Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the last week we've witnessed many moments which capture the essence of the Olympic spirit, moments which inspire and bring joy to the world even during these dark days of pandemics and lockdowns—a 20-year-old Tasmanian taking on the greatest female swimmer ever and winning twice, and Dutch world champion Sifan Hassan tripping and falling in her 1,500 metre heat before getting to her feet and miraculously winning the race.

Last night, we should have had the opportunity to witness another of those unique Olympic moments. Eighteen-year-old Roviel Detenamo could have become the first women in 20 years to qualify to represent Nauru at the Olympic Games. She could have been in Tokyo proving that, if you have the talent and the work ethic, even a teenager from a nation of 12,000 people can make the Olympics and compete on the same stage as world champions from China and the USA. But we didn't witness that, because Roviel was denied the opportunity to become an Olympian, one of the most celebrated and respected titles in the world. That honour was instead given to a 43-year-old biological male, Laurel Hubbard, who was allowed by the IOC to participate in the women's 87-plus kilogram category. Hubbard now has—for life—the title of being an Olympian, solely due to the extreme advantages Hubbard has as a biological male. Nobody can dispute that facts that Hubbard is male, is miles off Olympic standard for a male and yet somehow qualified for the Olympics for the first time as a 43-year-old. The only explanation for that is male advantage, which, by definition, is an unfair advantage in women's competition.

Despite the IOC admitting this week that its trans inclusion guidelines are not fit for purpose, they tried to obscure discussion of these facts through a guide given out to journalists at the event, warning them not to use the term 'biological male' or refer to trans athletes being born male. Extraordinarily, they claimed that there is no evidence that trans athletes who are male have an unfair advantage in female sport. Those who claim that Hubbard taking a female athlete's Olympic spot is inclusive conveniently overlook the fact that there is an Olympic event specifically designed for 109-plus kilogram weightlifters, which Hubbard would be eligible for if good enough. The only thing stopping Hubbard from being included in the men's 109-plus kilogram category was the minor problem of being more than 100 kilograms off the standard required.

Competitive sport, let alone the Olympics, is not a participation exercise, yet what we saw last night was a sub-elite lifter, competing in the wrong sex category and the wrong weight category, displacing a female from one of the world's smallest nations so that the IOC could call itself inclusive. You cannot have a clearer example of why we have separate female and male sporting competition and why it's so unfair to female athletes to allow males into their categories. It has been disturbing to watch activists and sports administrators, including here in Australia, twist and change the very meaning of words to pretend there is no reason why women need to or should expect to have competitive, single-sex sport. First, they claim—without evidence—that it's more inclusive to operate women's sport based on gender identity rather than sex. Then they label it offensive to talk about biological males and females, taking away the language needed for women to raise objections. Now we're seeing them claim that there's no unfair advantage to males competing in women's sport—apparently, unless they dominate every competition they enter. By that logic, we wouldn't worry about drug-testing anyone unless they were to win an Olympic medal. Never mind the obvious unfairness of allowing someone to reach a level of sport well beyond what they are capable of in their own sex category, displacing high-calibre female athletes along the way.

This incredible new standard ignores everything we know about fairness in sport. It must come as a shock to the sprinter disqualified for leaving the blocks a millisecond early or the long jumper who oversteps by a centimetre. Those athletes don't gain a fraction of the advantage of a male competing in women's sports. On the one hand, the IOC knows that starting a race 100th of a second early is an advantage worthy of disqualification, regardless of whether the athlete would have finished first or last. On the other hand, female athletes at every level are being told fairness in their sporting competition is of less importance than being inclusive of males who choose not to play men's sport.