Election 2022: Anthony Albanese backs same-sex school sport

Anthony Albanese has said ‘girls should be able to play sport against girls and boys should be able to play sport against boys’.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Toby Zerna

Anthony Albanese has weighed in on the debate over whether transgender people should be allowed to compete in single-sex sports, declaring that “girls should be able to play sport against girls and boys should be able to play sport against boys”.

The comments from the Opposition Leader were his clearest signal yet about where he stood on the issue, which has gained new prominence because of controversial statements made by the Liberal candidate for Warringah in NSW, Katherine Deves.

It also comes as Australia’s most decorated Olympian Emma McKeon raised concerns about transgender women competing in women-only sport, saying it was “just not fair” to others and that sporting groups needed to “think about how to handle it”.

Hear our journalists debate this story on The Front, right here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Mr Albanese argued the Sex Discrimination Act already “covered” the issue, with section 42 clarifying that it was not discriminatory to exclude people from competitive sport on the grounds of “sex, gender identity or intersex status” where the strength, stamina or physique of competitors was relevant.

Equality Australia said Mr Albanese “rightly pointed out” the SDA already allowed for trans people to be excluded from sport in some circumstances. “Sport should be for everyone. Playing a sport you love in a team where you feel at home builds self-esteem, builds community and supports individual and collective health,” Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown told The Australian.

Ms Brown said LGBTIQ+ people were increasingly being used as “fodder for fake debates” in the current campaign.

“It’s cruel. It’s divisive. And it’s completely unacceptable, particularly when our community already experiences dispropor­tion­ate levels of discrimination,” she said. “Instead of continuing to weaponise the lives of marginalised people, candidates and political parties must commit to trea­ting alls with dignity and respect.”

Save Women’s Sport, a lobby group co-founded by Ms Deves, raised concern with state rules governing trans participation in sport. In Queensland, students cannot be excluded from school sport on the basis of their gender identity even after the age of 12.

Save Women’s Sport spokeswoman Nerissa Scott said parents might be concerned to know that “in Queensland schools for instance, on a school excursion … biological males who adopt a trans identity are permitted to share sleeping quarters with girls.”

Ms Scott said the private member’s legislation proposed by Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler this year to “correct” current interpretations of the Sex Discrimination Act needed to be adopted.

Lifeline Crisis Support Line: 13 11 14. QLife anonymous LGBTI peer support line: 1800 184 527