Aussie Sport - Under Siege

Whether it is Aussie rules footy, cricket, rugby or the Olympics, Aussies love sport.

The competition, the sweat, the hard hits, the comebacks, the glory…we bloody love watching sport on tv, live at the stadiums and many of us, millions in fact, go further by playing sport or volunteering for teams and clubs. Then there are the millions of children across Australia playing Auskick and other junior level sports, and their parents that drive them to training, games, award nights and support their sporty kids in a hundred other ways. Sporting competitions, and the teams and clubs that are a part of them, are an important part of our culture in Australia.

At the core of our love for sport is the art of competition - a fair go. Most of us sports fans take pride in a fair game and we tend to let the umpires know when they muck up a call, too. What is competitive sport if we don’t have fair competition in our sports, aye?

Some readers may not have any clue why I am going on about all of this because, according to their experiences, sport in Australia is fair. Which is why I feel it is important to join in with the chorus of people trying to alert the public about what is happening to Australian sport as a whole, from junior competitions through to professional sport.

Australian sport is under siege from the trans lobby.

Pride in Sport (PiS), which claims to be “the only sporting inclusion program specifically designed to assist sporting organisations of all levels with the inclusion of employees, players, coaches, volunteers and spectators with diverse sexualities and genders” and also claims to be leading the call for more “inclusion” in Australian sport, published the Pride in Sport Index (PSI) which supposedly “benchmarks and assesses the inclusion of LGBTQ people across all sporting contexts.” That document has already been analyzed and shown to be quite unsubstantial, but it is somehow being accepted by sporting organisations and governing bodies and is part of the attack on sport in Australia.

PiS held an online event through Zoom today, titled “TRANSforming Sport in Australia.” Attending the Zoom event meant I was able to hear first-hand what was being said and could see for myself exactly what agenda(s) were being pushed through this event.

Pride in Sport article.PNG

I wasn’t sure what to expect. From the title of the online event I did assume there would be some level of discussion around strategies to further infiltrate Australian sports and the governing bodies, and while there was a bit of that, the TRANSforming Sport in Australia event was mainly a platform for two men and one woman to discuss their self-perceived experiences and “challenges” within the so-called “hostile” and “unwelcoming” environment of Australian sport.

The extent of their “challenges” within Australian sport was discussed, and it boils down to:

1) Pronouns

2) Changing in changerooms

3) Uniforms

4) Feelings

I will address each of these so-called challenges in this article, and will be pulling from over 20 years of first-hand experience with sport, including 7 years of playing different types of sport, along with research and information from other credible sources.

Pronouns:

The use of pronouns is not as cut-and-dry as some like to think. There are many people within the trans lobby that say forcing people to use pronouns is actually making them “out” themselves, which apparently creates a hostile or dangerous scenario for the “outed” one. The assumption here being that the use or lack of use of pronouns has anything to do with being a homosexual man or woman and “coming out” as such to family and friends. The other assumption being that pronouns have any impact on the material reality of a person’s biological sex (i.e.: calling a woman “he” does nothing to change material reality/biological facts). Hence when claims of “literal violence” are thrown about when someone doesn’t use the “preferred pronouns” of an individual, it is very difficult to take the claims seriously. Furthermore, using preferred pronouns is not a human right, and it shouldn’t be. We have words and definitions for an obvious reason; to communicate with one another effectively, and trying to control the free thought, speech and political conviction of others is in opposition to already existing human rights.

Perhaps this is a good time to remind readers that only 1260 sexually and/or “gender” diverse people were counted in the last (2016) Australian Census. All of the talk, money, meetings and policies that make up the push for pronoun use is absolutely not justified in respect to the low number of “trans” or “gender” diverse people within the total population of Australia.

Changing in changerooms:

Setting aside the absurdity of anyone having a problem with changing in a room meant solely for the purpose of changing, I know that this is an actual issue, but it is absolutely not reserved for “trans,” “gender” diverse or “non-binary” people. Children, women and men can often feel embarrassed or uncomfortable changing in front of or within eyesight of others. Throughout many years of volunteering within men’s and women’s sport, and playing sport myself, I have known of numerous men and women (including myself) that chose to use the stalls in the changerooms, or would choose to change in the bathroom, versus changing in the main area of the changeroom where people could perhaps see a bit too much for comfort. That is not “harassment” or “unwelcoming”; not in any way, shape or form. If you have body image issues, you can & should use existing options within sporting facilities, whether those body image issues are from scars, weight, skin colour or because you do not conform to sex-based stereotypes (“gender diverse”).

