Gerrard explains vote on transgender ban

Former Olympic swimmer and sports medicine specialist Dave Gerrard says he is proud to have voted for world governing body Fina’s ‘‘historic decision’’ on an international policy all but excluding trans women athletes who have gone through male puberty from the sport.

Swimming NZ representatives, including Gerrard, the vicechairman of Fina’s sports medicine committee, voted in favour of the restrictions. He will take questions from the Swimming NZ board next Wednesday, as it decides how it will apply the new rules.

National bodies, such as Swimming NZ, did not receive information before sending delegates to a congress to hear experts talk about this subject in Budapest and before the policy vote, he said.

Gerrard said he based his vote on science presented regarding testosterone levels, and the voices of female athletes at the Fina congress.

Gerrard believed Swimming NZ’s board would likely vote to apply Fina’s policy in NZ.

‘‘At what stage do you pull the rug from under [trans women athletes] and say, ‘‘look, I’m sorry, that’s as far as you can go?’,’’ he said. ‘‘You cannot compete against other biological females. And so this is a question that individual sports and Sport NZ itself has to address because it’s a very difficult line in the sand.

‘‘Fina have had the guts to stand up to this and make a line in the sand. I feel proud to have been part of this historic decision,’’ Gerrard said.

Sport NZ released draft guidelines to key stakeholders again this month.

Within its summary it said ‘‘exclusion from sport can have an alienating effect that can be particularly harmful to transgender people . . . ’’

The principles are not policies and are not required to be enacted by sports bodies, but Sport NZ has indicated sports organisations use the principles to guide development of inclusion policies within their own codes.

Sport NZ chief executive Raelene Castle said the final round of consultation was to provide a chance to obtain information on what support sports would require to develop a policy for their code.

Leading sociology professor Holly Thorpe labelled Fina’s policy ‘‘exclusionary and discriminatory’’ and said it had ‘‘cherrypicked the science to justify a fearfuelled agenda’’.

She was concerned how the new policy – which she said was already causing harm to those in the transgender community – would ‘‘trickle down’’ to community sport in New Zealand.

‘‘We need to remember that sport is a human right, and all people – including transgender and gender expansive persons – all deserve an opportunity to participate in all levels and all spaces of sport,’’ she said.

‘‘No one wins when women’s bodies are policed and regulated like this in sport. This is very backwards looking policy, reminiscent of the horrific sexual testing measures that so many sportswomen endured for many years. But this is worse.’’