Peter Dutton & Sharon Claydon

[TheShellBeach]

Australian Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton has been chastised today for repeatedly addressing the Deputy Speaker, Sharon Claydon, as "Mr. Speaker."

Claydon is a trans woman.
www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2022/dec/16/peter-dutton-calls-sharon-claydon-mr-speaker-18-times-in-one-speech-video

I was cheering him on from the comfort of my sitting room.
She corrected him endlessly but he carried on doing it.

I think Sharon Claydon is an adult human female, however I’m not Australian nor aware of Australian politics so that’s just from Googling.

I think she's TWAW.

I wonder what that 'misgendering' was about. Was it just reflex habit, that he was used to constantly referring to 'Mr Speaker'? Was it deliberate, to be rude to her? Was it deliberate, to demonstrate that using wrong sex 3rd person pronouns is (a) nonsensical, and (b) harmless?

Whatever the reason, she has not proven herself a particularly good Speaker if she cannot manage that MP's behaviour.

Sharon Claydon is a woman and Dutton is being an arsehole to her because he is a bully.
If Claydon was trans we’d have heard all about it. She’s not.
Another paper reports another Liberal member has been calling her “Mr” as well. The Liberals are losing women’s’ votes because of bullshit like this.

I was confused by this. I assumed he was being an arse and objecting to having a woman be the speaker but then thought - surely you can't be that much of a sexist twat in this day and age. Then I thought he must be making a point about how annoying it is to be misgendered - but that didn't ring true either. Is there a backstory to this that I'm missing? I never for one minute thought the Speaker was a trans woman because, as someone else said, there would have been louder howls of objection and outrage. Strange.

Looks like I got that wrong.

FGS, do some reading around Dutton and his views. Vile man.