Katherine Deves Said Sorry, Not Sorry For Her Horrible Comments About Trans Kids
"Every move, every word is calculated," said Grace Tame.
Katherine Deves has clouded her apology over anti-trans comments after mounting backlash on the election campaign.
The Liberal candidate for Warringah defended her conflation of gender affirmation surgery with female genital mutilation — a serious and largely non-consensual circumcision procedure often inflicted upon young children.
She had previously apologised in April for calling trans people “surgically mutilated and sterilised” on Twitter in a since-deleted post, acknowledging that her language was “not acceptable”. But nearly a month to the date, Deves has stood by her former comments in an interview with Sky News on Monday.
Host Chris Kenny asked Deves whether it was inappropriate and wrong for her to call trans-specific surgeries ‘mutilation’, to which she claimed it was the “correct medico-legal term”.
'That is the correct terminology".
Katherine Deves speaking to Sky News' Chris Kenny just now & appearing to walk back from her previous apologies for describing transgender children as 'surgically mutilated and sterilised'. #AusVotes #AusPol pic.twitter.com/zW4oyS3sgY
— Tina Quinn (@TinaMQ) May 9, 2022
“It’s very emotive, and it’s very confronting, and it’s very ugly. So of course, people are going to be offended,” she said. “But when you look at medical negligence cases, that is the terminology that they use. It is also contained in the Crimes Act of New South Wales”.
However, if she actually read the legislation, she would know that it states under Section 45 that a sexual reassignment procedure performed by a medical practitioner is not a criminal offence.
Deves then went on to give a Grade A example of a non-apology, saying she had only said sorry for how her prior statements were perceived, claiming she didn’t “want to hurt anyone’s feelings”.
“Katherine Deves is a lawyer. She knows exactly what she’s doing,” said Grace Tame on Tuesday. “Every move, every word is calculated.”
“Falsely conflating ‘female genital mutilation’ with legal gender reassignment/affirming surgery to attempt to vilify a minority isn’t just shameful, it’s dangerously harmful.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison piped up on Tuesday to say that “gender reversal surgery for young adolescents” is a “significant, serious issue”, but that he “wouldn’t use” the term ‘mutilation’ like his handpicked candidate Deves.
However, as reported by The Guardian, Morrison was also made to concede that people under 18 can’t actually receive gender confirmation surgery in Australia at all.
“The employment of this false, inflammatory, and hurtful language is an act of pure bigotry,” said Sydney firm Marque Lawyers in response to Deves’ comments.