Season 2 Episode 2

Stassja Frei: What is a woman? According to Australia’s first ever woman Prime Minister, Julia Gillard:

Julia Gillard: Look I um, I’m very happy to answer your question but I, I do worry that- and I, I should just say I, I um spend around half of each year in the UK and in the UK this has turned into a kind of gotch-you parlour game. So if you’re listening to the radio, you, literally there’ll be some person…[fade]

Stassja Frei: Despite saying that she was very happy to answer the question, in her 3 minute rambling answer, Gillard does not in fact answer the question.

What about our current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese? Journalist Piers Morgan put it to him in an interview.

Piers Morgan: What is a woman, Prime Minister?

Anthony Albanese: An adult female.

Piers Morgan: How difficult was that to answer?

Anthony Albanese: Not too hard.

Stassja Frei: So close. But the correct answer is: adult human female. Women are human, Albo. So if the question’s not too hard to answer… 

Anthony Albanese: Not too hard.

Stassja Frei: …then how come, when it comes to women’s sport it suddenly does become too hard to answer?

Piers Morgan: Well what would you do for example with this issue of transgender athletes in women’s sport, which many world sporting authorities are now beginning to move to exclude them because they say it’s simply not fair.

Anthony Albanese: Well that’s an example in that the sporting organisations are dealing with that issue.

Piers Morgan: What’s your view?

Anthony Albanese: My view is the sporting organisations should deal with that issue.

Piers Morgan:  Does it seem fair to you that people who were born biologically male with all the physical advantage should be able to compete against people born with female biology?

Anthony Albanese: Well in Australia the sporting codes are able to deal with that, and, and, and they have.

Stassja Frei: Hmm. Have they though? Have Australian sporting codes got it right? 

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Welcome back to Desexing Society. I’m your host, Stassja Frei. Episode 2: Women’s Sport – Part 2

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‘What is a woman?’ is a question that international sport has grappled with for decades. Australia was pretty clear on this point up until 2013 when then Prime Minister Julia Gillard oversaw amendments to the federal Sex Discrimination Act. The amendments added three new grounds for protection from discrimination: sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.

Lawyer and co-founder of Save Women’s Sport Australasia, Katherine Deves explains the impact this has had on women’s sport.

Katherine Deves: Well, the Sex Discrimination Act has been somewhat contaminated by the gender identity provisions of 2013 and it has made an inherent conflict in that legislation where you now have sex and gender identity both protected characteristics and they, they’re in competition because you have say the sports category that’s based on biological sex and that is allowed, that’s lawful because it enables women to participate equally in public life, but then you have gender identity so you’ve got a male who’s claiming a female gender identity who’s saying ‘I’ve been excluded from the female competition, you’re discriminating against me on the basis of my gender identity’ so who takes precedence? 

Stassja Frei: Most Australians agree that women should take precedence. But unfortunately, the Australian Human Rights Commission doesn’t. They interpreted the 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act to mean that men claiming a woman gender identity should be included in women’s sport. And they released Guidelines advising sporting clubs on what they needed to do to accommodate those men.

Katherine Deves: These policies that came in June 2019, it was Sport Australia, it was the Australian Human Rights Commission that’d put forward those trans inclusion guidelines that effectively undermined the category of biological sex for sport so that means at the community and local levels that all a man, a boy has to do is show up and register as female and he is entitled to play in the female category.

Stassja Frei: It was these Guidelines for the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in sport that prompted Katherine to take action.

Katherine Deves: I have 3 little girls who play a number of sports between them and we spend pretty much every afternoon and most of the weekend driving them round to sport and my partner David and I decided that the way that we would try and raise these girls and navigate their way through sort of childhood and teenagerhood is to try to do a big focus on sport and community sport and keep them off screens and keep them fit and healthy to try and avoid the body image issues that plague so many girls. So when I saw those policies change I was alarmed. There wasn’t really a push back or sort of an organised push back. There was a few athletes speaking out but they sort of stuck their head above the parapet and quickly withdrew I think, when they got fired on. So that’s when I was connected through Senator Claire Chandler who has been very vocal in this space, she connected me with women in New Zealand who were already fighting and that’s where we- Save Women’s Sports New Zealand became Save Women’s Sports Australasia and so we started trying to raise awareness and lobby politicians and put in submissions and have a social media presence.

