Sport Must Stand Up. Sport Must Lead. Sport Must Include Everyone.
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4:48 pm, July 24th, 2025 - 67 comments
Categories: gay rights, gender, Politics, sport -
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I have been proud to represent Aotearoa New Zealand on the world stage, first as a Silver Fern, then as a Black Fern. I know the power of sport to bring people together. I know its ability to inspire. But I also know what it feels like to be excluded and to feel like you do not belong.
That is why the government’s decision to scrap Sport New Zealand’s transgender inclusion guidelines for community sport is so deeply disappointing.
This is not leadership. This is exclusion by neglect.
Sport NZ was doing exactly what it was created to do. It was leading a system that promotes wellbeing for everybody in Aotearoa. It was living its vision — Every Body Active. That is not just a slogan. It is a statement of values. It is a promise that no one will be left out.
The guidelines that have now been removed were not mandatory. They were not rules. They were not restrictive. They were practical tools to help clubs, coaches and volunteers create safe, welcoming environments for everyone. That includes transgender and non-binary people who have long been made to feel invisible or unsafe in sport.
These guidelines were about community sport. The sport our kids play on Saturday mornings. The games in local gyms and school halls. The five-a-side teams, the weekend netball, the social leagues where people find connection, joy and belonging. These are the spaces where inclusion should matter most.
Instead, this government has chosen to walk away. It has left transgender people exposed. It has left sporting bodies without support. And it has sent a clear message that political convenience matters more than people.
That is not the Aotearoa I know many of us believe in.
Sport is not neutral. It reflects who we are and what we value. For generations, sport has stood at the front of social change. It challenged apartheid. It demanded gender equity. It opened doors for Māori, for Pacific peoples, for women and girls. It supported Marriage Equality. And now, it must open its arms to our transgender whānau.
Inclusion is not in conflict with fairness. Inclusion is the very definition of fairness. It is the recognition that all people, regardless of their identity, deserve to participate with dignity and respect.
We should not be debating whether transgender people belong in our communities. We should be doing everything in our power to make sure they are safe, valued and visible.
To the clubs, coaches, administrators and players across Aotearoa — you can still choose to lead. You do not need permission to be inclusive. You do not need government approval to be kind. You can continue using the principles that were created to guide best practice. You can continue building environments where everyone, no matter who they are, has the right to play and the right to belong.
Because this is not just about sport. This is about who we are as a nation. Whether we allow fear and misinformation to define our values. Or whether we choose courage, compassion and inclusion.
Inclusion is not ideology. It is humanity. It is a basic principle of fairness. And it must be the foundation of every team, every club, every code and every competition in this country.
Sport must not sit back. Sport must not stay silent. Sport must lead. Especially when the government deliberately chooses not to.
Louisa Wall
Black Fern #59
Silver Fern #90
Human Rights Advocate
Champion for Inclusion in Sport and Society
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Well said.
Since when did "sports including everyone" mean women must open up their sporting category to everyone?
Women have no obligation to compete with people who "identify as women".
It makes a mockery of women's sport. We may as well stay home and not compete at all. Completely regressive, unfair, stupid.
Anyone one here arguing for male bodied people competing in women's sports needs to fess up. They absolutely DO NOT believe these males are diminished by taking estrogen.
They know it.
We know you know it.
It's grossly misogynistic. Am absolutely sick of this pretense, this violence against women and against common sense.
[Please don’t use different user handles each time you comment here and stick to just one, thanks – Incognito]
Mod note
Without seeing the guideline that has been removed, it's hard to comment directly.
I will say this though. Male bodied people do not belong in women's sport if we want fairness and safety. This isn't trans exclusionary any more than it is male-exclusionary. Men still get to play sports, and so do trans people, in the category of their biological sex or in an open category. The reason we have women's sports is because women cannot compete and win in sport against men (with some exceptions). There is now a large body of science to support this, men's and women's bodies are different, and this impacts on sport.
