Women in sport ‘afraid’ to speak up against trans activists: Senator Claire Chandler
A Liberal senator has been attacked as ‘transphobic’ for raising concerns about safety and fairness for women and girls in sport.
UPDATED | Liberal senator Claire Chandler has been attacked as “transphobic” after she raised concerns about transgender-inclusive policy exposing women and girls in sport to injury and unfair competition.
Senator Chandler spoke on trans-inclusive sport in the Senate last week, and cited new research for World Rugby which concludes that female players would face a 20-30 per cent higher risk of injury if biological males who identify as women were allowed to compete.
On Monday Senator Nita Green, a leader of the LGBTQ ginger group Rainbow Labor, rose to denounce Senator Chandler’s campaign to defend female sport as an attempt “to veil her transphobic views as faux feminist values”.
Senator Green claimed everyone knew the Tasmanian Liberal was inspired by the writer JK Rowling, who published a 3670-word open letter on sex and gender in June.
“We know where (Senator Chandler) is getting her speeches from because she said (in the Senate) ‘I stand with JK Rowling and millions of women around the world who are determined to ensure our rights as women are not traded off in the name of diversity’,” said Senator Green, who claimed gender debate was “incredibly hurtful” for LGBT youth.
The Harry Potter author says she is worried about conflicts and risks for women created by aggressive trans activism, insists on the reality of biological sex, and expresses alarm about the surge in teenage girls, some same-sex attracted or autistic, seeking irreversible medical treatment to masculinise their bodies.
On Friday Ms Rowling announced she was returning a Robert F Kennedy human rights award, protesting the organisation’s leader had “incorrectly implied that I was transphobic, and that I am responsible for harm to trans people”.
On Monday Senator Chandler fired back at Senator Green’s suggestion she too was a “transphobe”, and called on Labor leader Anthony Albanese to say whether he agreed with this slur.
“Does he know that unfounded accusations of ‘transphobia’ against women like JK Rowling have been used to justify appalling abuse and threats of violence against women on social media?,” Senator Chandler asked in a media statement.
Here are the death threats and harassment JK Rowling has been recieving. Including abuse from verified accounts.
— Dataracer (@Dataracer117) June 16, 2020
Dozens of hit pieces written about "the backlash to her transphobia." Not one mentioned the threats she's receiving from these radical activists. pic.twitter.com/OuiWUBR2Ge
Lib v Lab: Claire Chandler and Nita Green cross swords
In the UK and US, women speaking up for their sex-based rights against trans activist demands have lost jobs, been sent death threats and abused and harassed online.
Last week in the Senate, Senator Chandler said: “So many women have contacted me with concerns about this issue (of trans activist claims on female sport) but they are worried that if they speak publicly, or even internally, they might face consequences at their club or at their work.
“How do Australians know that they are able to speak freely about women’s rights. The idea that someone could lose their job or be banned from the sport they love for acknowledging that sex exists should be alarming to every fair-minded Australian.”
UK groups supporting JK Rowling have hailed Senator Chandler for her courage and followed her campaign after seeing a YouTube video of her cross-examining officials, during March estimates hearings, about a 2019 taxpayer-funded pro-trans inclusion guidelines written with major sporting codes and hand-picked activists but no public consultation.
The UK LGB Alliance — which sees trans activist elevation of “gender identity” over biology as risky for same-sex rights, women and children — offered on Monday its “unreserved support” for Senator Chandler.
“People are sick and tired of common sense being presented as ‘transphobia’,” said Bev Jackson, a co-founder of the new group, which is one of several LGB organisations newly created around the world in response to the self-identified trans push.
“It is astonishing that we have reached a point at which talking about the need to preserve safety in women’s sport is somehow mischaracterized as ‘transphobic’,” Ms Jackson said.
Director’s cut: the full Chandler speech which triggered Senator Green
In case you had forgotten what courage looks and sounds like, just listen to this speech by an Australian lawmaker who is doing her job. @HuddlestonNigel @Keir_Starmer @JoStevensLabour https://t.co/EkfYIkVh01
— LGB Alliance (@ALLIANCELGB) August 27, 2020
On Wednesday in the chamber, Senator Chandler returned to the 2019 trans-inclusion document from Sport Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission, which urges more than 16,000 sporting clubs covering nine million players to reorganise on the basis of self-identified “gender identity”, and not biological sex, as much as possible.
She said the chief executives of major sports had “completely taken leave of their senses” in going along with this.
“Full-contact sports (such as Rugby Australia, the AFL and ARL) have taken the position that women in their competitions had better brace themselves for a 30 per cent increase in their risk of injury so that administrators can pat themselves on the back for being inclusive.”
The trans-inclusion policy has been faulted by international scientists for misleadingly playing down the role of testosterone and male physical advantage in sport.
Senator Chandler said RA had a chance to reconsider, now that World Rugby had presented research showing that the male bodies of transwomen posed a higher injury risk and lost little of their physical advantage after 12 months on drugs to lower their testosterone in line with 2015 International Olympic Committee rules.
“Rugby Australia should make a stand that women’s sport is for females and that men’s sport is for males, and the other major Australian sports should pull their heads out of the sand, look at the publicly available research and come to the same commonsense conclusion,” Senator Chandler said.
“It is not good enough for organised sport to hide behind activist interpretations of the Sex Discrimination Act and claim that the law compels them to prioritise gender identity over sex. It doesn’t.”
Women's rugby is a wonderful sport and it must be allowed to continue to grow in a safe environment free from identity politics and from opponents who could do them some serious physical damage, says Gavin Mortimerhttps://t.co/bXvsCtDJSn
— The Spectator (@spectator) August 26, 2020
World Rugby is poised to become the first international federation to ban transgender players, with August 31 the deadline for comment from its member unions.
But Rugby Australia is still using the old rules for vetting requests by trans-identifying biological males to play the women’s game.
A news report 10 days ago said a trans woman wanting to line up with the Ballina team in NSW was being assessed under RA’s “gender identity dispensation” rules, which rely on the opinion of an independent coach and a doctor with “relevant experience” involved in the player’s gender change.
On Monday RA would not say whether a decision had been made in this case, but the process generally took about a fortnight.
RA’s spokesman said it was “committed to supporting a player’s participation in (community rugby) in the gender with which they identify, provided that it is safe for them and all other participants”.
The sporting body would not say where it stood on the trans issue, with the World Rugby Council to decide whether to go ahead with draft guidelines later this year.
Power imbalance: sports scientist Ross Tucker on the research that swayed World Rugby
Minds made up: trans athlete Joanna Harper’s take on the rugby process
The Australian sought comment from Senator Green, whose speech did not address Senator Chandler’s concerns about women’s sport or the surge of teenage girls medicalised in gender clinics; she did not give any account of what JK Rowling has said about the gender issue. Mr Albanese’s office declined to comment.
On Monday in the chamber, Senator Green also took umbrage at “an active petition” launched by Queensland Liberal Amanda Stoker, objecting to its title: “How you can stand up to the transgender agenda”.
LGBT spells vulnerable: Senator Green’s Senate speech in full, from the 10:32 mark
“We are asking rugby clubs at all levels of the game to stand with us against a ruling that is exclusionary and that will impact some of the most vulnerable people in the communityâ€.
— stonewalluk (@stonewalluk) August 21, 2020
Join us and @LgbtiqS in calling @WorldRugby to #TackleTransphobia https://t.co/Y0ngO2VbQE pic.twitter.com/Qj8KSdOL5S
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