Transgender athletes participating in sport are being used as a "political football", one academic says, after the Government announced millions of dollars could be cut from community-level sporting bodies if they're not excluded from competitions.
The hardline policy ensuring "publicly funded sporting bodies support fair competition that is not compromised by rules relating to gender" comes as part of New Zealand First's coalition deal with National.
NZ First's sport and recreation spokesperson, Andy Foster, said any government-funded code which "doesn't provide for a safe and fair competition for women" is "potentially at risk".
But transgender mountain biker Kate Weatherly said the Government potentially "stepping in to set limitations around funding to those community-level sporting groups and basing the limitations of that funding around the inclusion or exclusion of trans athletes is really concerning".
"I think it takes away from the focus, which really should be building people up and inclusion and all the benefits that sports can bring – not excluding trans people from all those opportunities," she said.
She continued: "We shouldn't be harming one marginalised group of people for the sake of another marginalised group of people.
"We should be uplifting both of them."
Waikato University professor of sport and gender, Holly Thorpe, agreed, calling the announcements a "threat to basic human rights".
"Access to sport is a human right," she said.
Thorpe said transgender participation in sport "has been used as a political football" both here and overseas, and "we’re seeing this again".
However, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told 1News it was about "safety issues".
"In terms of sporting codes and in terms of actual sporting activity, it's about making sure there is balancing safety, and balancing fairness and balancing inclusion," he said.
Weatherly said there are many factors to consider, and its nuance would be lost if a blanket ban is to go ahead for non-compliant sporting bodies.
"There are so many things that can impact whether or not someone has or doesn't have an unfair advantage or presents a safety issue or not," she said.
In a statement, Sport New Zealand chief executive Raelene Castle told 1News the agency's goal is to "ensure sport is inclusive and safe for everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand".
"We have developed a set of Transgender Guiding Principles for the sector, to help them develop their own policies for the inclusion of transgender participants in community sport," she said.
"When developing these policies, we encourage sporting organisations to support the health, safety and wellbeing of all participants. This includes having mechanisms in place to ensure any competition is comprised of an appropriately similar cohort of players, for example weight bands and age brackets.
"Safety needs to be considered on a sport by sport basis when considering transgender participants, as the issues are different, for instance, in contact sports versus target sports."
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