Our leaders of female sport in New Zealand, and elsewhere, are asleep at the wheel with allowing transgender people to compete in women's sport. Or is it they are just plain chicken?
My sister, Lorraine, Multiple Olympian, and a tireless advocate for women in sport, writes:
"Thanks for posting this, Gary. This issue is infuriating. I, along with many other women, fought hard for our right to our own events in distance running back in the late 70s and 80s. Why? Because biologically-born women simply cannot compete with biologically-born men on the world stage in events that have muscular strength/cardio-vascular/speed/recovery components. Fact.
Testosterone is turbo-juice for an athlete, which is why teenage boys zoom around all day and come home to clean your fridge out. It is also why anabolic steroids are at the top of the sports-list for banned ergogenic drugs and are the substance of choice if you want to cheat. Messing around with male hormones gets you banned, yet we have the absurdity of that prospect should women wish to evenly compete with their trans counterparts in their own category.
Women's lobbying efforts back in my day brought about parity in athletic events for women at the Olympics, starting with the marathon in 1984. The fact is that without our own XX-chromosome qualifying category, I would never have stood on the Olympic podium.
This trend of allowing transgender 'women' into female sports will kill sports for our girls, not just those competitive ones seeking the podium, but those girls who are in the delicate phase of puberty where they are fast losing their athletic parity with boys. Did you know about half female teenagers give up all sports activity at puberty? Getting girls to stay active is a real issue for our society. Feelings of embarrassment about their female bodies and its abilities is common, exacerbated by boy's superiority, which is why we have wisely separated their physical activity at that age. The inner cry of "Why bother?" is refueled now that the sanctity of a girl's-only category has been breached and we are back to square one. Girls will grow up to be sedentary women, and our future Valerie Adamses and Sarah Ulmers will have to find another stage. What a shame.
P.S. There are those who will attack me for being trans-phobic. I am not. I advocate sports for all who want to partake. Just be a good sport and compete in the category of your biological sex, or, if you feel disadvantaged, create your own category, like women had to do. It's part of the heroic journey of being an athlete."
Lorraine Moller
Female sport, as we know it may become a thing of the past. Biological males who become "female" by hormone therapy and surgical means, mostly keep their male advantages of bone structure, muscularity, and heart and lung capacity. Transgender athletes do not have to deal with monthly cycles or the disruption of pregnancy and nursing.
Would I allow my daughters to climb into the ring to wrestle or box against one of these intruders? Fair question.
How to incorporate transgender athletes into sport is a difficult, emotionally charged problem. Political correctness, legal issues, and censorship make discussion of this matter best avoided. The only solution I have heard of that could work is to make male sport an open category in which anyone, including transgender people and women, can compete if they want to.
While women's sport opens to transgender athletes, the leaders of female sport are keeping quiet. They are not engaging publicly on this issue. I don't think they are even privately canvassing the opinions of the female athletes they are supposed to be representing when developing policy and voting on this issue. Why should people like me be the ones raising the issue?
Where are our leaders of sport? They are unusually silent. Come on, show us you have some ba..s!
In case you wonder who some of these women are who I am calling out, here are some of them:
Read more here about what these brave women are doing https://savewomenssports.com/ and PROTECTING WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ SPORTS