There is an overlap with fairness for women, and people who don't approve of gender non-conformity. Then there are people like Winston Peters who will use a topic like this for his own populist political agenda. But there are clear leftist and feminist arguments for single sex sports, and protecting women. It's a shame to see these things conflated.
For instance, it's a good thing to have a statement of fairness and acceptance in sport for trans people. Just not at the expense of women. Trans women can compete in the competitions for men, or in open categories, but where there is a safety or fairness issue for women, TW should not be in women's sport. It's true that women fought to have fairness in sport, and it's just wrong for that to now be taken away.
This is a good overview from UK pro-women group Sex Matters, outlining the physiological differences and why they matter and with links to the supporting science.
https://sex-matters.org/where-sex-matters/sport/
This is a useful reference from the same page, the UK is a few years ahead on the debate than NZ.
Well put, Weka.
I think this is the document from 2022.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/50193943
First thing I notice is that the word 'women' appears seven times in the 25 page document, and that is in reference to pronouns, or trans women wanting to be in women's sport. Nothing about how the guiding principles would lead to exclusion of women. This is the core of the problem.
I have a lot of respect for Louisa Wall and what she achieved in netball and rugby, and also that she was an out lesbian in sport at a time when few were out.
I agree with her that trans IDed people, and all others who do not conform to sex-based stereotypes, expectations, and behaviours should not be excluded from sports, both community and elite sports. However, I do not agree that it means that trans IDed teenage or adult males should be participating in teenage or adult female sports at any level.
As weka has said above there is plenty of evidence that with or without exogenous opposite sex hormones males retain their physical advantages in strength, speed, lung capacity, muscular-skeletal structure, etc. And that is significant at both community and elite level. Firstly, there is not a clear cut-off between community and elite sport. Elite athletes get their start in community sports.
Furthermore, even at some of the lowest community sports level safety and fairness matter.
It us up to sports organisations and other participants to make trans IDed people feel welcome in the appropriate sports category for their sex. This largely applies to trans IDed males, because trans and non-binary IDed females tend to choose to participate in female sports.
Meanwhile trans IDed males, including those who ID as 'gender diverse' or non-binary without taking opposite sex hormones, still want to participate in female sports. This often seems to be as much about being validated as their chosen gender identity, rather than feeling unsafe or excluded in male or open category sports.
Good points.
Exactly. Plus the advantages that can be gained from the male body in female sports.
For example – William (Lia) Thomas, swimming on the Penn State girls swim team while claiming to be "female" .He happily took medals and prize money from the young woman on the team while making sure that they knew he was an intact male by being very much less than modest in the shared locker room.
Any of the young women who complained were told that if they made a fuss about it they would lose their place on the team and consequentially their sports scholarships.
He is a heterosexual man who now has a wife.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/07/01/university-of-pennsylvania-will-strip-transgender-swimmer-lia-thomas-of-records-and-titles/
There are 2 issues with sport-
-How to make sport fair for women
-How to have trans people fully participating in sport
Sports are full of categories and grades- under 19s, Masters, lightweight, heavy weight, Premier leagues, age categories. When my daughter played mixed football at primary school, the girls played with boys a year younger- it seemed to work well, and had been in place for years.
The whole a-trans-woman-is-a-woman thing just does not make any sense to me, and I reckon lots of others too. I don't think it does their movement any favours.
I dread the Labour Party tying itself in knots over Winston's bill, and promptly lose the election on that basis.
that's my worry too. Few on the left take the risk seriously, but it's an issue of perceptions of competency and trust. People will vote on other issues that are more important, but handling this issue badly is part of the mix.
The way the Greens have handled the whole trans issue, no-debate, etc, has destroyed my trust in the party. I think there's something seriously wrong in their party processes that has allowed them to be so firmly captured by an over-wrought ideology that is out of touch with material reality. I had a strong belief in the party and now feel betrayed as a woman and a lesbian.
