Last week the focus was on Naomi Osaka and the mental wellbeing of athletes, this week it’s a similar issue under a different guise, with the right for transgender people to participate in sport in the spotlight. There have been a lot of one sided reporting on this complex and sensitive issue, with NewsHub even choosing to do one of their unscientific online ‘polls’ asking their readers on whether transgender athletes should be allowed to participate, which was click bait at best and horribly transphobic at worst. Zoë George provided the most balanced coverage and the one article I recommend reading.
As Minister for Sport Hon. Grant Robertson keeps saying in the media, and as most of our national sports organisations purport to be for ALL New Zealanders, our starting point should be inclusion. Maybe our current organisations and competition structures are not currently fit for purpose for everyone to participate, which shouldn’t be a surprise given they were developed a hundred years ago for a very specific (white, straight, able-bodied, male) audience. But instead of choosing to ban certain people from taking part, I’d love to see the focus to be on potential solutions and what changes we need to make for sport to be inclusive for everyone.
Speaking of inclusion, this week two years ago FIFA doubled the prize money for the Women’s World Cup to $US30m, while the men’s prize money is $US400m, a gender pay gap of $370m.
Check out all the media headlines in women’s sport for the 11 June right here.
Alida Shanks 