Surf Life Saving gender diverse factsheet questioned by Sydney volunteers

Surf lifesavers have questioned new “gender diverse” guidelines issued to clubs, which tell volunteers to “retrain” their brains to avoid using a biological gender. Find out what else the guidelines suggest.

Volunteer Surf Lifesavers have branded as “ideological activism” a new draft “Diverse Gender Factsheet for Surf Life Saving Clubs” which says the iconic organisation should instruct members to “retrain your brain” to avoid calling people by their biological gender.

The guidelines also say that volunteers should advocate for the needs and rights of “gender diverse people” and clubs should modify existing change-rooms, bathrooms and showers to “gender neutral spaces” and build more unisex toilets.

But several volunteer Surf Lifesaving Australia members have contacted the Daily Telegraph, concerned at the appropriateness of the instructions, saying the iconic organisation should stick to its core job of preventing drownings.

The new guidelines, which will be given to clubs across Australia, state that Surf Life Saving Australia members should become “educated on gender diverse identities and experiences”.

“Avoid making assumptions or asking invasive questions about someone’s gender identity, expression, or history,” the guidelines state.

Nippers in action. Some have raised concerns about safeguarding for younger people and women in “gender neutral” changerooms and showers. Image: Harvpix

“Advocate for the rights and needs of gender diverse people in all communities.”

In a section dealing with what to do if the life saver accidently uses the wrong name or pronouns, the documents state members should apologise and move on from the conversation.

Surf Life Saving volunteers have questioned a push to ‘retrain their brains’ over gender diversity.

“This can take a lot of practice to retrain your brain especially if you knew someone before transition with a different name or gender, so try to practice when you are alone or in your head,” it says.

One surf life saver, who requested his name not be used for fear of repercussions, said he had been involved in the movement for almost a decade and that the organisation had been “hijacked by activists”.

He said local clubs had trouble simply getting funding to upgrade and build change-rooms and toilets facilities for female members and parents would not want teenage daughters getting changed in the same change room as an “anatomically correct male who identifies as female”.

“The movement has been hijacked by woke Americanism - from being a quintessentially Australian organisation which is all about volunteering to save lives, around mateship, to this progressive agenda,” he said.

A section of a new draft "Diverse Gender Factsheet for Surf Life Saving Clubs", which have been criticised as "woke gender ideology" by some volunteers.

“To say you should retrain your brain is an outrageous thing to say.”

Another volunteer life saver said he’d been involved in the organisation on Sydney’s eastern beaches for many years and “I know many members who are incandescent at this”.

“It employs ideological activist language,” he said.

“More concerning to me is the potential impact this could have on the safety and privacy standards traditionally upheld in sports, especially in changing areas where women and children are most vulnerable.

“The document seems to propose changes that could allow unaccompanied males unfettered access to female changing areas.”

Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steve Pearce says being more inclusive “does present some challenges, particularly in that sporting area, where you have people who aren’t identifying as male or female and they still want to compete and you have to accommodate those people and be as inclusive as possible with as much common sense as possible”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steve Pearce said the document was developed in consultation with all the states and territories and “with changing community needs and expectations there’s a requirement for us to ensure we’re inclusive for all persons, identifying as any gender and to cover the non-binary gender allocation”.

“Out of our membership of around 76,000 members we only have on our records around 20 members identifying themselves as non-binary,” he said.

“In NSW we are actively promoting ourselves as an inclusive organisation.

“The issue of catering for the gender category of non-binary is going to be challenging for a lot of surf clubs.

“It does present some challenges, particularly in that sporting area, where you have people who aren’t identifying as male or female and they still want to compete and you have to accommodate those people and be as inclusive as possible with as much common sense as possible.”

Some clubbies have labelled the guidelines as ‘ideological activist language’.

Women’s Forum Australia chief executive Rachael Wong questioned how safe female members would feel if made to share toilets and change rooms with biological males.

“And how included will little girls be when pushed out of their competitions by boys identifying as girls?” she said.

Katherine Deves criticised the document. Picture: Adam Yip

Women’s advocate Katherine Deves said policing speech and “pretending sex does not exist” was dissonant to community participation in surf life saving.

Kit Kowalski, who tracks corporates and institutions who sign up to the charity ACON Heath’s pride programs, including “Pride in Sport” which is referenced by the guidelines, said members who didn’t want to “lie about someone’s sex” may end up in breach of the guidelines.

“It is not fair on the members of SLSA to enshrine preferred pronoun use in policies,” she said.

“Surf Life Saving has traditionally been segregated by sex in for fairness in competition and privacy in the changerooms.

“Allowing members to nominate their gender identity and ignoring their physical sex will allow males to access female change rooms, making women and girls uncomfortable and potentially unsafe.”