Labour and TPM have also been on-board with it but to a lesser extent.
I trust them less too, but I'm not sure it's a party process issue so much as the people who used those processes. Labour have also suppressed dissent in the party over this. Don't now about TPM, but I would guess so.
We probably know more about what happened in the Greens because historically they've been more open and transparent than other parties. Labour would never tolerate that degree of openness, nor the kind of consensus used.
Oh, I'm sure that Labour has suppressed dissent as well – see Jill Ovens leaving Labour. But the Greens have been much more publicly aggressive in campaigning for gender ID trumping sex. They tend not to talk too much about it. They tend to put it on a back-burner during elections, but it's there in their policies and they strongly support it during a parliamentary term.
TPM is more low key about it. John Tamihere's TPM doesn't have a lot of policies in support of wāhine anyway. They just passively go along with gender ID and say something vague about Māori traditionally accepting diversity and difference. I suspect that Tamihere doesn't want to get caught up in any controversy around it and doesn't see it as a hill they're willing to die on.
agree the GP are definitely more ideologically committed and rigid. I'm glad they don't talk about it much, not least because it saves us the insanity that is the UK and Scottish Greens. I've tended to think this demonstrates more common sense and valuing political survival from NZGP. I still think that a fair number of GP members wouldn't be ok with the excesses of GI. At some point we will get decent polling asking the pertinent questions and it will be more obvious.
"I dread the Labour Party tying itself in knots over Winston's bill, and promptly lose the election on that basis."
Yep, I concur.
That is a crusade perhaps for The Greens but even then I feel there are more pertinent causes that the Rainbow community would support The Greens over.
For Labour, I get not wanting to release serious policy too soon but there are a few easy stances to take to be effective, address cost of living, and perhaps, more importantly, point out how the coalition has been bought.
As examples;
Vapes only available on prescription for nicotine cessation. Effective immediately.
The mining/gas prospecting licenses revoked.
Something tinkery around power sector with a view a radical reform follows.
Feel free to add.
I think Labour have poor advice from their internal advisors, certainly the times Hipkins has been caught out with questions, he sounds both unprepared, and then using information from the TRA cul de sac. Which is weird, because in the UK Labour, the Tories and the SNP have all taken substantial political hits from ignoring the general population's feelings about the whole thing. Labour and the Tories came to their sense, SNP doubled down. I expect the same pattern (-ish) with Labour and the GP here. What it will take is court cases as it did in the UK. It's a colossal waste of time and resources at the worst possible time for the left. Progressive GC people in the UK are winning, but the cost is huge, because now there is Reform and a swing towards populist and regressive politics (same dynamic with immigration settings, will we never learn?)
The LAVA Tribunal case has been in session this week, but now adjourned til September. It has had NO media coverage.
I wasn't sure if reporting was allowed. A livestream wasn't allowed.
I didn't know that.
Don Franks did a bit of an OP on the first session that he attended: screenshots here.
great write up thanks. Must just be the livestream that wasn't allowed.
"Are you claiming that ALL lesbians in Aotearoa are same sex attracted "
omfg 😂 Sorry to laugh, because it's actually very serious, but that is just fucking bonkers. I'm so glad LAVA are taking this case and really wish we had a tribunal tweets team (which is a lot of work).
it's actually quite shocking there is no MSM coverage.
There are some great sarcastic lines in Franks piece. I like the bit that says trans people and allies go on about their 'lived experience' a lot. According to their testimonies they seem to be the only ones who have lived experience, while the rest of us are on some abstract level.
It seems there would be nothing stopping media journos attending the tribunal and doing their own summaries of the proceedings.
that lived experience bit was amazing.
I first read stuff about "lived experience" within feminist standpoint theory and decided it had severe limitations. While it's important to listen to individual women's 'lived experiences', women's experiences can be diverse depending on context and differences between women in relation to socio-economic class, race/ethnicity, sexuality etc. There is a danger of selected women's experiences, eg of white middle class western, able-bodied women's most common experiences being taken as true for all women.
