It’s time some senior politicians including Chris Hipkins, Chris Bishop and Willie Jackson manned up on the transgender issue and protected female sports rather than listening to ‘theologian’ and head of Sports NZ Raelene Castle. Sports should be focused on biology because that means safety and fairness come first. Transgender people do have a basic human right to play sport, in their biological sex as has been done since at least 1745. We analyse the weak responses made last week by these MPs.
When the coalition government was formed, NZ First and National made a coalition agreement – and part of it said this –
Ensure publicly funded sporting bodies support fair competition that is not compromised by rules relating to gender.
In other words, not compromised by men competing against women where there is clearing a strength or stamina unfair advantage. It’s the reason we have male and female categories in the first place. In fact, even in sports like rugby, boys can be limited to a weight range as well.
And Winston Peters repeated that when we spoke to him last week – which was viewed by well over 100,000+ viewers across our social media platforms
It’s pretty easy to understand isn’t it.
Sports should be focused on biology because that means safety and fairness come first. And we know the examples – Laurel Hubbard in weightlifting, Lia Thomas in swimming, and many many other examples
NZ First said “If a code says ‘We don’t want to do that’, that’s their choice but they shouldn’t then expect the taxpayer to say we’re delighted to support you doing something which we see as unsafe and unfair. That’s the policy.”
According to Newshub, the NZ First-led policy threatened to cut millions in funding for sports bodies if they refused to exclude transgender athletes from grassroots competitions.
That is complete fake news – but of course we now expect that from our media. Transgender athletes are not excluded. They just have to compete in their biological category. Very easy. Nobody is excluding them. No more exclusion than if I wanted to play in the primary school football tournament. Perhaps I should apply.
The news report continued
After receiving feedback from Sport NZ, Chris Bishop revised the Government’s planned involvement to a more observational role.
“I am committed to upholding the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement which commits the Government to ensuring publicly funded sporting bodies support fair competition that is not compromised by rules relating to gender,” the Sport and Recreation Minister said in a statement.
“As I’ve said, this is a tricky issue for sports to navigate. Some have already adopted different rules on the grounds of fairness and safety.
“I’m keeping a watching brief on the issue.”
One of the key problems is the head of Sport NZ Raelene Castle who became very famous when she dealt with the fallout from Israel Folau daring to post a bible verse on his personal social media.
Raelene was asked whether Israel could post bible verses on his personal social media.
She said “just the good bits”. I wonder if she’d say that to a Muslim who quoted the Koran.
According to the NZ Herald who first broke this story
In a memorandum to the Minister of Sport Chris Bishop, Castle said that sporting bodies wanted to know whether they would get funding. And would their policy on transgender participation impact their funding.
Castle outlined that transgender people are less likely to participate in sport and, when they do, they are often exposed to negative experiences. She says sport has many physical and psychological benefits whereas exclusion proves harmful, particularly for transgender people already exposed to mental distress and discrimination. Participation in sport is a powerful means of social inclusion and a basic human right. Transgender people live, work and play in New Zealand and it is important our sporting communities reflect this.”
Let me rewrite that.
Castle outlined that women and girls are less likely to participate in sport when they get smashed by men and boys. She says sport has many physical and psychological benefits but not when you’re getting smashed by physically stronger male. Participation in sport is a powerful means of social inclusion and a basic human right. Women live, work and play in New Zealand and it is important our sporting communities reflect this.”
The only part of Raelene’s statement that is correct is this bit: Participation in sport is a powerful means of social inclusion and a basic human right.
It’s very ironic that Raelene often goes on about the inequities in women’s sport – but then champions letting men in.
And transgender people do have a basic human right to play sport – in their biological sex – as has been done since – 1745 – The first recorded women’s cricket match took place in Surrey, England.
1790s – An annual women’s association football competition was held in Mid-Lothian, Scotland
1811 – The first women’s golf tournament is held at the Royal Musselburgh Golf Club, Scotland
1882 – The YWCA of Boston sponsored the first ever athletic games for women. The YWCA don’t know what a woman is now
The Sport NZ briefing said many of the transgender policies prioritise inclusion in the gender they identify with at the community level. There are exceptions, however, to ensure fairness of competition and safety of participants. Castle said Sport NZ had not received a significant number of complaints that involve specific cases of unfairness due to transgender inclusion.
Problem here. In the Guiding Principles there are no exceptions. None.
And why haven’t there been a ‘significant’ number of complaints? Because people are being bullied into silence – by both the sporting clubs scared of the fallout, or pushing the agenda, and by the media – who only report the transgender person being the victim but never the cases I’ll show you in a minute.
For example, remember the coverage of weightlifter Laurel Hubbard. Did you hear ANY media call him out for competing in the wrong category. Any? No I didn’t either.
Let’s just look at a couple of the political responses
Firstly from National’s Paul Goldsmith on the AM show – and remember – there are no exceptions in the guidelines
Yeah that was totally unconvincing.
And then Labour’s Willie Jackson goes on a …..rant.
Community organisations – apparently a Mangere dude smashing girls on the netball court or football pitch is all ok. As long as it’s not the Warriors or the All Blacks. Winston should jump in the lake. Hang your head in shame. This is the rhetoric of ….. a dude. Willie is a dude eh. I wonder if he’s ever talked to females who are playing sport and are getting trounced by males because of their biological advantage.