Stassja Frei: Liberal Senator Claire Chandler is one of the few politicians to consistently speak up for girls and women in sport. The following clip is from a 2020 senate committee meeting in which Senator Chandler is asking the then Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, about the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Guidelines. 

Senator Claire Chandler: I’ve received many emails and letters from constituents over the last sort of 7 or 8 months about the Guidelines for the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in sport, the document that the AHRC put together with Sport Australia last year, I believe it was released in June 2019. One of the most common concerns in the correspondence I’ve received is from parents who are concerned that women and girls may be forced to compete against biological males in sport who have an obvious competitive advantage in terms of speed and strength as a result of these guidelines.

Kate Jenkins: We had broad consultations across the board, including women’s groups, including athletes, including trans community but also sporting organisations, and we did hear that concern during the course of the work. The Guidelines are really to give guidance to sporting organisations on how to navigate to ensure they were not unlawfully discriminating in how they were running their operations.

Senator Claire Chandler: Would you agree that the division of sex in sporting competitions, that is, having competitions and teams that are specifically for women and girls, is a pretty logical and necessary practice in sport and it’s not about exclusion it’s just designed to make sure that women are competing against other women rather than men when they’re playing sport and they feel safe in that environment?

Kate Jenkins: So historically, absolutely, most sports have a division based on binary gender, women and men, but we are in a world where there is a new conversation and a situation to understand how to include people more broadly. I absolutely support that our sporting organisations do a fantastic job of creating opportunities for men and women to participate in sport.

Stassja Frei: It should be noted that Kate Jenkins is no longer the Sex Discrimination Commissioner. She now works alongside Kieren Perkins as the chair of the Australian Sports Commission. 

Despite Kate Jenkins’ assurances that the AHRC, the Australian Human Rights Commission, consulted broadly in developing the Guidelines, they’ve refused to reveal exactly who they consulted with.

Katherine Deves: I put in an FOI to try and obtain the terms of reference for that inquiry, it was quite difficult, let me say that, and also requesting who did they consult with? There were individuals who sort of boasted online about being included in that and they were males with a trans identity who played sport, not necessarily at an elite level, but no they were very guarded on who they consulted with and I think that if we’ve got organisations or people speaking in a sort of professional capacity on policy that is impacting half the population, their names should be disclosed. We should know where they stand on these issues and then we could’ve understood whether there was someone who reflected my views who was there standing up for women.And I don’t think any of us heard about it, it was all, as we know, very hush hush, very stealthy, and I think that something that significant, really, it should’ve been publicised, it should’ve been talked about, it should’ve been more known within the general public.

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Stassja Frei: Aside from the obvious, what’s so bad about these Guidelines? To answer that, I spoke with blogger, researcher and YouTuber, Kit Kowalski. She’s spent some time examining the Guidelines.

Kit Kowalski: Now, if you actually read through the Guidelines, there’s a number of glaring problems with them. So firstly, they absolutely misrepresent the law. So, the Sex Discrimination Act clearly says that you have a right to discriminate on the sporting field, that is, you have a right to say no we want to have a single sex sporting competition, if speed, strength, stamina, endurance, all of those physical capabilities, right, would be an issue. And that’s the case for most sports. 

Stassja Frei: Section 42 of the Sex Discrimination Act states, quote, “Nothing in Division 1 or 2 renders it unlawful to discriminate on the ground of sex, gender identity or intersex status by excluding persons from participation in any competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant.” End quote. I’m not a lawyer. But when I read that, I hear that it’s not unlawful to discriminate against men when it comes to sport. 

Even the Explanatory Memorandum that accompanied the 2013 amendments to the Act stated that, quote “It is legitimate to recognise that biological differences between men and women are relevant to competitive sporting activities.” End quote. 

Kit Kowalski: The Australian Human Rights Commission completely and utterly misrepresent that law, they actually tell sporting clubs that there is no basis on which they can discriminate and have a single sex competition. And they go so far as to say if they do attempt to have a single sex competition, then they’ll be facing a lengthy legal battle because there’s no legal meaning for these terms of speed, strength, stamina, endurance etcetera. So they’ve written this document in a way that is going to discourage Beryl who runs the local bowls club from even thinking that she’s allowed to say ‘no we have a ladies league.’ 

