Trans community speak out on wider impact of FINA and rugby ban on transwomen

Transgender woman, Jade Darko said the recent blanket ban by the International Rugby Association and Federale International De Natation was concerning for a number of reasons.

"The primary impacts that have come from those decisions, which were not based on evidence, has been to embolden people who hold transphobic views to articulate those much more aggressively and openly," she said.

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The 32-year-old has been advocating for transgender rights for the past two years, and said sport was being used by conservatives to create a "wedge".

"The idea is that if they are able to make an exception as our affirmed gender conditional in some circumstances, they can expand the list of circumstances in which our affirmed gender is denied," Ms Darko said.

"By opening the door through blanket bans in swimming, and in rugby, there is the potential for emboldening calls for our exclusion from services and from spaces."

The impact would be another blow to the mental health of transgender people, Ms Darko said.

"We have had to endure wave after wave of transphobia," she said.

"Seeing a ruling like this from an international body only adds to that weight. That mental toll that comes from people constantly insisting you are wrong, you shouldn't exist, who you're saying you are is a lie.

"We're already a demographic that is massively at risk of self harm and suicide and this ongoing onslaught of transphobia only makes that worse."

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A Melbourne University study found about half of trans people in Australia have attempted suicide.

Rowan Richardson, a transman and teacher, said the ban could impact younger people who are gender diverse.

"This kind of legislation is really concerning because it generally has a flow-on effect to community sport," he said.

"Trans and gender diverse people, young people especially, are all less likely to participate in sport and for young people we know that sport is really important when forming parts of their identity and building skills and making them into well rounded individuals."

Mr Richardson believed when decisions like this were made, it trickled down through the sports community.

"It's not going to stop trans people from participating but it's going to stop people living openly as trans people. It's a bit of a step backwards for the sporting community and and trans people," he said.

He said given Australia's sporting culture, the ban was particularly hurtful.

"Our Australian identity is is so firmly entrenched in sport and our participation in sport and when you are talking about denying a whole group of people that privilege and that opportunity to be able to participate and be part of the Australian story, you're basically telling them they're substandard citizens," Mr Richardson said.

He was also concerned about the "cloak and dagger" mentally of policing bodies when it came to sport participation.

"A lot of people who think that it [sex] can be policed haven't actually thought about the logistics of how you would do it, and how invasive that is for people who are actually participating in sport, and how women are the ones that are going to be investigated, not just trans women, but cis women as well. It's really frightening," Mr Richardson said.

Launceston-based GP registrar and trans person Dr Shannon Lovell-Greene said it was a disappointing decision.

Dr Lovell-Greene also has a background in law and a masters in bioethics.

"The blanket ban seems to be more so interested in transgender women having a perceived advantage over transgender men having a perceived advantage. It's a very sex dominated opinion. And it's not really based in fact," they said.

Dr Lovell-Greene said the most reliable study was one done in the United States with trans people in the military.

"They found was after two years, women who are trans on hormone replacement, who have had surgery to suppress or knock off their testosterone levels have the same fitness as a cisgender woman at baseline, so there was no increased strength advantage, no increased speed advantage, in fact, pretty ordinary," they said.

Dr Lovell-Greene said even in the Olympics they test for testosterone levels despite not indicating athletic ability.

"Cis gendered women have a range of testosterone levels as well, and have been excluded from sport and been told that unless your testosterone level is under a certain amount, you cannot compete.

"This is an Olympic level but in these situations the variation is so wide. You could have the highest testosterone level known to women and somebody next to you could have the lowest, but you're actually outperformed by your colleague who has lower testosterone.

"The same happens with men. Some men who are performing at Olympic levels have testosterone levels in a female range but are still top of the class.

"We are focusing on artificial hormones as the definitive measure of what is masculine, what is feminine, what is acceptable, what is not. It's an arbitrary rule... that actually doesn't have any medical or scientific basis to it."

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Sport was an easy target to pin an physical advantage on, Dr Lovell-Greene said.

"You can see somebody who has is six foot six and used to be a rugby player for a men's team who now plays women's rugby, and say she obviously has an advantage here. She's bigger, she's more muscular," they said.

"Those are artificial comparisons now. Her testosterone has dropped off, her estrogen is up, her strength has decreased. Her power has decreased. She's slower. In fact, after two years, she's got no more or better prowess than any other woman on that team. But physically, she still looks different.

"You can see those physical reminders and you can pinpoint that and say, it's different, it shouldn't be allowed."

GP registrar and ciswoman Dr Miranda Hann said she believed the decisions like these blanket bans are made around fear and a lack of knowledge.

"There's not really any medical evidence one way or another in terms of what happens to someone's body once they start on gender affirming care," she said.

"There's been some studies but they're pretty limited. They wouldn't be generalisable enough to be able to say with a blanket statement that there is or is not an advantage for sports."

Sport and recreation minister Nic Street said Tasmania was committed to making sport a safe, fair and inclusive sector.

"Every sporting organisation in Tasmania is responsible for its own set of rules and guidelines around inclusion and participation, with many receiving policy advice and guidance from their state and/or national bodies," he said.

"We strongly support the Australian Human Rights Commission Guidelines for the Inclusion of Transgender and Gender Diverse People - developed in partnership with Sport Australia and the Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports, and encourage their adoption across our sporting sector."

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Senator Claire Chandler who proposed the "save women's sport" bill in 2022 said she was pleased with the move made by the sporting body.

"FINAs decision to maintain a single-sex female category is an excellent one, as evidenced by the support of Australian champions Cate Campbell, Emma McKeon, Emily Seebohm and 83 per cent of swimmers surveyed by FINA," she said.

"All sporting codes should be offering single-sex competition for women and girls at all competitive levels, as well as other options including open categories and mixed-sex sport to ensure everyone can participate. This is the model that I've been proposing for a long time."

Ms Darko said Tasmania was in a position where it could become a watershed moment for gender identity anti-discrimination.

"Tasmania has some gold class anti-discrimination legislation, which explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Ideally we would have something similar enshrined federally," she said.

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