But have a listen to the response of Labour leader Chris Hipkins
“The government should keep out of it. Politicians shouldn’t determine the rules of the game. We should stay out if it.”
How rich. How ironic. What has started this in the first place. Birth certificates bill – passed by politicians. Pick your gender. Ignore your genitalia. Ignore biology and science and fact.
And then the conversion therapy bill. If you encourage someone to live as their factual biological sex, you could be breaking the law.
And then the RSE curriculum rammed down by politicians thru the Ministry of Education telling children to pick from 112 genders and 200+ sexualities.
And the delusional DEI throughout government and schools which says that the colour of your skin, your gender identity, your sexuality, your attitude to climate alarmism and traditional marriage outweighs something basic like your biological sex and your character i.e. wanting to compete against people of your own sex – like we’ve been doing for centuries.
No Chris – you should keep out of it. Stop screwing the scrum by denying that we are created male and female.
Get back to biology. Get back to reality.
Just to finish, let me give you some examples of reality and how Chris Hipkins, Chris Bishop, Willie Jackson and Raelene Castle need to get back to biology. And I’m grateful to DailyWire for this summary of examples.
UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas in March of 2022 won a national championship title in the 500-yard freestyle over standout Virginia swimmer Emma Weyant. 40 seconds
Lia was changing in the girls changing room.
Fortunately the Olympics swimming body got back to basics and Thomas cannot compete against women. Of course he’s not banned. He could swim against the men.
Then our infamous one. Five years after identifying as a female and beginning hormone treatment, Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand took gold at the Australian International & Australian Open in Melbourne, competing in the heaviest category against women.
Yep that looks fair doesn’t it.
Then Fallon Fox began competing in MMA fights and dominating women even before “coming out” and telling people that he was born a male and underwent gender surgery. Between 2012 and 2014, Fox boasted a 5-1 record against women, winning three of the fights by technical knockout (TKO) or knockout (KO). Fox reportedly faced at least three women before disclosing that he was born a male.
Track athlete Camden Schreiner changed his name to Sadie after high school and began identifying as female before breaking women’s track records.
In December, Schreiner set a new school record in the 300m dash at an event at Nazareth University in New York. Schreiner reportedly competed in the same track event a year before as a male and finished in 19th place in the 100m dash.
19th to 1st in one year. That’s a major improvement eh. Or cheating
And then Kelly Morgan, born Nicholas Gareth Morgan, played rugby as a teenager before he began identifying as a woman and landed on a women’s rugby team in Wales. One of Morgan’s teammates said she remembered Morgan folding an opponent “like a deck chair” in one instance, and Morgan admitted that trans-identifying men like himself have an advantage in women’s sports. “I do feel guilty, but what can you do?” she says. “I don’t go out to hurt anybody. I just want to play rugby.”
Tiffany Abreu, a 6-foot-4 Brazilian man started playing professional volleyball in 2017, just five years after he retired from international competition as a male.
Anne Andres, a 40-year-old man, set a women’s national powerlifting record and an unofficial women’s world record at a championship in Canada last August. He bested the highest woman’s score by more than 200 kg.
Yearwood ran on the boys’ track team in middle school but told the school district he wanted to be on the girls’ team when he got into high school.
The school district agreed to allow Yearwood join the girls’ track team. Yearwood made it all the way to the girls’ state final for the 100m race in 2018, but he finished second, falling behind Terry Miller — another boy who identified as a girl.
That’s Miller in the middle and Yearwood 2nd from left. The biological girls don’t look too happy
Veronica Ivy, who used to go by Rachel McKinnon, won gold at the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championship after placing first in the 35-44 age group. Ivy, who is also a philosophy professor, argued that the issue of men competing in women’s sports “is bigger than sports and it’s about human rights.” “By catering to cisgender people’s views, that furthers transgender people’s oppression.
The Beryl Ackroyd Cup is the female pre-season soccer competition in north-west Sydney. Over the past weekend this team, The Flying Bats, (including five trans-women) won the grand final 4-0. The highest goal scorer is male. The goal keeper is male. The girl’s teams were warned not to complain or forfeit or they would be fined & referred to the anti-discrimination commission. They had to suck it up or self exclude.
The Flying Bats website states the club is “the biggest LGBTQIA+ women’s and non-binary football club in the world”, having been founded in 1985. The website adds: “While we started out as a club for lesbians, we’ve evolved over the years to become a space that welcomes everybody from across the rainbow family. “We especially encourage trans and gender-diverse folks to join us, with research showing that access to safe community sport can help improve the mental and physical wellbeing of minority and oppressed groups.”
Yeah – an excuse for dudes to succeed against girls because they can’t against their own gender. And of course there’s no consideration for the physical wellbeing of biological girls in the sport.
And you know what – I bet Raelene Castle, Chris Bishop, Chris Hipkins and Willie Jackson have never spoken to Deb Acason who spoke at our Forum last year
Here’s my challenge to the politicians. And to Raelene Castle. Allow a forum where sportspeople affected by transgender in sports can share the effect and their concerns. I dare you.
The good news is that the public are waking up. You’ll see from this recent poll that opposition to biological men playing in girls sports has significantly grown.
It’s time people like Hipkins, Bishop and Jackson manned up on this issue and protected females.
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