The New South Wales police say they are not aware of any threats made against the Liberal party’s controversial candidate in Warringah, Katherine Deves, after an interview in which she said she had received “death threats” over comments about transgender people that she made online.
After weeks of avoiding media scrutiny, Deves gave an interview to SBS on Sunday night in which she said her family had fled Sydney amid fears for their safety.
“I have received death threats, I have had to have the police and the AFP involved,” she said. “My safety has been threatened. My family are away out of Sydney because I don’t want them to witness what I’m going through nor do I want their safety put at risk.”
Deves has become a lightning rod for criticism after her comments about transgender people on her personal website and now-deleted Twitter page resurfaced during the election campaign.
She has previously described Wear it Purple Day – which celebrates gender diversity – as a “grooming tactic”, described trans children as “surgically mutilated and sterilised”, and claimed as recently as January that there is “no such thing as a ‘trans female’” only “males with trans identities”.
She has called surrogacy “a vanity project” and “a human rights violation”, compared her anti-trans activism to standing up against the Holocaust and linked transvestism to serial killers.
In her interview with SBS, Deves said she had been “chastened” by the criticism and denied she was transphobic. But she also appeared to apportion blame for her comments on Twitter.
“I recognise trying to prosecute arguments about complex, nuanced and difficult subjects ... it should not take place on a platform that propagates offence and division and hurt,” she said.
“Going forward, I will be conducting myself in a dignified and respectful fashion. I recognise that the way I prosecuted those arguments was not conducive to proper, reasonable debate.
“What we are witnessing right now – we are in a time where it is dangerous to speak your mind.”
Asked during the interview what she would say to trans children who may have been hurt by her comments, Deves said: “This is about women’s rights.
“With this issue we have a collision of rights and thus far the voices of women and girls have not been heard. When we have a collision of rights in liberal democracies we debate them in a reasonable, measured fashion.”
But despite saying she had been forced to involve the police after receiving “death threats”, a spokesperson for the NSW police said in a brief statement that the force had not been made aware of any threats.
“The NSW Police Force have not received any reports of threats made,” a spokesperson said.
In a statement, the AFP said it “does not comment on matters that may be the subject of investigation”.
Deves has faced calls from within the Liberal party for her disendorsement, including from the NSW treasurer, Matt Kean.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has stood by her candidacy, saying people were trying to “silence” her.