For a local sporting club seeking to exclude a male from the women’s comp, the AHRC’s recommendations are lengthy and onerous: first, consult the state or national sporting body; next, ensure that your club has a publicly available policy on the “competitive sporting exemption”. Clubs should conduct any assessment in a timely manner so as not to “unnecessarily disadvantage” the trans person. Clubs should also provide the trans person with an opportunity to respond and give them written reasons for the decision to exclude them. And after a club has done all of those things, then provide the trans person with an opportunity to seek a review. This is a huge amount of work for volunteer run local sporting clubs.

Kit Kowalski: There are other features of the document that are very disingenuous, for example, when it talks about shared change rooms it uses examples of a non binary female individual. So you know often when we think about the worst case scenario of a mixed sex change room, we might think well what could go wrong? Well I don’t know. Maybe a 50 year old man could come in and claim to be a little girl and go into the little girls’ change room and he could be a sexual pervert and no one can stop him. And so, when we think about the law we think about those worst case scenarios. Whereas this document represents almost the best case scenario of a female individual who’s a non binary who just wants to get changed in a gender neutral toilet but there isn’t one available for them and so they convert the women’s toilet to gender neutral for example. 

Stassja Frei: If we’re pretending that men are women for the purposes of sport, then it follows that men are women when it comes to which changerooms they use. In the previous episode, I mentioned US college swimmer Riley Gaines. She was forced to compete against biological male, Leah, formerly William Thomas. But she wasn’t just forced to swim against him. She and her teammates were also forced to share a changeroom with him. Riley described this awful experience to a US Senate Judiciary Committee.

Riley Gaines: In addition to being forced to give up our awards and our titles and our opportunities, the NCAA forced me and my female swimmers to swim- to share a locker room with Thomas, a 6’4” 22 year old male, equipped with, and exposing, male genitalia. Let me be clear about this, we were not forewarned we would be sharing a locker room. No one asked for our consent and we did not give our consent. And I’ll set the scene: a swimming locker room is not a place of modesty. You’re undressing, you’re fully exposed and we were forced to take off our swimsuit in front of a man who was doing the exact same thing. If nothing else I truly hope how you can see this as a violation of our right to privacy and how some of us have felt uncomfortable, embarrassed and even traumatised by this experience.

Stassja Frei: To be clear, the Australian Human Rights Commission are in favour of this scenario. They believe it’s a man’s human right, based on his woman gender identity, to expose his genitals in female change rooms across the country. Even Kate Jenkins, our former Sex Discrimination Commissioner supports this. If she didn’t, surely she would’ve said something before the Guidelines were published. 

But we’re not quite finished with just how bad the AHRC’s trans inclusion Guidelines are.

Kit Kowalski: And it makes statements like so in some social mixed leagues you might have thresholds of participation like 40% males, 40% females and 20% either, but it converts that to, you should have a quota of 40% men meaning, males and trans men, 40% women meaning women, females and trans women and 20% non binary, which is either. So essentially you’ve gone from having a mixed social league to potentially an all male side and none of that is discussed in the document.

Stassja Frei: Did you follow all that? Because men can be counted as men, as women and as non binaries, you could theoretically end up with a mixed team comprised entirely of biological males. In theory, we could also end up with a whole team of men who think they’re women in a women’s league. 

Kit Kowalski: It’s this completely ideological document and it is written to confuse operators of small clubs and is written to bully and railroad them into compliance. It’s an absolutely disingenuous document. And you know, I have been involved in small sporting clubs and I’ve got to say, a small club would probably need to send that document to a lawyer to interpret. It’s that confusingly written and there’s no way they would have the resources available to implement the suggestions that are made in it.

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Stassja Frei: In October 2020, leaders and bureaucrats from some of Australia’s biggest sporting codes gathered at the Sydney Cricket Ground for an important announcement. The national peak bodies for AFL, Hockey, Netball, Rugby, Tennis, Touch Football, Water Polo and UniSport which oversees university sporting competitions, all proudly announced that men who think they’re women were now welcome to compete against women. 

All of the sporting bodies involved were paying members of a program called Pride in Sport. 

Mon Schafter: Beau Newell is the National Program Manager of Pride in Sport, a program that assists sporting organisations with the inclusion of LGBT people at all levels.

Beau Newell: Each sport have gone through their respective consultation process and all of them are coming out the other end with a very unique guideline or policy that’s reflective of their specific sport.

Mon Schafter: The policies mainly focus on community sport and are based on guidance from Sport Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission designed to stamp out discrimination.

