FUN AND GAMES

 

Transgender sport has been on the news a lot recently with the latest being Sport NZ's new guidelines for the inclusion of transgender people in community sport, allowing athletes to compete in the gender they identify with. These were developed following engagement with transgender and sporting communities, academics, researchers and other advocacy groups.

SPORT NZ GUIDELINES

If a male declares a female identity, they will be entitled to play with and against females at community level sport, no questions asked. If sporting organisations have not been able to facilitate private bathrooms, they will also be entitled to use the facilities that they are most comfortable in, such as female bathrooms, changing rooms and female dormitories on sports trips. Sport NZ’s guiding principles also imply that community sport isn’t competitive and female athletes don’t play to win. The draft principles say that girls are involved in sport primarily as a social activity, and so requiring them to accept males that identify as girls or women into the female category is inclusive.

There are concerns at this so as outlined in the report link above. A couple are:

There is a risk that female participation levels will be impacted, if they are not comfortable playing with, or against, males that identify as women.

There will be less opportunity for females to win, place on podiums, or make a team. The ability for females to win will be under threat due to the biological advantage of male transgender athletes.

All good I suppose but with this 'new' group being so large and becoming such an issue in international sporting codes and events something has to be addressed (pun intended) as soon as possible. A lot of discussion is about changing rooms and toilet facilities, safety and dignity of female athletes, competitiveness and social acceptance but, to me, the most important consideration should be fairness and equality.

It's about time that sporting codes and events get rid of the male vs female separations in sports where gender isn't a sensible consideration,. These are for example:

• Lawn bowls
• Hurling
• Diving
• Archery
• Shooting
• Equestrian
• Darts
• Snooker
• Sailing
• Badminton

to name a few.

For the ones where male strength is a distinct advantage there should remain a separation.

When it comes to transgender though, where the trans person has advantages of male strength then there needs to be a change (pun intended). I propose a third category in international sports competitions - Trans gender. In sports where there is enough participation by transgender people then the categories should be men, women and transgender. I can see this being in most ball codes (I won't go near a pun there) like football (various), tennis, baseball and basketball, contact and martial sports, swimming, athletics, rowing and cycling.

What do you think?*

* I know that Robert would rather all transgenders be re-engineered, transported, re-educated and/or sent to hell.