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Millions of dollars in funding will be withheld from grassroots sporting codes that allow trans-identifying men to compete against women.

The New Zealand Government will make public funding for amateur sporting codes conditional on women’s competitions being protected from transgender-identifying male athletes, in a major win for women’s sports.

The pro-female plan is being spearheaded by New Zealand First, one of three parties comprising the new conservative coalition government sworn in last month and led by Nationals leader — and now Prime Minister — Christopher Luxon.

Millions of dollars in public funds are at stake in the initiative, which New Zealand First’s sport and recreation spokesman Andy Foster says is aimed at “fairness and safety in sport for women”.

Sport New Zealand is tipped to invest NZ$9.3 million in 38 different grassroots sporting codes in the new year.

While Foster has flagged that some sports such as equestrianism could be exempt from the policy, he has affirmed that an athlete’s sex “quite clearly is a physiological issue” in most codes.

“If a code says ‘We don’t want to do that’, that’s their choice but they shouldn’t then expect the taxpayer to say we’re delighted to support you doing something which we see as unsafe and unfair.

“That’s the policy.”

New Zealand Cricket Set to Lose $425,000

New Zealand Cricket has already come out in opposition to the initiative, meaning it will likely lose $425,000 in allocated government funding in 2024.

NZ Cricket spokesperson Richard Boock said, “Our position is that we’ll continue to prioritise inclusivity and accommodate transwomen in women’s cricket at community, amateur, social level,” according to the New Zealand Herald.

While legacy media outlets have sought to sensationalise the issue, New Zealand’s upcoming reforms will bring the country into line with many international sporting bodies now protecting women’s sports from male competitors — including World Athletics, World Rugby, the International Cricket Council, World Aquatics and Union Cycliste Internationale.

The latest development across the ditch follows welcome news this week that the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has decided not to endorse “gender- affirming care” as the key intervention for children who believe they may be transgender.

Coalition Unity on Trans-Identifying Athletes

New Zealand First made the protection of women’s sports part of their campaign platform in the lead-up to the recent October 2023 election, committing to “pass legislation to ensure any publicly funded sporting body that does not have an exclusive biological female category, where ordinarily appropriate, shall be immediately ineligible for any public funding”.

While PM Christopher Luxon’s National Party did not campaign on the issue, the safeguarding of women’s sports won out during policy negotiations between the three coalition member parties, which also includes centre-right ACT New Zealand.

The initiative has the support of the vast majority of Kiwis, according to polling data.

The major challenge to New Zealand First’s pro-female policy will be coalition unity on the issue over the long term. According to news site Stuff:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Thursday that transgender New Zealanders would still be able to play sport under the new government, but “balance, fairness, inclusion and safety” were key. He said new sports minister Chris Bishop would “pick that up” in the new year.

“We want sporting organisations — and by and large many have been doing a fantastic job — working their way through what is quite a complex issue with a range of emotion on all sorts of sides, to say they are finding ways to balance safety, inclusion and fairness,” he said.

“There are challenges around safety issues around inclusion issues, around making sure it’s fair. And so, with respect to sport, we’re going to leave that to the sporting bodies to work through with the sports minister in the new year.”

In December 2022, Sport New Zealand introduced new “guiding principles” which stated that male athletes could participate in women’s sports without any need to “prove or otherwise justify” their transgender identity.

Media Bias in Reporting on Transgender Issues

Rather than playing a straight bat in its reporting, the mainstream press has largely used the story for activist purposes, wielding the language of “exclusion” against the NZ government’s commonsense initiative.

In a supposed sports news piece, for example, the Herald published this loaded paragraph:

Trans women who participate in sport amount to 0.14 per cent of the New Zealand population. This policy could, therefore, exclude those athletes from grassroots sports because their low numbers would make it difficult for them to form alternative competitions.

Fact-based reporting would prioritise the biological reality of sex over radical Marxist doctrines that have only become faddish in recent years.

Most importantly, honest journalism addressing women’s sports would prioritise the inclusion and safety of women in their own competitions.

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Image via Unsplash/AP.