Katherine Deves pictured celebrating Mardi Gras in a racy blue dress as she blames trans activists for ruining movement

Just days before deleting her Twitter account to run as Liberal candidate, Katherine Deves shared photos of herself celebrating Sydney’s iconic Mardi Gras.

Katherine Deves shared a photo of herself at the Mardi Gras (right in blue dress) just days before deleting her Twitter account

It’s Liberal candidate Katherine Deves as you’ve never seen her before - celebrating gay pride at Sydney’s iconic Mardi Gras.

Ms Deves, who has previously revealed she has a gay sibling, posted the images of her celebrating the festival in a blue feather boa on social media last month before nuking her social media accounts to run as a Liberal candidate.

But she did so complaining that trans activists had wrecked the movement for gays and lesbians.

“Back in the 90s, when Sydney Mardi Gras was still a grassroots street parade with a killer party at Hordern celebrating the progress of gay and lesbian rights,’’ she wrote.

The tweet was one of her last before she deleted her Twitter account to run as a Liberal candidate and was posted on March 6, 2022, just four days before she lodged her nomination form with the NSW Liberals.

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Katherine Deves shared a photo of herself at the Mardi Gras (right in blue dress) on March 6, just four days before she lodged her nomination form with the NSW Liberals

The under-fire Liberal candidate shared the photo while complaining that trans activists had wrecked the movement for gays and lesbians.

Asked about her controversial comments, Ms Deves who previously said there was a link between transvestism and serial killers, told 2GB host Ben Fordham on Friday she was absolutely not transphobic.

“Of course not, Ben,” she said.

“This isn’t about that. It is about women and girls. Back in the early ‘90s I was going to Mardi Gras, I voted for same-sex marriage. I don’t have an issue with that. But this is about a collision of rights, and as I keep saying we just need to be able to debate it in a respectful way and take into consideration the points of view from all the stakeholders.”

Her now-deleted tweets include claims half of all transgender women in jails are sex offenders - a reference to a figure claimed by an activist group Fair Play for Women that has been disputed by Britain’s Ministry of Justice.

She also previously suggested the gay newspaper Pink News should be known as “the Rainbow Reich”, that Wear It Purple Day in schools was a “grooming tactic” and attacked gay surrogacy as “a human rights violation.”

Deves (left, with a friend in Mardi Gras outfit) insisted she was absolutely not transphobic during an interview with 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Friday

Ms Deves is pictured above at the 2021 Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism. Picture: Salty Dingo/Kennedy Awards/Facebook

Asked if she could win the seat, Ms Deves said she was confident and believed she had a fighting chance.

“We’ve been trying to get you in the studio for a number of weeks and Liberal Party HQ keeps on stepping in and blocking you,’’ Fordham said.

“Are you running your campaign? Are you having other people run your campaign.

“It is my campaign and I have been out there everyday talking to ordinary people,’’ she said.

“I wouldn’t have stood up if I didn’t believe I had a chance to win.”

Ms Deves said she had told her daughters she needed to keep fighting.

“I’ve said that you need to have the courage of your convictions. We need to have more women in parliament, more women in government. And if ... I put my hand up and if I backed down what sort of a message would that send?”

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg declined to back in Deves’ continuing candidacy when asked this morning if the Liberal party should dump her, while condemning her “inappropriate” references to the Holocaust.

“That language is inappropriate,” Mr Frydenberg told ABC radio.

Ms Deves has agreed to visit Sydney’s Jewish museum after further tweets were unearthed, in which she replied to a meme referencing Jewish schoolgirl Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945.

News.com.au broke the story of her controversial tweets in the first week of the campaign, including a claim trans teenagers were “surgically mutilated”.

Ms Deves is pictured above with her husband and their three daughters. Picture: Katherine Deves - Liberal Candidate for Warringah/Facebook

Ms Deves (above in another snap celebrating Mardi Gras) said she was confident and believed she had a fighting chance to win her seat