Inclusion in sport must not come at the expense of safety, fairness, or the right to privacy and dignity in changerooms for women and girls

AAWAA made a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls in reponse to her call for input to her report on violence against women and girls to the UN General Assembly on violence against women and girls in sport.

We value inclusion in sport but not at the expense of safety, fairness, or the right to privacy and dignity in changerooms for women and girls. At the core of our concern is failure of our public institutions to uphold sex-based separation in sport, forcing state and local sporting bodies to accommodate ‘sex self-identification’ leading to harm, abuse, exposure to violence, and disadvantage.

On paper, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (SDA), and most state and territory anti-discrimination laws, allow for female-only sport and spaces. Consistent with CEDAW Article 10, the SDA includes a permanent exemption for sport to exclude on the basis of sex, gender identity, or intersex where physiological advantage would otherwise compromise the right of women and girls to the same opportunities to participate in sport as males (see Sex Discrimination Act 1984, Part II, Div 4, Section 42). It also gives force to the basic human right to participate in sport as noted by UNESCO, the UDHR, and the Olympic Charter.

Unfortunately, Australian government-funded human rights and sporting bodies actively discourage use of this exemption on the basis of a consultative process that did not seek the views of women’s groups. Despite global developments in many sports to ensure that males are removed from participating in the female-only category at the international level, Australia still refuses to protect the rights of women and girls in sport. Consequently, men self-identifying as women are dominating women’s club-level competitions (see for example, Women’s soccer team featuring FIVE trans players destroys opposition 10-0 on way to winning grand final – with one biological male scoring SIX goals in one).

Read our full submission, below, to learn more about how Australian sports administrators contributing to increasing risk of harm against women and girls in sport and how concerns are being suppressed about sex-based violence in sport.