Relying totally on lived experiences can reduce arguments just to individual anecdotes and ignore widespread trends and, in relation to such things as sport and violence against women, material and scientifically verifiable reality.
I don't know if a focus on 'lived experience' pretty much originated in 2nd wave feminism, and is another eg of gender ID activist males appropriating feminism, or if it was developed separately in economic and anti-racist politics.
This article says that standpoint feminism's roots go back to Marx & Hegel. But it also says that standpoint feminism remains controversial within feminism.
The historical value in it was in women being able to point out that our experiences of life and the world are often quite different from men, and in a society dominated by men, and thus built on men’s experiences, women being able to speak from our own experience was important for having a conversation and broadening political understanding. Completely agree that it becomes a problem when it replaces or supercedes analysis grounded in materialism.
As with many things, neoliberalism has exalted it at the expense of politics that would change capitalist systems.
I don't know how 'lived experience' is understood in various fields of philosophy more generally. Karolyn's points about the risks of over valuing this are obviously correct.
I think 'lived experience' stems from a relatively trivial social observation that often people who are subject to a form of oppression are frequently more likely to recognize it than people not subject to it. The thing is this doesn't in turn mean people not subject to oppression are unable to recognize it or to articulate it even without being prompted to do so. If it's being extended to shut people down because they don't have that 'lived experience' then it's become invalid as an argument. That is because it denies the ability of those with that 'lived experience' to even articulate in a way which can be understood by parties other than those who have that experience and has devolved into purely appeal to authority. In the same way this argument invalidates the support of so-called allies as they don't have that 'lived experience' and therefore can only empathize in an artificial way at best.
agree with this too. If we are not allowed empathy with people who have completely different experiences, we are probably lost as a society.
The Don Franks point is a bit different. It’s pointing to the political dynamic where trans people’s (in reality trans women’s) lived experience is raised up above all others to the point that no-one else’s matters. Hence the bit about no-one else being alive. It’s a fundamental position of Gender Ideology, and is why women’s politics were so radically sidelined. Women are converted into cisgender oppressors, well below trans people in the hierarchy, thus we are supposed to stfu whenever we want to say something that doesn’t fit with the ideology, never mind our own lived experience.
It’s also a feature, because GI is anti-materialist, and anti-body. If women speak about our bodies (from our lived experience), the extremity and reality denial of the ideology is exposed in an emperor’s new clothes kind of way.
Note to readers:..this thread continues on o.m..
this popped up on my twitter.
Sex Differences in Disc Golf Performance: Implications for Eligibility Criteria for Women's Competitions
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsc.70008
The research looked at a large number of players in both pro and amateur classes and found men outcompeted women as well as having better throwing distance (males threw 23 – 54% further than females) and accuracy. That includes in the juniors, where clear differences were observed by age 10.
Of note "In the amateurs, over 5000 males had a higher rating than the best female player." This pattern has been seen repeatedly across many sports. There are many many men who can compete better than the best woman.
None of that should be controversial, there is plenty of in depth science that demonstrates this.
Which leaves us with the idea that TW somehow lose their male advantage, through medical or surgical transition. There is also increasing evidence that shows this is not true. Males retain the puberty advantage even if they lower testosterone. Women aren't men with low testosterone levels (the sexism inherent in this categorising is mind blowing).
So what we have is males with physical advantage competing against women, on the basis of the needs of TW for inclusion, and completely ignoring the needs of women for fairness. Wanting to change society so that trans people can take part like everyone else is progressive, changing it in ways to the detriment of women is not.
This is how ridiculous that premise is:
***
Transgender chess decision: New Fide rules criticised by players but welcomed by committee chair
But while these concerns would seemingly not apply to chess – a sport in which mental fitness is more relevant than supposed physical differences – the International Chess Federation (Fide) has chosen to ban trans women from female-only events.
