Is Katherine Deves the victim here?
She’s seeking to represent one of Australia’s wealthiest electorates on behalf of the party of government. She was handpicked by Scott Morrison, the most powerful person in the country, over the desires of the rank-and-file Liberal Party members. Deves was even given a waiver by the party to stand for election despite having been a financial member of the party for less than six months.
Her candidacy has been relentlessly covered by the media. A lot of it has been negative — led by coverage by news.com.au journalist Samantha Maiden of Deves’ thousands of transphobic tweets — but she’s also been given prominent softball interviews by News Corp, Nine’s papers and radio stations, and the SBS. Headlines about Deves being silenced, defending her right to speak, have been unironically splashed across the nation’s front pages for weeks.
Deves’ motivation for running for politics was her obsession with trans people. Ostensibly, this is about trans women in sport but, as per her own comments, her real passion is ending “gender identity ideology”. She spins herself as a woman’s advocate whose interest in the issue is specific to advocating against trans women.
Interest in Deves’ candidacy had faded until a few things happened this week. First, Sky News’ Chris Kenny interviewed her on the hustings where she reiterated her view that trans people are mutilated and made it clear that she hadn’t apologised for what she had said. Then, Scott Morrison backed her in again at a press conference and said, “We can’t pretend this is not a serious, significant issue”.
Trans health is a serious, significant issue. Trans children seeking “gender reversal surgery”, as the prime minister incorrectly called it, is not. Nor is the issue of trans women in sport. Depending on where you look, issues like cost of living, the environment, health, aged care, federal integrity are all topics that punters care about. They aren’t asking about a surgery only accessible to adults or a sports competition issue that most female athletes support.
The only reason that Deves is still getting attention is because the nation’s most powerful people want you to focus on her. Nine’s Niki Savva reports that Deves’ campaign is being run out of the prime minister’s office and that her interview with Sky that kicked off the news cycle yet again was masterminded by his staff. Senior Liberals fear Morrison is trying to use her candidacy to rev up religious voters at the cost of moderate, inner-city support.
Today, a “tearful” Deves was given the front-page treatment by the Nine papers — an interview that Coalition spokesperson Anne Ruston “seriously doubts” was set up by the government — where she is centred as the victim.
This is what happens when power speaks over truth. Australia is facing a climate crisis. Housing is less affordable than ever. Inflation is spiking, almost certainly beyond wages that haven’t gone up in real terms in a decade. Our aged care and health sectors are under incredible stress.
But don’t look at that. Pay attention to the doomed candidate promoting redundant legislation on an issue few people are affected by or care about. Ignore the marginalised people whom she seeks to exclude. Instead observe Deves’ anguish over being judged, criticised even, for comments that she made hundreds of times.
The Katherine Deves saga is manufactured to distract you from stories that matter. The only silver lining is that it reveals the character of those who are crass enough to seek to exploit it.
…Pay attention to the doomed candidate promoting redundant legislation on an issue few people are affected by or care about.
Maybe so. But for those of us who are affected and do care it has been a truly dreadful time.
There is a transgender mid-teen within my extended family. During the Deves’ imbroglio I have taken to making very carefully worded BTL comments on a number of sites. Unfailingly, these have been met with expressions of concern, positive comments and upticks. Same amongst my neighbours, friends and former colleagues, most of whom have never been personally exposed to transgender people and the matters they face.
I think the SSM debate opened many eyes to the dreadful consequences that can arise when LGBTIQ+ people are treated with prejudice and/or contempt. As the postal vote thingy showed, many Australians do not share those biased attitudes.
I am hoping that 21 May will bring a result that demonstrates that Australians do not share the views of Morrison and Deves and Abbott and Kenny and …
Not as dreadful as its been for trans kids and their parents.
Mr Cam Wilson, “crass” is a soft word. May I suggest “cruel” as closer to reality?
I think crass is more appropriate.
Some of the most powerful people in the country picking on a few kids who just want to kick a ball around with their friends. How brave.
As a woman it matters to me that a male person cannot identify into femaleness just by saying he feels like a woman. It outrages me that a man who feels like a woman is then entitled to coerce me into using wrong sex pronouns, can play in womens sports against natal females (thereby displacing the opportunity of a genuine woman), can be incarcerated in a womans jail, can apply for grants reserved to foster womens talents and businesses, can use the facilities designated women only like toilets and changerooms, can enter womens shelters designated to protect women from male violence. As the grandmother of a teenage lesbian it matters to me that trans ideologues have suggested to her that she must be a man born in the wrong body and that she should get her body surgically altered to try to impersonate a man. It matters to me as a feminist because I reject trans gender ideology as homophobic and promoting regressive regressive gender stereotypes. As a parent it matters to me that we safeguard children from being confused by having to refer to males as women because some men want to publicly enact their fetish by wearing dresses, wigs and talking in high voices. As a human being it matters to me that we acknowledge the scientific fact that humans are a dimorphic species and that it is impossible to change the sex we born as.
