Clarissa Bye: Transgender debate in sport should be about fairness

Women and girls in local parks and fields playing sport every night of the week, every weekend, are likely to give up in the face of competing against biological males, writes Clarissa Bye.

DESPITE all the bluster and attempted virtue signalling from some quarters, the issue of keeping women’s sport separate from biological males is, at heart, an issue of fairness.

I’ve got six brothers, so naturally I learnt as a kid how to play backyard cricket.

I learnt to bowl overarm properly and not break my fingers catching a hard ball.

When we went on holidays during my childhood, we’d set up games on the grass reserve at St Georges Basin, and you would be out if you hit the ball for six over the lake.

Children naturally develop rules around fairness.

The Under 13s North East Metro Galaxy Shooting Stars.

Another rule was if you hit it in the neighbour’s garden, you had to climb over the splintery paling fence and quickly grab the ball before the dog rushed at you – and for all your troubles, you were also out.

The first time I realised that I could be treated differently as a girl, was when a visiting friend of my uncle, a VIP diplomat who was passing through the south coast on holidays, was invited over for a cup of tea and to have a game with everyone.

The Australian women’s team celebrate their victory after the 2022 Women's Cricket World Cup. Picture: Marty Melville

He was involved in selecting who made what team, and totally overlooked me.

I was a girl and it was assumed I would not be playing. I couldn’t believe it.

Belatedly I spoke up just as they were setting up the wickets – difficult as a shy teenager at the time – and was allowed to play, and ended up whacking the ball just as far as my brothers and cousins.

In high school, my brothers played soccer. But that wasn’t offered to girls then. So I played hockey and softball and loved that.

Players on the Australian women’s football team, the Matildas. Picture: Matt King

Later, I became busy in my career as a journalist in my 20s, going out to lunches and work drinks, was posted to Canberra, had two babies, and gradually stacked on the kilos.

By the time the Sydney Olympics came around, I weighed up to 86kg and hadn’t sprinted for years.

By luck, I scored tickets to watch the women’s soccer finals, and the way the women ran up and down the field blew my mind away. I vowed then and there to play some kind of sport. I also went on a low-carb diet and the kilos melted away.

My mum cut out a clipping from the local newspaper about a ‘women’s soccer team’ looking for players at my local park, a few streets away. It was a cold night when I turned up, with a fog setting in at Renown Park, and here were all these people running around in the white mist, enjoying themselves. I was in my 30s by then and apprehensive about having no idea how to play and felt I would stand out like a sore thumb. I needn’t have worried. There were other suburban mums just like me there. Everyone was exceptionally kind and helpful – they just wanted players who were prepared to give it a go, and my Sundays were busy every winter after that.

Transgender American swimmer Lia Thomas. Picture: Joseph Prezioso

Boyfriends and dads generously volunteered their time to coach. Slowly, over the years, I picked up the rules of the game and became fit enough to run up and down the field. Although I was pretty much hopeless, what kept me going was the team spirit, and dream that I would somehow become skilful. That I would dribble the ball past the opposition team and score a goal. So even if I wasn’t so great during a match – there was the hope that “there’s always next week”.

During midwinter training, sometimes we would struggle to have enough players to run a game at the end, so the boyfriends or sons of players would join in to make up numbers. Or we’d play against another team of teenage boys. Invariably they would just run away with the ball. So it was kind of pointless, and you gave up. The guys would be chivalrous and go out of their way not to crash into you, but not getting a chance to even touch the ball was demoralising. I’ve also played mixed teams, where there are very set rules about men having to pass the ball to female players every so often, which helped make it fair.

Warringah Liberal candidate Katherine Deves. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

But at its heart, men playing in women’s teams takes away the one thing that keeps you going – the feeling that you’re in with a chance of participating to your full potential. Now, who knows what will happen to women’s single sex sport?

There’s a whole world of suburban and country women and girls in local parks and fields playing sport every night of the week, every weekend, who are likely to give up in the face of competing against biological males. The only way to preserve women’s sport, and be in with a chance, is to speak up. But as the founder of Save Women’s Sport, and aspiring Warringah Liberal candidate Katherine Deves is discovering, it comes at a cost. But silence too has a price tag – just look at the teammates of the US trans college swimmer Lia Thomas, who got the worst of both worlds. They didn’t speak out in protest, and also lost out in the pool. Fairness is at the heart of playing sport and women need have to have the courage to say so.