We must do more to find level playing field
AUSTRALIANS usually believe in a fair go, but sports inclusion policies prioritising men and boys over women and girls in the female sports category are anything but fair. Last November, the Australian Institute of Sport quietly hosted a “Transgender Roundtable Discussion” at Monash University.
Despite the event’s trumpeting for “inclusion”, the attendee list was conspicuous for its exclusion of female athletes and women’s rights advocates.
Anyone following the sex and gender debates recognise “inclusion” as a euphemism for women and girls being expected to gladly sacrifice their own opportunities, resources and spaces in favour of males selfdeclaring they are a “woman” or “female”.
A Freedom of Information request submitted to the Australian Sports Commission revealed out of nearly 100 attendees, 24 were from peak sporting bodies that are already signed up to trans inclusion policies, 16 represented transactivist groups, four pro-trans inclusion academics, 15 from the Australian Institute of Sport and Australian Sports Commission including CEO Keiren Perkins, the Victorian LGBTIQ+ Commissioner, the Office of the Commissioner for LGBTIQA+ Communities, two from Victorian Equality Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, and one from the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia.
The keynote speakers were very much acolytes for the cause — endocrinologist Assistant Professor Ada Cheung claimed on ABC’S Q&A’S Sports, Inclusion and Redemption that the “science isn’t clear” on whether males have a “biological advantage or biological disadvantage” over females.
Dr David Hughes, chief medical officer of the Australian Institute of Sport, said in 2019 “at the grassroots level we should err on the side of inclusion” and transitioning athletes coming into high performance sport should be “very welcome to do so” because they “get a great deal of affirmation out of being able to participate in sport in the gender with which they identify, its an affirmation of their sense of self”.
It’d be fair to assume any subsequent sport guidelines would further entrench identity-based categories to the detriment of biological sex, and that means women and girls will be disproportionately disaffected.
Champion weightlifter Deb Lovely-acason, twice Australian Olympian, competed against Laurel Hubbard in her fifth Commonwealth Games. Hubbard, a male in his 40s, rose to global prominence at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics games when he competed in the female heavyweight weightlifting competition after a decades’ long break as the oldest ever competitor in the Olympic event.
Lovely-acason was approached by the AIS to attend the roundtable as the lone voice representing women.
Lovely-acason said: “I had to work for 20 years to make it in a male-dominated sport, but having to compete against a male shattered my world. It affected me financially and emotionally, and I quit my sport because I could never break the world masters record due to Laurel increasing it by 20kg on each lift.”
Lovely-acason said menstrual cycles, pregnancy, post-partum recovery and breastfeeding impacts athletic performance and limit
preparation for elite competition.
As an elite athlete, Lovely-acason was subjected to urine and blood drug testing, gender tests and weight limits for years to prevent unfair advantage.
She says this is “at odds” with having to line up against a male in the female competition because of his insurmountable speed, size and strength advantages.
Yet stringent and complex doping and fairness rules are suspended when it comes to policies for those who declare they are “trans” or “gender diverse”.
There is no official testing protocol for an artificial suppression in testosterone, many times higher than the highest level for females, that some sports require for male eligibility in the female category.
Furthermore many sports, including under the AIS current guidelines, don’t require any diagnosis, medical, hormonal or surgical interventions, or the altering
of sex on legal documents to compete in the opposite sex category.
In fact, surgery, therapy, or even a diagnosis of gender dysphoria are no longer required for a person to alter their sex on their birth certificate in Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT.
Queensland has tabled legislation to follow suit and similar is expected this year in WA and NSW. These new laws will allow a person to alter their legal sex every 12 months from the age of 16.
Commonsense reveals that allowing biological males to compete in the female category has severe impacts on the safety, privacy, dignity and right to fair competition for women and girls.
In defying global sporting organisations, Australia seems out of step with the direction the rest of the world is taking.
We are usually a world-leader in substantive equality for women and girls, but on this issue, we are completely dropping the ball.