Chandler bill gives women and girls a sporting chance

‘Our right to speak up as women, for women and girls, is under enormous threat, as the attacks on Chandler this week demonstrate’, Nicolle Flint writes. Picture: Richard Jupe

The vicious response from the usual suspects to senator Claire Chandler’s Save Women’s Sport Bill provides an opportunity to examine several crucial facts in the debate about women’s rights and safety in sport.

These facts are simple, indisputable and deeply problematic for those who believe that trans women and trans girls – that is, men or boys who have medically transitioned to female or are identifying as female even though they have not medically transitioned – should have more rights than women and girls; or, to put it another way, that women and girls will not be disadvantaged by their participation.

These facts support Chandler’s carefully drafted, sensible bill, which aims to make several small but important changes to our laws by ensuring, for example, it is lawful for single-sex sport to exist.

The first fact is the biological sporting advantage of boys over girls and men over women. It is almost a statement of the obvious to point this out – and is the reason we have separate female sports competitions – but because everything is now contested, consider the data.

An examination of Australian Little Athletics records, which start at the under-nine age category, shows that boys are faster and stronger than girls from this young age, if not earlier. That’s right; before puberty begins. In running, hurdles, high jump, long jump, triple jump, discus, shot put and javelin, boys almost exclusively hold all the state and national records that date back to 1971. The only category where girls do a little better than boys (though not consistently) is walking.

The state-by-state breakdown is compelling. In NSW, two girls hold the overall record in an event, compared with 86 boys. In Queensland the split is 11 girls to 77 boys; South Australia one girl to 87 boys; Tasmania 10 girls to 78 boys; Victoria four girls to 84 boys; Western Australia six girls to 82 boys.

When you tally this up, 34 girls hold records over boys compared with 494 records held by boys. The indisputable fact is that boys run faster, jump higher and throw farther than girls, even before they go through puberty.

Faced with these facts, how can it possibly be fair to girls to compete against biological boys?

The facts are the same for adults. According to Duke University, there is an average 10 per cent to 12 per cent performance gap between elite sports men and women.

Recent Swedish and British studies have confirmed this, finding that trans women retain biological advantages over women. Their physical attributes mean better performance and more strength. Not only does this obviously lead to unfair outcomes for women, it also presents very real safety threats on the sports field.

An 18-month review by the UK Sports Council concurs with this assessment and concludes that “for many sports, the inclusion of transgender people, fairness and safety cannot coexist in a single competitive model”.

Therefore, the second, obvious and deeply inconvenient fact for those who seek to erode the rights of women and girls is you cannot have inclusivity and fairness in sport. You have to choose.

Unfortunately, Australia’s peak sporting organisation, Sport Australia, hasn’t adopted the carefully researched British approach, which is why Chandler’s bill is necessary.

The bill provides a straightforward approach. It will ensure that single-sex sport for women and girls (and men) will be lawful, and that the law will apply equally to everyone at every level. Yes, of course we need to find a way for trans people to participate through, for example, an open division as recommended by the UK Sports Council, or more simply by individual clubs applying their own common sense while protected by the law.

There are so many other important reasons we need women’s and girls’ sport to be safe and fair for them, not least of all the fact young girls drop out of sport at an alarming rate during their teenage years. Making girls’ sport less fair and less safe provides yet another reason for them to opt out.

There is another deeply concerning element to this issue that the left needs to have a good, hard think about.

The vicious response to Chandler and her sensible, minimalist bill proves what we already knew: Australian women and girls have fewer rights than trans women and girls and there are a number of highly co-ordinated groups that are trying to ensure women come dead last in every area of our society.

Not only are women’s rights on the sports field being compromised, but our right to speak up as women, for women and girls, is under enormous threat, as the attacks on Chandler this week demonstrate.

Nicolle Flint is the retiring Liberal member for the South Australian seat of Boothby.