Katherine Deves

Katherine Deves is an Australian lawyer who ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Liberal Party of Australia at the 2022 Australian federal election. Deves was nominated as a "captain's pick" by Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the seat of Warringah. She has been criticised for her views about transgender people, and has been called an anti-trans activist and a TERF, or trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

Pre-2022

Deves has said she became interested in gender identity and women's sports around 2015. She said that she had been “active in the debate online for a number of years”, but “a few years ago I decided to stop just complaining online and try to figure out how I can make a difference in real life.” In 2020, she co-founded the Save Women's Sport lobby group, intended to exclude transgender women from women's sport, by uniting with a New Zealand lobby group by the same name to create an Australasian organisation. Between 2020 and 2022, she created a Twitter account, and began to appear in the media, including in articles in The Australian, and several appearances on Sky News Australia and podcasts.

2022 election

Infighting between the Liberal Party's moderate and conservative factions caused them to support disability advocate David Brady and defence analyst Lincoln Parker to be preselected for the Division of Warringah, respectively. Both men were described as not "the kind of candidate we really needed here". Warringah had long been considered a safe Liberal seat, until independent candidate Zali Steggall beat former Prime Minister Tony Abbott at the 2019 election. Despite the fact that she had been disallowed from standing for the seat on the grounds that she had not been a member of the party for long enough, she had gained traction as a "circuit breaker" candidate. According to a senior Warringah Liberal Member, Deves appeared to be "smart, articulate, not at all a ‘politician’, and she looks like a movie star.” She was then preselected by a three-person committee consisting of former president of the New South Wales Liberals Christine McDiven, Morrison and New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet. It is unclear whether the committee knew of Deves' anti-transgender views before her preselection, as she had deleted her Twitter and Facebook accounts before preselection, and the hurried manner in which she was preselected, with minimal vetting. In April 2022, a repository of Deves' deleted tweets was uploaded to Github.

During the campaign, Deves made comments relating to transgender people, which caused significant controversy. Statements included the false claim that gender reassignment surgery was available to teenagers, and that anti-transgender activism was equivalent to "standing up against the Holocaust". Deves also stated that transgender children were "surgically mutilated and sterilised", which she initially apologised for, before withdrawing her apology. Deves was invited to the Sydney Jewish Museum, after her comment relating to the Holocaust. After her visit, Deves stated that "under no circumstances must [the Holocaust] ever be trivialised.” In a similar incident, Deves compared transgender children being removed from abusive parents to the Stolen Generations. Deves also routinely misgendered transgender athletes, such as Laurel Hubbard and Hannah Mouncey, described Wear it Purple Day as a "grooming tactic used by gender extremists", and described the gay and lesbian movement as being "hijacked by gender activists". Many Liberals, including Treasurer of New South Wales Matt Kean and member for the federal seat of North Sydney Trent Zimmermann called for Deves to be disendorsed; however, other anonymous Liberal Party members and Morrison backed her. Kean also stated that he does “not believe she’s fit for office." Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull strongly condemned Deves' comments and called for her disendorsement, stating that “they are hateful comments that seem to be designed to whip up animosity and hatred against some of the most vulnerable people in our community.” Morrison praised Deves as an "outstanding individual" for "standing up for things that she believes in." In April 2022, Deves stated that she had reported death threats made against her to the police, but New South Wales police stated they had not received a report of any threats.

On 22 April 2022, Deves held a campaign event in a Sydney pub, where media were informed that they were banned from entering.

In the leadup to the election, Deves received significant media attention due to her controversial comments. In an eleven-day timeframe in the lead up to the election, she received more mentions across news publications than any Liberal frontbencher, except for Morrison, being mentioned over 1,100 times. She was defeated in the seat of Warringah, historically a safe Liberal seat, suffering a 6.6% swing.

After the election, she objected to criticism that she was homophobic, stating on Sky News Australia, "Of all of the untruths and distortions attributed to me in my public life there is one lie that hurts more than any other, and that is the completely groundless accusation that I am homophobic." She also criticised Liberal Party members that had objected to her comments, including Kean and Senators Simon Birmingham and Andrew Bragg, claiming their criticism of her hurt her chances of winning Warringah. Birmingham stated that Deves' candidature had had a "contagion effect on adjacent seats", where her controversy hurt the Liberal vote both in Warringah and for other Liberal candidates elsewhere.

Post-2022

On 18 May 2022, Deves was criticised for praising far-right forum Kiwi Farms, which hosts videos of mass shootings, including the video of the Christchurch mass shooting. In tweets since deleted, she encouraged her followers to visit the site stating that it was a "valuable" source of information.

On 17 April 2023, Deves announced that she would be nominating to fill the Senate vacancy left by Jim Molan. If successful, she stated that she would oppose the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. Deves pulled out of the contest on 23 April, to focus on her legal defence for women-only social media platform Giggle for Girls. In December 2022, Giggle was being sued by a transgender woman, Roxanne Tickle, after she was incorrectly classified as a man and banned from the app. In June 2023, an application made by Deves to dismiss the case was rejected. In the same month, Deves spoke at an anti-transgender event at Parliament House, Sydney, which included Victorian MLC Moira Deeming, and New South Wales MLCs John Ruddick, Tania Mihailuk, and Greg Donnelly.

In August 2023, Deves confirmed she was considering running for Warringah again at the next election.

Deves is a monarchist. The Australian Monarchist League received controversy when it announced Deves would be speaking at their annual conference. When preselected for Warringah in 2022, she said she would focus on local issues, particularly cost of living and small businesses. Deves opposed "draconian" COVID-19 policies implemented by the New South Wales Liberal Party, and called for the Prime Minister to “sort out the vaccine rollout”. Deves is against pornography, calling it "a corrupting influence," and is against pushes to ban gay conversion therapy, critical of a Victorian bill to ban the practise. She is a climate denier, stating on Twitter she believed climate change was a scam.

Deves lives in Manly Vale with her partner, David, and three daughters. In July 2022, she was injured after skiing at Thredbo, missing a Liberal party meeting. Before entering politics, Deves worked in marketing, as an employee for Treasury Wine Estates. She studied law at University of Sydney and qualified as a lawyer in 2021. In March 2022, Deves claimed she was a Level 2 wine sommelier with the International Sommelier Guild.

Deves is an active contributor to Sky News Australia and The Spectator.