Cycling New Zealand restores single-sex competition; and new report says NZ hospital wards should be “single-gender” (whatever that means).

What do cycling and hospitals have in common? Apart from what immediately springs to mind around broken and bruised bits of our bodies, today in New Zealand we heard encouraging news about these two disparate, but also connected, things.

First, the hospitals. In a paper just published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, a group of academics argue that “The practice of men and women sharing hospital rooms violates human rights and should be prohibited”. According to this NZ Herald article, lead author Dr Cindy Towns of the University of Otago, Wellington, says placing male and female patients in the same room “compromises the safety of female patients and threatens the dignity of all patients”.

By now, I suspect Dr Cindy Towns may have had several very shrill accusations of ‘trans genocide’ from those who fervently espouse that men who say they’re women are actually women, and also from those whose jobs and livelihoods depend on them pretending to believe it. I hope she has a strong dug-out shelter to take refuge in while the bombs from the ‘kindness and compassion’ crowd fall.

Confusingly though, as well as referring to male and female patients, the paper also uses the term “single-gender”, when describing the type of hospital wards we should have in NZ. It’s somewhat of a mystery why that term was used, when, from can be ascertained in the NZ Herald article, the whole tenor of the paper appears to be recommending separation by sex. Until I ask Dr Towns, I’ll take a punt that the term is one of appeasement to the ‘gender diverse’ crowd. I’m not sure if anyone can define exactly who the ‘gender diverse’ crowd are - including themselves, whomever they may be - but the savagery with which they come for transgressors of trans ideology is unmistakeable. If my punt is correct, then the authors of the paper have deliberately used fudged terminology to save feelings. Or perhaps just themselves.

However, it’s still great to put some cracks like this into the concrete bunker of trans ideology which has taken up residence in our institutions. How much the paper gets taken notice of, or how long it takes to get buried, is another matter.

Cycling New Zealand came out with some good news, too, in their recent newsletter. They have decided that men who say they’re women aren’t really women after all. They’re my words, of course, because if Cycling NZ said them, then ‘trans genocide’, etc …… . I expect they may also need to take refuge in a bomb shelter for a while, or at least go cycling somewhere with no internet coverage.

Save Women’s Sports Australasia made a delighted announcement on their Facebook page about Cycling NZ’s decision, and wrote this on their website -

Fair Competition Restored for Female Cyclists

Cycling New Zealand’s decision to restore fairness for females in cycling is a positive move that has been welcomed by Save Women’s Sports Australasia spokeswoman Ro Edge.

“It is great that Cycling New Zealand has changed its rules, as they were enabling male born cyclists to unfairly win female competitions, prize money and accolades in events throughout our country,” Ms Edge says.

“The situation was demoralising and disheartening for our best female competitors, so I’m really excited for them that this change has occurred and their opportunities for fair competition have been restored.”

Cycling New Zealand (CNZ) is updating its Transgender Policy to align with the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale), which in July banned male transgender athletes, who transitioned after male puberty, from participating in women’s events. If CNZ follow the UCI’s lead, they will rename the Men’s category as Men/Open to enable any athlete who does not meet the conditions for participation in women’s events to be admitted without restriction.

“The decision reflects that cycling now acknowledges male born cyclists have athletic performance advantages, even with testosterone reduction, over females.” The decision only applies to elite cycling events, with rules for other events to be determined by the relevant organisers.

“My hope is that CNZ gives strong guidelines to local clubs running other events and categories to take the pressure off them and event organisers when male born cyclists wish to compete in the female category.”

SWSA is hopeful that both the UCI and Cycling NZ will eventually move to protecting the female category from birth, but still applauds them for their updated policies, which are a move in the right direction.

“Other New Zealand sporting bodies now need to step up and update their policies so females in their sports can be assured of fair competition.”

I agree with Save Women’s Sports Australasia that there’s still some way to go to restore fairness for women and girls, but, once again, some cracks into trans ideology, which has dominated the discourse for too long, have now been made.

Update: Speak Up for Women reached out to Dr Cindy Towns, who is the lead author of the paper Blowing the whistle on mixed gender hospital rooms in Australia and New Zealand: a human rights issue, to clarify what she meant by “mixed-gender”. According to Speak Up for Women’s post on their X (formerly Twitter) account @SpeakUp4WomenNZ, “the author (Cindy Towns) believes it is unethical and harmful to discuss the idea that males who say they are women are still males”. So, there we have it - seemingly, Dr Towns believes it’s okay to fudge facts for the sake of preserving feelings. I wonder how many others she’s prepared to do that for?

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