The government is demanding a crackdown on how transgender people participate in sports.
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop has asked Sport NZ to review and update its guidelines on the issue.
He says the current guidelines do not reflect legitimate community expectations and should prioritise fairness and safety.
Chris Bishop says the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement commits the government to ensuring publicly funded sporting bodies support fair competition that is not compromised by rules relating to gender.
The question is… how far will Sport NZ go?
The appropriate response is to simply categorize sport players by their sex at birth so that females compete with females and males with males.
Sport NZ’s CEO is Raelene Castle. She led Rugby Australia in 2019 and spearheaded the attack on Israel Folau when he posted a quote from the Bible on his social media. Castle terminated his contract for that.
Castle will lead the review on transgender people in sport, which the minister expects will take a few months.
This is a great opportunity to put a line in the sand and to make sure that sport at a community level is fair and most importantly safe. Nothing is more safe and fair than letting naturally gifted athletes compete with their biological equivalents. Anything less than that should not be accepted.
This article was originally published by Family First New Zealand.
