Alice Soper: Fairness in sport would be much bigger task than policing gender expression

Minister for Sport and Recreation Chris Bishop. Photo / NZ Herald

Among the full list of concessions and collaboration in the new Government’s coalition agreement was a whistle. One that is signalling that New Zealand Sport is now offside with the current Government view. Inclusion is out, fairness is in. Fairness above all else is required for sporting bodies to receive funding. Sports are not to be compromised by rules relating to gender.

Great news then for Aupiki players, who on the basis of fairness, will now have a full rugby season and pay cheque just like their male counterparts. So too for the Wellington Phoenix and our domestic cricket league, who now must receive fair pay for fair play, without discrimination on the basis of their gender. How good to know that pathways will finally be clear and well paved for both young boys and young girls in sport.

Wonderful for women coaches now that sports funding is dictated by impartiality, without favour or discrimination. They will welcome the ensuing effort put into their development and the appointments that must be coming their way, it’s only fair.

Excellent, that the unjust advantage will be removed from our sporting bodies boardroom tables. Meaning we will surely see that 40 per cent of women representation grow to a fairer 50 per cent.

A sigh of relief from all those women athletes, caught in our sporting system’s endless cycle of reviews. At last bad behaviour of coaches and administrators will be dealt with fairly. Women’s environments across sport will operate without prejudice on their basis of gender. What progress to see our sport science research allocated more fairly, to fully recognise the potential of those athletes assigned female at birth.

Oh that’s not what fairness for women in sport means? Forgive me and countless other women advocating for ourselves and our sports, a person who can’t name five current wāhine athletes is talking. They and others with the most tenuous connections to women’s sports have decided they know what the real barrier is. It’s clearly the transwomen subset of the 0.14 per cent trans athletes who play sport in Aotearoa.

They needed a scapegoat to distract from the reality of a woman’s lot in sporting life. To divert the path from any meaningful steps towards progress. They invent a boogeyman, rooted in their own prejudice, to channel the fear of gender role traditionalists alongside casual observers who know something must be done to support women in sport. Their fantasy of universal cis male physical prowess stroke egos as they stoke division.

How do I know that transwomen are women? They are treated poorly by sports. How do I know transmen are men? The same rules do not seem to apply to them when we have any conversations we have about fairness. Non-binary athletes meanwhile appear to exist outside the dichotomy of the current debate.

When you have an idea, it pays to play that thought the whole way through before legislating. We have seen other ideas around fairness in sport in the United States of America lead to the genital inspections of children. Is this the legacy Chris Bishop wants as the Sport and Recreation Minister?

Were the Government to try to enforce fair competition for people of all genders in sport, they would end up taking on a task much bigger than policing gender expression. They would need to interrogate a range of societal issues related to class, race, physical abilities and geography.

Life isn’t fair and neither is sports but we all deserve the right to play anyway.