Opinion: Is the participation of transgender women really the biggest issue facing NZ sport?

There are a lot of issues surrounding sports in New Zealand, but transgender people participating isn't one of them. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

In the same week Blenheim gymnastics coach Gregory Pask pleaded guilty to a decade’s worth of sexual offending against young girls, the Government has announced it wants to ban transgender women from publicly funded sports.

New Zealand First sport and recreation spokesman Andy Foster said the policy is “about fairness and safety in sport for women”.

I’m not sure what the former mayor of Wellington’s level of expertise is regarding women’s sports, but he certainly doesn’t seem to have his finger on the pulse with respect to what young sportswomen are concerned about.

There are several issues in women’s sport. Last year, a report looking into New Zealand Rugby found it failed to properly support women’s high-performance rugby after one player bravely opened up online about her “mental breakdown” while on tour.

Nine months after the death of Olivia Podmore in a suspected suicide, a damning report on the lack of mental health support and widespread dysfunction at Cycling NZ was released. The 24-year-old Olympian spent her entire adult life in that organisation before she took her own life.

This year, a Herald investigation revealed that at Western Springs Football Club, the men’s team received more than double the resources the women’s team did.

And then this month, Gregory Pask, Kiwibank New Zealand’s Local Hero of the Year in 2016 for his work at Blenheim Gymnastics Club, pleaded guilty to 29 charges involving several girls aged under 12, including indecent acts and sexual violation.

Among all of these issues, trans women participating in publicly funded sports shouldn’t even make the list for Government attention.

Trans women who participate in sport amount to 0.14 per cent of the New Zealand population.

“With rugby, athletics, boxing, you can see why power, weight and speed become a real issue. If there’s a teenage girl against a former teenage boy, your child is going to get hurt,” Foster claims.

As we know, sports can be dangerous. Think of our nation’s favourite sport, rugby - there’s a proven causal link between repeated head injuries and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain condition that leads to cognitive, mood and motor disorders, now seen in individuals as young as 20.

More than 400 rugby and football players, including former All Blacks prop Carl Hayman, who, at 43, disclosed his battle with early-onset dementia, are suing the governing bodies of their sports as a result of health conditions that developed in the years following their playing careers.

Those health concerns exist – despite the lack of trans people involved – and have been largely ignored by governments for years.

“We’re saying we’ve got to look after the vast majority of people to make sure the competition is fair and safe,” Foster said regarding banning trans women.

If Foster cares about the safety of women in sport, that’s fantastic. Great.

But why doesn’t he use his power in Government to address issues that actually matter to women?

Maybe because it was never about the safety of women and young girls at all.

Jaime Lyth is an Auckland-based reporter who covers crime. She joined the Herald in 2021 and has previously reported for the Northern Advocate.