Katherine Deves claimed the Sydney Cricket Ground is removing the historic Ladies Pavilion and permanently renaming it the “Pride Pavilion”.
Deves made the claim while appearing on an online panel for International Women’s Day. In the a conversation hosted by Rachel Wong, CEO of the Women’s Forum Australia, Deves said Sydney’s annual celebration of LGBTIQA+ people had become a money making exercise that had “captured” corporate sponsors.
Deves appeared on the panel alongside Anna Kerr from Sydney’s Feminist Legal Clinic and Stassja Frei from the Coalition for Biological Reality and told the other panelists and the online audience that there was a plan to rename the Ladies Pavilion that change all it’s bathrooms to being gender neutral.
The demise of the Ladies stand however is not true, a spokesperson for Venues New South Wales confirmed to OUTinPerth that the renaming of the stand and gender neutral toilets occurred only for the evening of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Deves might be given some leeway for the false claim however as it appears News.com.au incorrectly reported the one night change in name was going to be a permanent fixture, but voters will be expecting elected officials to double check and get their facts right before repeating claims.
(ed: Still unclear why it is acceptable to abolish the female toilets during Mardi Gras).