Why has this happened? It's a complicated picture involving Russia, anonymous complaints and the sport's lone top-level trans female player.
What are the new rules in chess?
In August,, external Fide introduced a ban on trans women competing in female-only events. Chess has an open category and female-only competitions.
According to Fide, gender reassignment "has a significant impact on a player's status and future eligibility for tournaments".
***
Ref: https://www.bbc.com/sport/67127168
No thanks, Weka. Your argument holds no water for me.
Hi Frank, not quite following. My premise was that sports where the physical difference between women and men affects fairness and safety should be categorise according to sex not identity. Are you saying that that premise fails because in chess there is no physical difference? I don't get it, can you please explain?
Just to complicate things Frank, chess isn't officially recognized as a sport by NZ either.
The BBC is likely right and there is simply some Russia vs Western FIDE internal politics underlying this decision. I don't know of any other movement, push or reason for this decision to occur at the time it did. Also worth noting FIDE internal politics have become very Western European since Russia was banned from competition, there have been numerous attempts to remove Arkady Dvorkovich from president because of his nationality and previous office, despite his strong Western European connections and statements against the invasion of Ukraine.
But this doesn't make it particularly relevant to relate to decisions about other sports. Unlike many International and Olympic events, Yosha Iglesias had virtually zero impact on top woman's competitions anyway there are numerous stronger women in regular international competition.
I've seen the case made that women in chess need sex segregation because of the still rampant sexism that denies women advancement in ways other than because of their skill.
I think that argument is likely just miss-leading anyway actually.
First off, I should clarify that I don't think there is any difference in potential between male and female chess players. The overwhelming numerical superiority of top chess players as being male is still compatible with the larger number of male chess players overall. The main thing going on seems to be that till the last few decades a lot more males were encouraged to progress at chess especially at lower levels, and the career span of a top player can be quite long and takes time to reach a peak level so we are getting the outcomes now of a sociology which was prevalent 30-50 years earlier. More recently there has certainly been a lot more encouragement of women and girls to play chess however at most levels.
On the other hand, while overt sexism could be off putting to female players it's also going to lead to under-estimation of a female opponent which can be a massive advantage (leading to not preparing thoroughly for a game or to mistakenly assuming a shallow mistake by the opponent rather than their actual deeper planning behind their moves during games).
What is being described as sexism requiring womans categories may be talking about the sociology of what was going on 30-50 years ago on the above basis. It's also simply possible that a lot of girls like playing against their female peer group as a social activity and that its easier for a lot of women and girls to participate with a few more peers around in that environment.
It's also relevant that most competition womans players participate in is in the open category anyway. The actual differences in eligibility are in Womans competitions where most participation is at top levels. The other difference being female titles. These are a bit sexist in construction as they are awarded to women for a lower level of performance to equivalently named open titles (which women are also eligible for). There have been a few women top players who have said these women exclusive titles should be abolished because of the implication that they are a lower performance category.
Ultimately, I don't think it's particularly important what the balance of the sexes is in chess participation at different levels. The most important thing these days is keeping competition clean of cheating and suspicion of cheating.
those things are all the sexism. If a human endeavour is organised to suit men, then women will be at a disadvantage. eg not having breastfeeding facilities available at parliament meant women who had young babies would face a barrier that other people wouldn't in becoming an MP. This in turn has flow on effects across the woman's career. I don't know enough about chess to give examples, but have seen this discussion a few times where it's been explained.
Think if you are alleging structural sexism, you should probably look into it and cite actual examples.
As I said female players appear to perform consistently with their participation rates across all levels and they mostly compete in open competition anyway.
Could simply be that a higher proportion of males and boys are interested in chess competition, which would be fine too.
structural sexism exists in so many spheres, including male dominated sports, that it seems unlikely it wouldn't be in chess.