Stassja Frei: That’s a clip from the ABC’s 7:30 Report. They ran a 5 minute segment covering the story in mostly positive terms. It featured four men who were all in favour of men in women’s sport. Two of them were trans identified males. The only person who spoke in opposition to the announcement was a woman – Commonwealth Games champion, Jane Flemming. The ABC gave her 24 seconds of airtime to make the case for protecting women’s sport.

Let’s look more closely at Pride in Sport. The first thing to know, is that they’re an offshoot of Australia’s largest LGBTQIA+ charity, ACON. Kit Kowalski explains.

Kit Kowalski: So ACON stands for the AIDS Council of NSW and each state and territory had an AIDS council and this is really set up to cater to the community who are most at risk of contracting HIV or AIDS and for a long time that was, well it still is, gay men or any men who have sex with men. So, that’s men who declare themselves as gay men and it’s also men who cheat on their wives and go to the gay spa, whether or not they call themselves gay men. And injecting drug users and sex workers. So it’s interesting- so when actually we think about ACON as being this inclusive organisation that’s catering for everybody, and that’s really the image that they like to promote, when it comes down to it, historically their constituency is men who have sex with men, men who use needles and sex workers and that’s how women kind of enter into the purview – only really in that sex worker cohort, so they don’t really understand the rest of the experiences that women have as women.

Stassja Frei: Between 2015 and 2017, ACON shifted its focus away from primarily gay men’s health and towards transgenderism. They’re not unique in making this shift. Over the last decade or so, LGB organisations across the anglosphere have begun pushing gender identity ideology. Many people have suggested that once same sex marriage had been secured in law, these organisations needed a new cause to keep the funding rolling in. And trans and gender diverse rights seems to be their new cash cow.

Aside from government funding, ACON does fairly well in terms of revenue. For example, in the financial year ending June 2024, their revenue from goods and services was a whopping $6.6 million. It’s presumed that a large chunk of that comes from their Pride Inclusion Programs. ACON operates three such programs. One targeting sports, another aimed at workplaces and one for health organisations. Inclusion of the LG and B largely means stamping out homophobia. Few people would object. But for the T – transgender – it means treating men as though they’re women. And this has a huge impact on women and women’s human rights.

Each of ACON’s Pride Inclusion Programs has the same structure. But let’s focus on Pride in Sport. 

First a sporting club pays a membership fee to join ACON’s Pride in Sport. There are three tiers of membership. The cheapest is around $3,000 a year, and the most expensive, which bestows the title of Principal Partner, is just over $10,000. As a member, sports clubs then receive advice and training on how to make their club LGBTQIA+ inclusive. 

Next, clubs can choose to enter the Pride in Sport Index. This is a benchmarking instrument that assesses how inclusive the club is compared to other sporting clubs and how well they’ve met all the instructions from Pride in Sport. The final step is attending the annual Pride in Sport Awards where clubs can pay a further $200 per head to find out whether they’ve won the Sporting Organisation of the Year award. And if they didn’t win this most coveted of prizes, the club will at least find out whether they’ve reached platinum, gold, silver or bronze in ACON’s ranking system.

So when Beau Newell, the National Program Manager for Pride in Sport told the ABC…

Beau Newell: Each sport have gone through their respective consultation process and all of them are coming out the other end with a very unique guideline or policy that’s reflective of their specific sport.

Stassja Frei: Is it any wonder that all of the sports that go through the Pride in Sport process come out the other end with a policy that pretends that men are women?

But Pride in Sport hardly needed to convince Australia’s major sporting codes that this was a good idea. They had a lot of support from the get-go. Representatives from peak sporting bodies like, NRL, AFL and Cricket Australia were members of the advisory group that developed the Pride in Sport Benchmarking Index. 

And on their website, ACON credits the Pride in Sport Index as an initiative of the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Sports Commission. Honestly, it’s hard to tell where ACON begins and these two government agencies end. Because on top of all that, when Pride in Sport first launched back in 2016, two of their founding partners were – you guessed it – the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Sports Commission which, just for accuracy, at the time was called Sport Australia. This rather cosy relationship calls into question the impartiality of the AHRC’s transgender sports inclusion guidelines. Back in 2022, Kit Kowalski wrote a blog post exploring all these links.

