“Save Women’s Sport” Bill: A Threat to the Rights of Transgender Athletes

Following the recent flurry of U.S. States approving a bill that restricts transgender females from participating in female highschool and college sports, Tasmanian Liberal Senator Claire Chandler has introduced the "Save Women's Sport" Bill to the Senate which would ultimately exclude transgender women and girls from participating in women's sport in Australia.

The rationale behind this Bill is to protect female sport alongside female athletes and their right to access single-sex sports. Whilst the Bill aims to promote equality for females in sport and to espouse an ethos of anti-discrimination, it begs the obvious issue of the converse discrimination that a bill such as this, if passed, would promote towards transgender women and girls who will then ultimately be prevented from exercising their choice to participate in a sporting team consistent with their identity. This also leads to debate about fairness in sporting competition on the one hand, and inclusivity and human rights on the other. However, it ultimately seems counterintuitive to find fairness in exclusion of someone from basic rights based on the sex that they identify with.

Senator Chandler says that the Bill aims to provide legal clarity and consistency for sporting organisations who want to offer single- sex sporting teams and competitions for women, without the threat of legal action for choosing to do this. But while the Bill is said to still allow mixed- sex sporting acitivites and teams, it does so in restricting the choices of a certain group of people to participate. What follows from this is a general observation that the sporting arena needs to become more cognisant to the spectrum of genders that we now recognise in order to make the sporting field a more inclusive and accessible space for all.

A foundational argument of the Bill is that it allows women to play sport without being overpowered by the physical advantages of men over women. This has stimulated further debate surrounding the appropriate balance between an inclusive sporting environment and a safe and fair environment for competition. Following on from this, Bills such as the "Save Women's Sports" Bill and the similar Bills in the U.S. raises important human rights questions, particularly surrounding testosterone level testing in transgender women competing in elite sports. Ethical questions also come to mind when examining this issue- in particular the rights to athletes over their bodies. These questions are ultimately set against the backdrop of the International Olympic Committee's policy, which is to allow transgender females to compete in events, conditional upon them reducing their testosterone levels to an acceptable level.

If you are interested in learning more about the legal and policy debates surrounding the participation of transgender women in women's sports, please see here.