The Australian Human Rights Commission has just released its Guidelines for the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in sport dated June 2019. According to the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins:

These guidelines have been endorsed by David Gallop, the Chairman of the Coalition of Major Profession and Participation Sports (COMPPS) which is made up of the following member organisations:

• The Australian Football League
• Cricket Australia
• Football Federation Australia
• National Rugby League
• Netball Australia
• Rugby Australia
• Tennis Australia

John Whitehall—Professor of Paediatrics at The University of Western Sydney—told Flat White that, “This is an immense propaganda victory for the ideology of gender fluidity” as it will be foisted upon nine million Australians through 16,000 sporting clubs across the nation.

If this whole approach seems something of an overkill, then that’s precisely because it is. According to the 2016 census, there are only 1,260 adults in Australia—or 0.0054 per cent of the total population—who identify as transgender. But just note what some of the strategies outlined in the guidelines include (page 37):

Just imagine what the future of sport in Australia is going to look like if ‘strategies’ such as this are adopted? In this brave new world of gender fluidity, not only with the rules of a particular sport have to be “re-designed to accommodate non-binary players” but teams themselves will be pressured into having gender quotas. It will be like if the Australian Labor Party decided to play footy.

But to give you an idea as to what this might look like in practice, the document provides a number of case studies, including (page 25):

While you might be happy for ten-year-old ‘Xanthe’ to play in the girl’s water polo team simply because he doesn’t identify as being a boy, how would you feel about him also getting changed in the girl’s bathroom? What’s more, note that as the case study itself clarifies:

The competitive sporting activity exemption does not apply to ‘sporting activities by children who are younger than 12 years of age.

So, your twelve-year-old daughter might be forced to share a change room with a twelve-year-old biologically assigned at birth male and there will be nothing you can do about it.

To be fair, the guidelines also outline that there are four exemptions to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 as follows:

1. Voluntary body exemption
2. Club exemption
3. Competitive sporting activity exemption
4. Temporary exemption

However, to give you an idea as to just how imprecise the terminology being used here is noted in the following explanation contained in the guidelines themselves (page 24):

The exemption allows for discrimination on the grounds of sex or gender identity only in ‘any competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant.

The words ‘strength’, ‘stamina’ and ‘physique’, and the term ‘competitive sporting activity’, are not defined in the Act. Their meanings have not been conclusively settled by the Federal Court of Australia [my emphasis].

In reality, this will mean that the definitions as to what constitutes ‘strength’, ‘stamina’ and ‘physique’ are so imprecise and vague as to be practically meaningless. Ultimately, the underlying agenda here is not ‘justice’ but the implementation of radical leftist ideology.

Sadly, it’s young girls and women who will be the most negatively impacted by all this. Because the impetus will be for men who are transgender to be given the right to play on female teams rather than vice versa. And this will not only contribute to the death of women’s sport in general but put the physical safety of women at risk in particular.

Mark Powell is the Associate Pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, Strathfield.

Illustration: World of Wonder/VH1.

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