Kit Kowalski: So in the post I did I actually went through who was credited as being a producer or writer of this booklet and there’s- most of the bodies are members of Pride in Sport, to the point where even the Australian Human Rights Commission is a member of Pride in Sport and the guidelines are published on the ACON Pride in Sport website as though it is a Pride in Sport document.

Stassja Frei: So ACON were involved in writing those guidelines?

Kit Kowalski: They 100% authored those guidelines.

Stassja Frei: Is this why the AHRC has refused to say who they consulted with in developing the guidelines? Were any female athletes involved? 

Aside from the AHRC and the Australian Sports Commission, the third logo that appears on the trans inclusion guidelines is COMPPS. That’s the Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports. This group represents the most popular sports in Australia – AFL, Rugby Union, Cricket, Soccer, NRL, Netball and Tennis. Combined, these sports represent 8.95 million participants and 16,000 clubs across the country. COMPPS itself, as well as all the individual sports that make up this coalition group, are paying members of Pride in Sport. With even Netball Australia welcoming men into their competitions, women’s sport hardly stood a chance. 

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Ben Fordham: Sydney’s most controversial sporting team is back on the pitch this week: The Flying Bats. They’re taking on Sydney University in the Saphire Cup. The Flying Bats have five transgender players. The players were born male but now identify as female and they’re going up against teams of biological women. So far this season The Flying Bats have dominated every team they’ve come across. 

Stassja Frei: This is the logical end point of allowing men to compete in women’s sport. An entire women’s soccer league destroyed by a team dominated by men. Ben Fordham has consistently covered the story for 2GB radio Sydney. But it was Kirralie Smith, from the organisation Binary Australia who first broke the story.

Kirralie Smith: At the very end of 2022 in my son’s soccer club, he was awarded the Most Valuable Player of the juniors and a couple of days later there was a presentation for the women’s soccer and I saw what was very obviously a man in a dress being awarded in the women’s team and that’s what really set me off in the whole what’s going on in the football world. I mean my job as a spokeswoman for Binary, I’m constantly contacted by people who are impacted by gender ideology but this was the first time I guess it had really impacted my family in a personal way. And it was just through a series of events that people, you know, as I started reporting on a bloke in a dress in our local soccer club, other people started letting me know about what was going on and at the time there was a player that I can’t name because I’m engaged in legal actions, but he was playing in a different club for all of 2023 and then in 2024 it became obvious in the pre season comp that not only was there one male playing in a soccer team in Sydney but there were at least five and so that was the Flying Bats. 

Stassja Frei: Unsurprisingly, The Flying Bats won the 2024 pre-season comp, the Beryl Ackroyd Cup, taking home not just the cup but $1000 in prize money meant for women. They then went on to completely dominate the 2024 North West Sydney Premier League. Women started complaining.

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Kirralie Smith: As people were complaining about this, they felt really humiliated, they felt they weren’t- they didn’t give consent to play against males in this competition and all the club officials doubled down and said these men have a right to play as women and that anybody who opposes that policy runs the risks of being fined, especially if they forfeit which a couple of clubs did end up doing, I’ll come back to that. They also run the risk of being dragged through legal action under the Anti Discrimination Act in NSW and so that sort of pressure is put on girls, women who just want to go and play footy on the weekends. 

Stassja Frei: It’s truly extraordinary that Football NSW has threatened women in this way. And to be clear, it’s only female soccer players who are subjected to this. But despite the threats, female players aren’t taking it lying down.

Kirralie Smith: I think there’s only eight clubs involved in that North West Sydney Premier League at this stage and two of the clubs, Putney Rangers and Macquarie Dragons both forfeited both of their games against the Flying Bats. They were threatened with $500 fines and possible expulsion from the competition. Now that’s never been followed through but we do know, well I’ve heard rumblings, that they’re going to change the policy for next year that if two or more games are forfeited then they’re automatically out of the competition. So we’ll wait and see what happens but hopefully that will you know be poking the bear and it will cause a lot of other players outrage and whether or not they actually play in that competition too. There’s also rumblings that some of those teams are just going to refuse to play in the competition if the Flying Bats are there so we’ll see what unfolds.

Stassja Frei: One of the arguments we hear repeatedly from sports bureaucrats like Kieren Perkins is that at the community level, fairness doesn’t matter. Men should be allowed into women’s community sport because it’s good for their mental health. At the elite level, however, then maybe we should exclude men. But a huge problem with sacrificing women’s sport at the community level, aside from the fact that it’s grossly unfair, is that our best sports women are robbed of the opportunity to excel. 

