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Australian Rugby / RA

Dismal Pillock

Simon Poidevin (60)
fash8.jpg

"International Clothing Retailers? No. We are the urologists."
 

formerflanker

Ken Catchpole (46)
I hope the following never gets introduced to junior rugby in Australia.

"Sporting clubs have been asked to adopt a series of guidelines to allow transgender children to compete as the sex they identify as and have girl’s teams stock skirts in sizes to fit gender-diverse players.
The guidelines — produced by the Australian Human Rights Commission and Sports Australia — mean clubs would need to allow a biological boy to compete against girls as long as they are 12 years old or younger."
Daily Telegraph, June 24.
 

Strewthcobber

Mark Ella (57)
I hope the following never gets introduced to junior rugby in Australia.

"Sporting clubs have been asked to adopt a series of guidelines to allow transgender children to compete as the sex they identify as and have girl’s teams stock skirts in sizes to fit gender-diverse players.
The guidelines — produced by the Australian Human Rights Commission and Sports Australia — mean clubs would need to allow a biological boy to compete against girls as long as they are 12 years old or younger."
Daily Telegraph, June 24.
Under 12s are mixed gender anyway?
 

LearningCurve

Bill Watson (15)
I didn't know that. I assumed it was only in the first 2 years of age group competition.
I am not comfortable with 10 year old boys, some who can be very large for their age, being allowed to identify as girls and play against them.

Girls and boys can play together in rugby up to and including Under 12's. After that it is separate. Some of the biggest players I have seen in junior rugby (below U12) were girls.
 

Strewthcobber

Mark Ella (57)
I didn't know that. I assumed it was only in the first 2 years of age group competition.
I am not comfortable with 10 year old boys, some who can be very large for their age, being allowed to identify as girls and play against them.
Rugby Australia has a Gender Identity dispensation policy on the website if you want to understand how they approach it.
 

Derpus

George Gregan (70)
Who cares?

They do need to be sorted appropriately to reduce risk of injury, though. So adopt weight divisions rather than age. Our players will be better for it anyway.

As a weed i can confirm there were plenty of girls my age who would have run right over the top of me.
 

Aurelius

Ted Thorn (20)
Under 12s are mixed gender anyway?


I thought all sports were. Certainly I played with girls in my soccer and cricket teams at that sort of age (in fact, the cricketer was one of our best players).

That said, if RA adopts this policy they could be opening a real can of worms because eventually they'll come under pressure to let boys of any age play as girls if that's how they identify, then club rugby will face the same sorts of issues that women's sports like cycling and athletics are facing right now.

Letting boys and girls compete against each up until a certain age is one thing. Letting boys play in girls teams because they think they're girls is something else entirely and it'll come back to bite any sport that encourages it.
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
That said, if RA adopts this policy they could be opening a real can of worms because eventually they'll come under pressure to let boys of any age play as girls if that's how they identify, then club rugby will face the same sorts of issues that women's sports like cycling and athletics are facing right now.

Letting boys and girls compete against each up until a certain age is one thing. Letting boys play in girls teams because they think they're girls is something else entirely and it'll come back to bite any sport that encourages it.


All sports are needing to deal with this to some degree. It is mostly a non-issue though due to how incredibly rare it is. As far as I know it is unheard of at junior level.

People are acting like someone is going to decide they want to live their life as a woman to gain an advantage in sport. It is not a thing. People don't go through the stigma of being transexual and start taking drugs to suppress their hormones etc. because actually they want to do relatively better in sport.
 

RugbyReg

Rocky Elsom (76)
Staff member
All sports are needing to deal with this to some degree. It is mostly a non-issue though due to how incredibly rare it is. As far as I know it is unheard of at junior level.

People are acting like someone is going to decide they want to live their life as a woman to gain an advantage in sport. It is not a thing. People don't go through the stigma of being transexual and start taking drugs to suppress their hormones etc. because actually they want to do relatively better in sport.

And, besides, there are bugger all girls comps anyway. Let's focus on getting more girls playing before we worry too much about how boys identifying as girls will fare
 

Aurelius

Ted Thorn (20)
All sports are needing to deal with this to some degree. It is mostly a non-issue though due to how incredibly rare it is. As far as I know it is unheard of at junior level.

People are acting like someone is going to decide they want to live their life as a woman to gain an advantage in sport. It is not a thing. People don't go through the stigma of being transexual and start taking drugs to suppress their hormones etc. because actually they want to do relatively better in sport.


That might be true, but it doesn't really matter how rare it is or how sincere transgender athletes are in their transformation. The fact remains that biological males in general have real physical advantages over women, and allowing them to compete as women is grossly unfair to female athletes. For example, a month or two ago there was a story about a transgender weightlifter named Mary Gregory who broke four women's world records in her first meet in a woman's competition. There's no doubt that Mary Gregory would sweep any world titles or Olympics she was allowed to compete in, so try telling her female competitors who could now only aspire to a silver medal that it's a rare circumstance and Mary Gregory is probably sincere. Doesn't make it any fairer.
 
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