Uniforms:

The “non-binary” speaker, Taylor, mentioned the difficulty with being (female) “non-binary” and having to wear female uniforms. Now, girls and women have legitimate complaints about supposed women’s fashion, and that can and does translate into sport uniforms at times. However, more times than not, sport uniforms are “unisex” and will be the same style and fit for both males and females. In some instances, this is a good thing and the fit works well for both sexes, though, in other instances, the “unisex” fit can be too revealing and/or uncomfortable for girls and women. This may be due to the “default male bias” mentality when making what are meant to be “unisex” or “neutral” items and apparel. For the most part, in my experience, clubs and the governing bodies of sporting competitions are taking measures to address ill-fitting or revealing uniforms for their club members and players, and in many situations, women or men that have issues with fit of their uniform are happy to wear “skins” or other items to compensate.

What options would Taylor have at her request? What can be provided that does not already exist? What is a “non-binary” uniform? Regardless of what adjustments need to be made to uniforms at times and whether or not there are “sexed” options for male and female sports players, this does not amount to “bullying,” and what is “toxic” is the idea that clothing is somehow tied to our biological sex. Men can wear what they like. Women can wear what they like. When it comes to sport, if you feel another uniform option is needed, talk to the Club President or the Board, Committee or other decision-makers in the club or team, or ask if you can wear the uniform for the opposite sex if that is an option.

Clothing and the sex-based stereotypes attached to our perceptions of clothing & other fashion accessories are actually contentious issues which genuinely require open, public discussions in order to be addressed, and the ruckus being made about insignificant matters is undermining the legitimacy of efforts to address those issues.

Feelings:

I honestly had a chuckle, more than once, while listening to suggestions to help make sport kinder and more inclusive. I can only imagine the furore (the angry type) amongst local sporting clubs if they were forced to ask about pronouns or told their coaches, members and players can’t say sexed-pronouns/terms like “guys,” “ladies” or call each other men and women anymore. What world are the speakers of this event living in? Being kind is a good thing to do, but it is not a requirement from coaches or other staff or volunteers within sport, or the players, regardless of which level of sport is being referenced. I can’t help but feel that a lot of the people involved in concocting policies like those included in the PSI haven’t actually played competitive sport. Watch one game of basketball or footy on tv and let’s see how kind the coaches, players and fans are. If you want your feelings protected and you cannot cope with even the slightest hint of disagreement or banter from others, you probably shouldn’t be competing in sport.

At one point it was said that “using inclusive language is really important in a sporting environment,” and I’m just wondering if words commonly heard around training and games, like “c*nt” and “maggot” or phrases like “smash them,” are inclusive or not…?

Feelings may be a priority in junior sport, where every child is treated as a winner no matter how poorly they perform, but not in competitive sport and not for adults. The priorities for competitive sports are fairness, integrity, excellence and safety/safeguarding, which happen to all be undermined by the inclusion of males in female sporting categories and competitions.

Really, this all comes down to:

  • women, that have been coerced into removing their breasts or altering their body in other ways in order to resemble what society says a man is supposed to look like, being uncomfortable in their bodies, like many girls and women are without the invasive surgeries or hormone ‘treatment’,

  • women still being frustrated with sexist clothing stereotypes and,

  • men, most of whom were mediocre competitors against other men, wanting to be applauded and praised for invading women’s sport competitions & categories and changerooms under the banner of “inclusivity” when sporting categories are supposed to be segregated by sex, so, by definition, exclusive.

Those that need better access to sports are not represented by Pride in Sport. The marginalised groups of people that need support from Australia’s largest health organisation (ACON) and a lot more support from the government to obtain better access to sport are girls, women, poverty-stricken children and adolescents, people with disabilities and those that live remotely.

Our children, girls and women (even the “non-binary” ones) are at risk of injury, humiliation and much, much worse if we, the rational people of Australia, don’t do more to put a stop to this. Our entire culture of sport and fair competition is at risk here. More people need to wake up to what is happening under our noses because Australian sport is under siege.

If you are not sure of the facts just yet, you can check out Save Women’s Sport Australasia and Save Women’s Sport US for further information.

Apparently the most oppressed group of people on the planet but donations are a primary focus all of the time, without fail.

- Critical Thinker

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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