Scott Morrison backs bill that will exclude transgender people from sport

Scott Morrison has backed a push to exclude transgender people from women’s sport, calling the move “terrific”.

Scott Morrison has backed a push to exclude transgender people from women’s sport in Australia after telling parents three years ago that the nation’s schools didn’t need “gender whisperers”.

The Prime Minister has described the push to ban trans athletes from women’s sport as “terrific” just weeks after a divisive debate over discrimination against LGBTIQ kids in Australian schools.

Campaigning in the Tasmanian marginal seat of Lyons, Mr Morrison said he was happy to back a push by Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler in a private members’ bill to allow sporting groups to exclude trans people from playing women’s sport.

Scott Morrison has backed a push to exclude transgender people from women‘s sport in Australia. Adam Taylor/PMO

“I support it, as Claire knows. I think it’s a terrific bill and I’ve given her great encouragement,” Mr Morrison said.

“Claire is a champion for women’s sport and I think she’s been right to raise these issues in the way that she has. Well done, Claire.”

His support appears at odds with his written pledge to rebel MPs in December, 2021 that he would act to ensure children were not discriminated against at school on the basis of sexuality or gender.

Mr Morrison also told FM radio in February, 2022 that he opposed the decision by Brisbane school Citipointe Christian College to issue contracts requiring students to agree to specific gender roles and denounce homosexuality or face expulsion.

The school has since withdrawn the contracts.

Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman crossed the floor over attempts to discriminate against trans kids. Picture: Hollie Adams

He later posted a drawing on Facebook from a student who praised him for ‘crossing the floor for my trans bro’.

“My kids go to a Christian school here in Sydney, and I wouldn’t want my school doing that either,” Mr Morrison told Brisbane’s B105.3 radio.

“And the bill that we’re going to be taking through the parliament, we will have an amendment which will deal with that to ensure that the kids cannot be discriminated against on that basis.”

The Prime Minister had not included a transcript of the interview on his official website, which generally does not include FM radio transcripts.

Three years ago, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was criticised for declaring Australian schools don’t need “gender whisperers” in response to a report saying teachers were being taught how to spot potentially transgender students.

“We do not need ‘gender whisperers’ in our schools. Let kids be kids,” Mr Morrison tweeted and posted to Facebook, in response to a Daily Telegraph article.

We do not need ‘gender whisperers’ in our schools. Let kids be kids. https://t.co/POzM26PXU5

— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) September 4, 2018

The article claimed NSW teachers were being taught how to identify children who might be questioning their gender, after a “surge” in the number of children identifying as trans.

The controversy then prompted a transgender child Evie, 13, to confront him on The Project.

“I’m Evie, I’m 13, and I’m a transgender kid, and this is what I want to say to the Prime Minister,” she said.

“There are thousands of kids in Australia that are gender diverse. We don’t deserve to be disrespected like that through tweets from our Prime Minister.

“I went to a Christian school where I had to pretend to be a boy and spend weeks in conversion therapy,” she said.

“We get one childhood and mine was stolen from me by attitudes like this.”

Asked to respond to Evie’s emotionally charged statement, Mr Morrison said: “I love all Australians, whatever the background they come from.”

Senator Chandler has previously told parliament that she hoped her Sex Discrimination and Other Legislation Amendment (Save Women’s Sport) Bill 2022 would ensure that people assigned male or female at birth were kept separate on the sporting field.

“Millions of Australian parents and grandparents have proudly watched their daughters’ and granddaughters’ sporting achievements: playing their first game, winning their first trophy, making their first state team, or signing their first professional contract,‘’ she said.

“Yet under recent interpretations of Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (the Act), sporting codes, clubs and volunteers can have legal action taken against them for offering single-sex women’s sport.

This interpretation has been used as a weapon to pressure sporting organisations to allow males to play women’s sport.

“The need to separate females and males on the sporting field – in the vast majority of sports – has been understood for decades.”

North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman, one of the five MPs who crossed the floor over the attempt to discriminate against trans kids this month published a drawing on Facebook on Monday from a student who praised him for “crossing the floor for my trans bro”.

“After two weeks in Canberra coming home and finding this in my mail today meant the world to me,” Mr Zimmerman said.