Here are the first three results when I google 'sexism in chess'
https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1bjjsb6/a_case_control_study_of_possible_sexism_in_online/
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/29/womens-chess-sexism-misogyny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_chess
I agree with you that numbers don't have to be even, and that it may be that men and boys are more interested.
If you are looking at the highest levels, there is data that shows on tests of most characteristics including IQ tests, males show a greater spread in both directions than females, while averages for each sex remain the same.
ie: data shows that there are more males than females at the top of the IQ range and more at the bottom. There are females at both the top and bottom end but, fewer of them as females tend to cluster around the mean.
However, I don't know how being good at chess correlates with IQ, and I don't know if the IQ tests are totally free from cultural influence, even though they claim to be. When I studied IQ tests as an undergrad a whiles back, there didn't seem to be any totally culture-free IQ tests, even including non-verbal tests.
Very broadly speaking there is likely some relation between being a top chess player and having a high IQ, but being good at chess is learned so its far from a 1-1 similarity and IQ would not be a good predictor of players eventual peak playing strength.
There could be a similar (to IQ) broader spread of male players abilities, compared to female players. This seems to be slight enough it doesn't appear clearly in analysis to look into the playing strength of top male/female groups vs the over all male/female player base. Chess also has a pretty solid idea of strength of players owing to its rating system which fairly reliably predicts the expected score between any given pair of players.
I wouldn't really call a few players (even quite a few) being sexist in public structural sexism though. To me structural would entail something a lot more systematic and probably occurring while being supported by chess governance.
This is true only as long as we recognise the need for categories. "Inclusion" of adults in children's sports would be in conflict with fairness. "Inclusion" of heavyweights in flyweight boxing would be in conflict with fairness. Likewise, inclusion of male athletes in women's sports is in conflict with fairness and please stop trying to claim it isn't.
So…a 7ft tall basketball play vs a 5ft tall basketball player…?
Do we categorise basketball/netball players according to height?
What about left handed vs right handed people?
Runners from certain parts of East Africa noted for their speed?
See where this leads? After a while each athlete will be playing against… themself?
Are you arguing for the removal of sex categories altogether? Do you know why we have age and weight categories? Do you want to see those removed as well?
If you find it offensive that we categorise sports competitions by age, sex, weight etc to ensure fairness, take it up with the relevant sports bodies. But when you argue that categories are inherently a bad idea just because you want male athletes to be able to compete in women's sports, please be aware that you're also arguing for adults to be able to compete in children's sports, youth to be able to compete in veterans' sports, the able-bodied to compete in the Paralympics etc.
Thank you, Ms Wall.
Well said.
For those who think this is ok, cos, y'know, it's only "those trannies" – think again.
Pastor Martin Niemöller's poem has never been more apropos.
Because an environment that allows active discrimination only one minority in our country will soon pave the way for discrimination against others.
I need only to point at what's happening in Fascist Amerika to illustrate the point.
No one is safe.
This debate rehash is pointless.
The current event issue issue here is not directly about women's safety in sport, or fair competition.
It is about Winston Peters (another reprise of Winston Church and Nancy Astor's "public" commons bathroom debate) being seen to get a policy win.
There was an advisory/support to sporting bodies as to how they might manage the issue of the transgender in sport. There was no direction to sporting bodies involved, they were left to decide their own policy – based on their determination of their best interest of the sport and those people involved.
Did no one comprehend any of this from the media statements?
This was said about it in 2021
https://thestandard.org.nz/revisiting-sports-trans-inclusiveness-and-womens-sex-based-rights/#comment-1821436
Of course we did. Peters is a populist arse. But the government promoting males into women's sports (which is what the guidelines did) existed as an issue before Peters jumped on the bandwagon.
It's specious to say that the government can promote males into women's sports but sports bodies are free to make up their own mind. It obscures how much of this war is fought at the cultural and policy level.
