Liberals Pick Anti-Trans, Anti-Abortion Councillor Moira Deeming For Victorian Parliament Seat

Victorian Liberals have endorsed controversial anti-trans councillor Moira Deeming to replace Bernie Finn for the Upper House Western Metropolitan Region seat in Parliament. 

Finn was dumped by the party ahead of the state elections after his post on social media calling for abortion to be banned, including for rape survivors. 

Curiously, Deeming herself had in October 2021 termed abortion as a “terrible evil” and in 2020 sought “repeal” of the “the terrible abortion laws in this country”. 

Deeming, a 39-year-old former high school teacher was elected to the Melton City council in October 2020. In 2016, she launched a campaign against Victoria’s Safe Schools program, saying she would rather be fired from her job than teach such “sleazy, unnecessary drivel” to her students.

Moira Deeming Against Drag Queen Story Time

In her candidate statement, prior to the 2020 council elections, Deeming had stated that she stood for “traditional, liberal and family values, like equality before the law” and was against “radical policies” like story times for children narrated by Drag Queens and trans persons getting access to bathrooms that match their gender identity.

“Resources should be spent wisely, and only ever allocated based on need, not on identity markers like religion, race or sexuality… Focus on the whole community. I will never support rates being used to promote radical policies like banning Australia Day, Drag Queen Story Times for toddlers or letting biological males who identify as female, use female toilets and change rooms,” Deeming said in the document submitted to the Victorian Electoral Commission.

Since her election, Deeming has campaigned against transgender bathroom access. Councillor Deeming appeared at meetings of various councils across Australia to ask if it was “legal for local government councils to provide sex-based targeted services and facilities separately to gender-identity based targeted services and facilities. If not, why not?”

Moira Deeming Against Trans Access To Female Spaces

In a Darebin council meeting in 2021, Deeming asked: “For example, can we legally put signs on a set of public toilets, declaring that one is for biological males including males with an intersex condition, one is for biological females including biological females with an intersex condition, and one is for people with transgender identities of any biological sex. If not, why not. As a taxpayer I’d like clarification on this issue, and we’d like to know council’s opinion on the answer.”

The Liberal Party’s decision to endorse a councillor with anti-transgender views was met with widespread outrage, especially considering the fact that their attempts to get anti-trans candidate Katherine Deves to Federal parliament failed during the federal elections in May 2022.

Katherine Deves Congratulates Moira Deeming

Deves was the first one to congratulate Deeming on social media. “Congratulations to Moira Deeming. Chosen by Liberals for Upper House in state of Victoria. The pro-women resistance against anti-women fringe extremism and woke progressivism is gaining ground in Australia,” Deves posted on Twitter.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, when asked by the media about the Liberal party’s decision to endorse Deeming had this to say.  “I’m not here to comment on the Liberal Party and some of the transphobic, homophobic and frankly, unVictorian kind of hatred. This spite just doesn’t work.”

“We’re all equal. We all should be respected. We all should be safe. We all should be valued for who we are and we shouldn’t have to be hiding who we are. We shouldn’t have to be fearful that we’re not going to be accepted,” added Premier Andrews.