young girl who had had a bilateral radical mastectomy and that child’s mother had posted that online. Adam Bandt of the Greens was at that time running a petition to get Medicare to pay for those surgeries – for children.
“So when I was taking about, and in respect to that comment, I was saying the lawsuits are going to be legion, these are children who might be gender non-conforming, vulnerable, traumatised, they’ve gone online and they’ve thought that a gender identity is the solution to all their problems and then they are pushed onto a medicalised pathway. So it was in the context of what is a difficult conversation.”
“While some people might be offended, that is actually the terminology you would use legally, although it might be offensive, that is the reality of that debate.” Deves said.
Deves said if she had been elected to parliament she would have represented everyone within the electorate.
“If I had become the elected member for Warringah, you have to represent every individual within that community, and you have to be willing to listen to what their problems are., because you are the conduit between the community and the government. If people had come to me with problems it would have been my duty to try and assist them.
“However when it comes to issues dealing with women, children and families, I think my views were well known. If I had gone to Canberra I would have continued to have advocate for them.”
Since failing to find success as a politician, Deves has found a home on Sky News where she appears almost nightly across their opinion based programs.
OIP Staff
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