Kirralie Smith: Well some of these teenagers are exceptionally good and this is the pathway to becoming a Matilda you know you go really well in the Premier League competition and then that- you can then when you’ve achieved and done really well at that level you will go into those semi professional and professional leagues which are the A1 Leagues, the NPL I think it’s called – National Premier League – so it is the actual pathway to become a Matilda and so that’s why it’s so unfair for some of these young girls who are 15, 16, 17, they’re under age, they’re having to change, you know share these change rooms, they’re having to risk really serious injury on the field which could end their careers and you know the parents I know for some clubs, especially Putney Rangers have spoken out and that’s one of the reasons they had to forfeit, they said well our daughters aren’t playing. They’re not playing against these men because there’s too great a risk to their further careers if they get injured. So that’s the situation. And some of these men are 30+ they’re 30+ in this. Women that age are not playing primarily in Premier League, they’ve had their day, they’re now playing more social comps and lower grades. The Premier League is for that kind of 16-25 year old women who are in that more elite part of their career and wanting to advance.

Stassja Frei: Would you risk injury and a spot on the Matildas for the privilege of losing to some 30 something year old men? How about for the privilege of being insulted by those men?

Kirralie Smith: Players themselves at this stage, their biggest bone of contention has been how humiliated they feel on the soccer field. They’re humiliated by these male players who sledge them, you know, ‘why aren’t you fast enough? You can’t keep up with me,’ things like that…And supporters on the sideline who are yelling obscenities and insults at them. And I’ve had grown women, adult women, married with children, literally crying on my shoulder saying they did not sign up for this and they just don’t know what to do about it.

Stassja Frei: In March 2024, the North West Sydney Premier League found itself at the centre of a mini media storm. Mainstream news outlets had gotten wind of the story and were reporting on the clear injustice of the Flying Bats. An emergency meeting was called to thwart concerns that no women’s team would be able to beat the Flying Bats. Days later, a secret recording from that meeting was leaked to feminist news outlet, Reduxx. Frank Parisi, president of St. Patrick’s Football Club, revealed scandalous details of the devastation these men were having on his club. Apologies, but the audio here isn’t the best. 

Frank Parisi: Frank Parisi, president of St Pat’s. A couple of years ago, one of the Flying Bats players broke one of our player’s legs in a game and it was in the lower division, so we’re not talking about the league. So they were really tall, clumsy tackle. They got tackled from behind. Our player had their leg broken in two places. She’s no longer playing football. 

Stassja Frei: A woman’s leg was broken in two places by a male player. I’m reminded of Kieren Perkins’ claim that there would be ‘human carnage’ if men were excluded from women’s community sport. Clearly the reverse is true.

Frank Parisi: Accidents happen. I know we spoke about that, but this could have been avoided because my 5’6 player, who didn’t even weigh 60 kilos against a 6’2 player who was 80, 90 kilos. 

Stassja Frei: There’s a point where men in women’s sport becomes plain old male violence against women. When you have a 90 kilogram man breaking the leg of a 60 kilogram woman, I think we’ve reached that point.

Frank Parisi: One of our players rushed over to our player to try and help us, who was screaming in so much pain and at that time made a derogatory remark to the Bats player which we apologised for. They got suspended and so forth, fine. The Bats player, nothing happened to them. 

Stassja Frei: A man breaks a woman’s leg? No penalty. A woman calls him a bad name for breaking her friend’s leg? Suspended.

Frank Parisi: I’ve lost two women’s teams as a direct result of them not wanting to play against Bats players. I’d like to get your comments about that because as a small club, I’ve lost 24 players and that’s as a direct result – and they’ve all said to me, Frank, we do not want to play against the Bats players

Stassja Frei: Another argument put forth by people like Kieren Perkins is that there’s only a tiny number of men wanting to play women’s sport. So we should just let them because it doesn’t have any real impact. Firstly, this directly contradicts his claim that there will be ‘human carnage’ if men are excluded from women’s sport. How can there be human carnage if there’s such a small number of these men? But secondly, it’s simply not true. Certainly not in the case of St Patrick’s Football Club. Twenty four women from that club alone, have given up soccer because five men ruined the game. Far from encouraging more Australians into community sport, policies that prioritise male inclusion over fairness and safety are forcing women to leave sport.