Men cannot turn into women and I do not consent to being required to pretend that it happens. It has never happened and never will.
Lastly, as a person who values quality journalism it matters to me that Cameron Wilson writes such poorly researched articles and feels he can speak for Katherine Deves and other Australian women. I dare you to actually interview her and educate yourself what the gender critical viewpoint is based on.
I doubt that Cam Wilson is attempting to speak on behalf Katherine Deves or that other Australian women think like Katherine. My wife strongly disagrees with Katherine Deves. I don’t think that men can turn into women. A person brought up till they are an adult as a male will not have the same experience as a a child brought up to become a woman. A transgender person can only live like but in not exactly the same way as people brought up in the gender that they wish to adopt as the way they want from now on to live. Your ruminations about what transgender people can do are just that. I had no problem with the story of a man who became an army officer and had children with his wife but then felt he could only lose his gender dysphobia if he then began began to live like a woman lived. I am not attempting in any way to speak for Katherine Deves, who seems unable to distinguish between gender reassignment surgery to which an adult consents in a fully informed way with “mutilation”, which occurs only when someone attacks a person or botches surgery.
Respectfully, Mr Hunt you’re wrong about what you describe as my “ruminations” There are men right at this moment incarcerated in Australian womens prisons because they say they “identify” as women. Through FOI it is hard to get exact numbers but it is believed to be around 50 and rising. Many of these male inmates have committed violent crimes against women and children. There are trans identified males who demand to use womens shelters and join womens support groups. If they say they are women they cannot be denied. Women in these organisations who refuse or resist lose their jobs due to “transphobia”. There are trans identified men who demand to join breastfeeding support groups and cannot be turned away. Women specialists in the Australian Breastfeeding Association have been silenced and lost their jobs due to resisting this. Men can become Girl Guide leaders if they say they are women, and “trans” boys can join girl guides groups. It is literally against the law to not allow this. In the ACT there is a “self ID” law which allows males to legally change their sex to female, entitling them to all the womens rights and facilities that I described above. The change of sex documentation is a cursory procedure, not requiring any evidence of physical surgery, physicians support or having presented as the opposite sex for any period of time. A man with a beard and fully intact genitalia can become a legal woman without any query. “Self ID” is about to be introduced into Victoria in the next few months. Everything I outlined is literally, legally true and happening in Australia right at this time. There are at least 3 Australian girls aged 15 who have had their healthy breasts removed due to believing they are really males born in a wrongly sexed female body. Trans identified boys are getting their penis removed and inverted to create a cavity supposedly resembling a vagina. I’m entirely comfortable describing these kind of unnecessary cosmetic surgeries as “mutilation”. The genital surgeries are notoriously experimental with astronomical failure rates. Apart from surgery there are hundreds of Australian children who are taking puberty blocking drugs from age 13. Wrong sex hormones stop them going through puberty and their reproductive systems don’t mature. This occurs within 6-12 months of being on wrong sex hormones – thus these kids are rendered permanently sterile.
Men are becoming women simply by saying so. So what is a woman?
If you seriously wish to look into this, and understand why women who have done the research are alarmed with the implications, go to YouTube and search Australian TERF Talk. Then come back and tell me I’m nuts….
I was wondering how you became like this, and then in the last line you reccommend that someone seek out the truth on YouTube. Now I understand.
Ditto Talleyrand. I was going to ask Pearl for links to the above allegations- dispassionate, factual ones- but if I do, I’ll just be sent down the TERF rabbit hole.
Going by the downvotes, looks like the TERFs and their allies monitor Crikey for articles like this, doesn’t it?
Agree not a convincing supporting reference! Agree also that quite a few of Pearl’s alleged facts are in dispute. Nonetheless there is some respectable research in this area and there are good references available.
“Alarmed with the implications”. Mmm. Testosterone levels in biologically born females vary greatly. There’s so much variation, you could almost call it a spectrum. So does strength. And height. My daughter-in-law’s 5’11”. She towers over me and she almost makes two of me across the shoulders. One of my women bosses is 6’. One of my friends is 6’2”. She jokes it’s her Valkyrie genes expressing themselves.
Should these women be sidelined from sports because they have an unfair advantage over the rest of us, Pearl? Because that’s where your crusade will take us. It will certainly make women’s pro level sport a dull affair, won’t it?
And why stop there? Let’s do it to the men, too. Let’s tie them to the median as well. Can’t play sport anymore because you’re too tall/strong/fast or what have you. Dear oh dear. (Rolls eyes)
You cannot possibly know how many trans women in prisons, and you cannot possibly know what they are there for. You are lying. You are repeating lies that you read on the sick little sites that you infest.