How did the government promote males into women sport, via the (now removed) guidelines?
As you acknowledge, sports bodies were free to make up their own mind.
They will now deal with the same issue without the guidelines.
Zoe George.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360770634/biggest-threat-girls-and-womens-safety-sport-isnt-trans-women
As far as I can tell she thinks there are no safety and fairness issues because it's community sport. Do elite sportspeople spring fully formed from somewhere without playing community sport? Do women who lose out places, winning/placements, sponsorship, prizes even register in her thinking?
Here's a snip from my comment from yesterday,
https://thestandard.org.nz/sport-must-stand-up-sport-must-lead-sport-must-include-everyone/#comment-2039737
from the document itself (linked above), in the section about discrimination,
That is clearly saying that trans people should be free to play sport in the sex they choose, and that eg trans identified males should be allowed to play in women's sports. And if sporting bodies don't allow and facilitate that, they may be breaking Human Rights law.
Further, it waxes lyrical about fairness and safety, but then goes on to specify policy that is blatantly unfair and unsafe for women.
We don't know yet what how the HRA would be interpreted as it hasn't been to court, but gender identity isn't a protected characteristic. This government document is basically saying that TW are protected anyway. That has serious implications for women.
Sport and the HRA:
Section 49 of the HRA says,"
So I don't see how excluding males who ID as trans from women's sport for those reasons would breach the HRA.
It does not.
Has there been any case where a transgender woman has taken a case to the HRC after being excluded?
I'm not aware of any. But the HRC seems to have taken the position that trans people are covered by the protected characteristic of sex, although presumable not their biological sex which would make a nonsense of the protected characteristic. Something about shifting from sex to sex characteristics, because defining humans by their parts has worked out so well for women /sarc.
your link goes to RL saying this,
Yes and as RL noted, the entire issue was thoroughly covered by/in 2021.
Fair competition and player safety being the given, sporting bodies would determine inclusion based on the interest of their sport and community participation.
https://thestandard.org.nz/revisiting-sports-trans-inclusiveness-and-womens-sex-based-rights/#comment-1821436
don't know what you are arguing here. Are you saying that the government should stay out of it and sport bodies should decide themselves? You know this is how males are getting to play in women's sports, right?
No, this how American colleges allowed the transgender to compete in womens sport, because no sporting body made the decision. These have fair competition and safety rules, unlike some American colleges.
good lord. The IOC destroyed conventional protections around women's sport, and sports body after sports body followed, including in the US and the UK. Men cannot compete in women's sport, unless someone let's them, and that is exactly what happened, sports bodies let them.
Women have fought long and hard to push that back and are now starting to win.
Left to their own devices, sports bodies have chosen to throw women under the bus. Remember Hubbard?
Yeah, sports tend to be still very male-dominated.
And there tend to be far more men playing some of the main sports than women. RNZ:
There has been a concerted effort to increase the numbers of women playing rugby, and other sports. in the past I've seen other research on Sport NZ's website that shows that young women are easily put off playing community sport eg if their physical presentation or sports performance gets negatively commented on, and that shows women's motivations to positively participate are different from those of men.
There are many good reasons as wells as the obvious safety and fairness for women's sport, community and elite level, to be kept for the female sex.
What do you mean good lord?
It is a fact that most of these transgender women competing in women’s sport are there, not in international sport.
The number of transgender women competing in international women's sport is very limited.
The actual issues have been those registered at birth as female. These have never claimed to be transgender women.
It's actually hard to know how many trans IDed males have competed in the Olympics because there's no sex testing and women are strongly discouraged from complaining about males in women's competitions as the article on Stephanie Barrett says..
Stephanie Barrett is a Canadian trans IDed male who competed in the women's category in Archery in Tokyo Olympics.
why are you limiting it to international sport? Women and girls play sport at all levels and having men play against them affects them at nearly all levels.
Across all levels you can see some of the numbers here
https://hecheated.org/results.html