Common Sense Prevails In Women’s Sports

Save Women’s Sports Australasia (SWSA) welcomes the decision by Sport NZ to dump a policy framework that supported boys and men playing in girls and women’s sport.

“We have fought against this ideological policy for years as, while the intent was honourable, it was obvious that an objective to include males who identify as female in women’s sport could not be done without compromising fairness and safety in sport for our female participants,” SWSA spokeswoman Ro Edge says.

“It’s great that this government has finally recognised that inclusion was incompatible with fairness and safety and thrown out the Guiding Principles.”

Ms Edge says the landscape of transgender inclusion in sport has also evolved significantly since the Guiding Principles were first introduced in 2022.

“Most international sporting federations have updated their eligibility criteria to balance inclusion with fairness and safety, and have typically enabled transgender athletes to compete in the category aligned with their biological sex or in mixed-sex teams.”

Last month the International Olympic Committee announced it will take a leading role in protecting the female category, after previously supporting flawed policies that “treated females as nothing more than men with lower testosterone levels. And this week the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee updated its eligibility rules to bar trans identifying males from competing in Olympic women’s sports.

Ms Edge says Sport NZ’s Guiding Principles had become outdated. “Unfortunately, their continued existence created unnecessary conflict for national sporting bodies, particularly those reliant on Sport NZ funding, which may have felt pressured to adopt these guidelines despite their misalignment with their international federation policies.”

She says it had been frustrating to witness the expectation from organisations that women should be kind and include men in their sport.

“Trans activists have pushed the inclusion mantra and targeted those of us brave enough to speak up. The reality is that it is only women who are negatively impacted by inclusion policies.”

She says sports categories are created for good reason, and that is to ensure fairness and safety. As an example, the under 85kg weight grade in rugby allows players under 85kg to compete, but not anyone over that weight. Likewise, a heavyweight boxer does not compete against a lightweight and able body athletes don’t compete against para-athletes.

“Keeping males out of female sport is the only way to ensure women can have fair competition."

“We are all diverse and have different body shapes and sizes, but biology matters in sport as we play with our bodies, not our identities.”

Ms Edge says it is great that common sense has prevailed.

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