"They have a point", says NZ's Sports Minister of the 59 former elite and Olympian athletes who signed an open letter to the government.

It’s getting harder for trans/queer lobby groups, and their dedicated devotees, to get away with spinning the misinformation about sports they’ve been spinning for years. Transactivists have long claimed that men who say they’re women, and reduce their testosterone levels, have no physical advantage over women. This is rubbish, and more and more sportspeople are willing to say so.

Amongst those here in New Zealand are some big-name former elite and Olympian athletes. Recently, 59 of them signed an open letter to the New Zealand government asking them to protect female sports. The letter was organised by Save Women’s Sports Australasia (Australasia = Australia and New Zealand) and delivered to the NZ Sport and Recreation Minister, Chris Bishop on 11^th September.

Subsequent reports have cited Mr Bishop as acknowledging that Save Women’s Sports Australasia and the open letter signatories have a point, in that Sports NZ’s current guidelines don’t have anything about fairness in them. The reason for this omission is, of course, due to Sports NZ being lobbied by trans/queer groups and activists, both inside and outside the organisation, to make certain it was. Mr Bishop has said that updating the guidelines to include ‘fairness’ is being considered.

I expect that will go down like a cup of cold sick amongst the transactivists who worked their butts off to ensure nothing stood in the way of men who say they’re women playing women’s sports in NZ. Right now, I anticipate they’ll be having urgent meetings to plan how to kill off that ‘fairness’, before it has a chance of ruining the free-for-all access into female sports which men who say they’re women currently have. In fact, it’s started already with an anonymous editorial in the NZ Herald, which concluded that protecting women’s sports will mean ‘trans’ kids miss out. Save Women’s Sports Australasia responded via a letter to the editor, and posted that response on their Facebook page.

Even though Sports NZ’s guidelines are technically not mandatory, it’s hard for sports clubs to not go along with them, as there are hints of retributive funding cuts from Sports NZ if they don’t. There’s also a callous and concerted effort to minimise the negative impact on women and girls, by pointing out that the guidelines are primarily for community-level sports. Community-level sports are hugely important as the stepping stone to elite-level sports, mental and physical wellbeing, connection with others, development of character, learning how to be involved, and making a commitment and turning up. Brushing off community-level sport as unimportant, purely for the purpose of enabling males who say they’re women or girls to get entry into female sports, is a scurrilous tactic unworthy of Sports NZ, or anyone else who uses it.

All women’s and men’s sports should have a blanket rule of being separated by sex. Having said that, I believe horse-riding is mixed-sex, because, I presume, the horse is doing most of the physical yakka. It’s also true that in addition to single-sex teams and competitors, mixed-sex teams and competitions may be okay in some sports where everyone knows what they’re getting onto, but otherwise -

NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo!

There are those who feel there are some sports, like bowls, where it doesn’t matter if the games are mixed-sex. As soon as we say that some sports are okay to be mixed-sex because the disadvantage to women doesn’t seem to be apparent, we are condemning women to having to prove their disadvantage in all sports. It will never be a one-off requirement, either. Transactivists will constantly try and produce new evidence to prove that the prior proof women gave has become obsolete, and women will have to prove the disadvantage over and over again. Instead of being allowed to glory in their own prowess, women will be in the soul-destroying position of having to say time and time again that, comparably speaking, they’re not as good as men.

SO, JUST NO, AND FOREVER SO!

In addition to the open letter with 59 high profile signatories on it, Save Women’s Sports Australasia was also able to supply Sports Minister Chris Bishop with stories from everyday Kiwi women who’d had negative sports experiences with men who say they’re women. If you’re either a Kiwi or an Aussie woman with a similar untold story, contact details for both countries are at the bottom of the Save Women’s Sports Australasia web page.

• Save Women’s Sports Australasia also met with Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters, as above. Mr Peters is the leader of one of the government’s three coalition parties, NZ First. NZ First are the only political party represented in Parliament who campaigned on protecting women’s sports.