You haven’t even looked at the guidelines for treating teenagers, have you? On page 25 of the RCH guidelines – ‘genital surgery remains a relatively uncommon practice internationally….given this complexity, delaying genital surgery until adulthood is advised’
You can have a look yourself, but I’m guessing you won’t because you’d rather get your information from sickos on Youtube.
https://www.rch.org.au/uploadedFiles/Main/Content/adolescent-medicine/australian-standards-of-care-and-treatment-guidelines-for-trans-and-gender-diverse-children-and-adolescents.pdf
Oh, really. That you seem unaware that no adolescents can legally have gender reassignment surgery shows that you are prepared to simply make up what you want to say. Only adults, who have considered the change of gender for years, can legally have gender reassignment surgery. So, please. Your lengthy comments do not show that that transgender women are really women. They are not. They are people with problems who should be supported.
As for the rubbish about people in prison, there is no way that you can have accurate information about prison inmates. There are all sorts of sex offenders, who do all sorts of things while offending. Cross dressing is not illegal. There is no necessary link between cross dressing and sex offending. So, please, stop carrying on with sweeping assertions about matters on which you cannot be as “informed” as you claim to be. As to your question as to “what is a woman” that is simply answered: an adult human of the female sex. In addition to that, there are various people who choose or who are forced to look like women for various reasons, some good and some bad. Most people can cope with that fact. Perhaps you should try to cope too, instead of inventing baseless disaster stories .
Well Pearl, there’s your opinion as an Australian woman. Here’s my observation and opinion as another one: you used either “male” or “man’” eight times in three paragraphs. You used the words “children” and “teenage” twice. I draw two conclusions from that. The first is that you either don’t realise transmen exist, or you simply don’t care, and the second is you think men suddenly wake up one morning and say…what was it again? “ I want to publicly enact (my) fetish by wearing dresses, wigs and talking in high voices”. You’ve described drag queens, who are overwhelmingly gay men- not transwomen. Not the same thing, Pearl. Drag is about parody and satire, not gender dysphoria. It’s an art form I used to loathe because it used to kick down at women, but it’s recognised its misogyny and lifted its game. It’s still a work in progress, though, with a way to go.
Transgender dysphoria starts in childhood, Pearl. The children it affects – a vanishingly small proportion of the population- go through a battery of psychological tests before it is diagnosed. As a grandmother and mother, I have no wish to see these children suffer because evolution got it wrong with them. Evolution gets it wrong all the damn time. Nothing sensible would put a toxic waste line through a recreation area, after all.
Wow! Such vile and hate all wrapped up in one single paragraph. And we wonder why half the trans community has attempted suicide. I dare you to actually talk to a trans woman and educate yourself. But I know you won’t because you’re too full of hatred. So let the transphobia from your lips just roll on!
That’s not how it works. It is not how any of it works. Men do not ‘identify into femaleness just by saying he feels like a woman’. Do you seriously think that for the dubious pleasure of being allowed to play in women’s sports code, a man would put himself though the discrimination and the hatred that people like you foster? Do you have any idea how hard it is for a trans woman to get into a woman’s jail? Do you seriously think that men dress as women to get into a shelter for women? Give me an example of that happening.
Everything you say comes from a sickness. It is sick to say that men want to ‘publicly enact their fetish by wearing dresses…..’. When you see someone you identify by how they look as being a woman wearing a suit, do you say that they are publicly enacting a fetish to be a man?
You are full of misconceptions, lies, and hate. I strongly suggest you go away and do some serious reading before you comment again. Trans women live with an ever present fear of being badly hurt and killed. Is that ok with you? Because it’s people like you, and the sick people who like your comment, who foster the hatred that leads to that.
You know what makes me laugh about the views of people like you – at many times in your life you will have been, and are, and will be, in contact with a trans woman and you don’t even know it. You will have been served by a trans woman at a store, you will have seen a trans woman as a professional, you will have had a pleasant chat in a queue with a trans woman, you will have spoken with a trans woman at a call centre, you will have been in a toilet cubicle next to a trans woman, you will have come across a trans woman in a myriad of settings, and you don’t even know it. That’s how sad your views are. You don’t even know who the people are that you hate.
I feel a little bit crackpotty here but it feels to me like a deliberate reshaping of the coalition. Scotchtape doesnt care so much if they win or lose this election, he and his sort are being hamstrung by the moderates in the party.
The ALP is now so cowed by a decade in opposition with a hostile media that there is no real risk to the coalition from a term in opposition. No major social reforms etc on the table.
The election is on track to wipe out the so called moderate libs, while others will surely leave the party they no longer recognise.
In 3 years time the dopes who vote will have forgotten how poorly the lnp perform, and dont realise that its now a party of religious zealots and return them to power, now unburdoned by those pesky moderates
In my opinion, not crackpotty at all. He’ll likely be rid of one potential successor in Frydenberg, but will still have Dutton to contend with. If this is a deliberate strategy (and not just, having sniffed the winds of change, sabotaging moderates seemed to be making the best of a bad situation) then it’s a risky one.