Kirralie tried repeatedly to speak with officials at Football NSW.

Kirralie Smith: I have tried to ring and email so many officials from Football NSW and Football Australia. It really isn’t funny. And in the end what we did as Binary, resorted to a campaign where we had 12,000 emails sent to four different addresses and we still- well all I ended up with then was the police at my doorstep and applications for Apprehensions of Violence against me because it’s apparently violence to campaign politically in Australia and to say that men are men and don’t belong on women’s soccer teams. So we have tried and tried and tried to communicate with these organisations and they absolutely refuse and like I said then they just threaten anybody else who tries to ask the questions so I can only speculate as to why they have these policies.

Stassja Frei: A hint as to why they have these policies was reported by Ben Fordham of 2GB radio.

Ben Fordham: Football NSW says that they’ll continue to align with Football Australia’s adoption of the Australian Human Rights Commission Guidelines. And under those guidelines community players are permitted to participate on the basis of the gender that they identify with. 

Stassja Frei: Alongside the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Sports Commission, Football Australia, was a founding member of ACON’s Pride in Sport. Despite this, Football Australia doesn’t actually have a transgender inclusion policy. All they’ve said is that they follow the AHRC guidelines. Football NSW, however, does have a transgender inclusion policy. But it only applies to three semi professional girls’ and women’s leagues. It requires men in those competitions to suppress their testosterone to be eligible to play. At the lower levels of the sport, there are no barriers for men who want to play against women. And the result is the Flying Bats.

Ben Fordham: So it’s this weekend. Sunday afternoon. The Grand Final. West Penant Hills Cherrybrook up against the Flying Bats. The Flying Bats have five male born players. They’re undefeated this season. 16 wins from 16 games. They’ve scored 65 goals and only conceded 4. And out of their 14 regular games and 2 semi finals they’ve won 6 because the other team decided to forfeit. Why did they forfeit? Because they knew that it was unfair. So why do we speak up about this? Because of this – the unlevel playing field. It’ll be on display again this weekend and you can bank on the fact that the Flying Bats will win the Grand Final. What a joke.

The Flying Bats did indeed win the Grand Final. A man by the name of David who had attended the game, called in to Ben Fordham’s show to describe what he’d seen.

David: But when that full time whistle went mate, you should’ve heard the boos coming from the West Penant Hills crowd section. It was deafening mate.

Ben Fordham: So they were booing the Bats?

David: I can’t say who they were booing, read between the lines, but they made their point very clear with all the booing.

Ben Fordham: Yeah. I can imagine David. They’d only be doing it for one reason and that’s because they think that the whole thing is unfair. When you have five male born players taking on women, it’s just not right.

Stassja Frei: David also described how security guards had been checking people’s bags for recording devices. Kirralie was told the same thing.

Kirralie Smith: The police were at some of the games and were inspecting bags, there was security employed, they said you couldn’t bring in cameras or phones. It was, again just by accounts of people who contacted me and said it was very intimidating. Some just disregarded, completely disregarded those directions but you know these games are taking place in public places on public property, community or council owned land, and all of this is for the protection of males imposing themselves in female competitions. It’s absolutely absurd.

Stassja Frei: I think it’s more than just absurd. It’s tyrannical. And it’s an abuse of state powers. Why are they trying to hide this? Could it be because they know that it’s wrong? 

But what’s even more tyrannical is what Kirralie has endured for speaking up. She’s mentioned it a few times now. She’s had three applications for Apprehended Violence Orders made against her. AVOs are restraining orders meant to protect people from violence.

Kirralie Smith: So there were three applications. One was by an official from Football Australia. She did that in her personal capacity and it was withdrawn before it even went to court. The second one was on behalf- like Burwood Police, they pursued me. This went on for 6 months. We had to, you know, spend a lot of money in legal fees, preparations, hearings, directions hearings, all of that sort of stuff. Went to court and literally as the magistrate called us before him, the police said oh we’re going to withdraw. No cost applications and no explanation. So that was really really disturbing. It was like this was just an exercise in chicken, playing chicken. And I go well I won, I didn’t move, they did, so. And then the third one was again a personal application for that. It did go to court and a full day hearing. The judge denied the AVO but that player’s taken it further on appeal. So we’ll see what happens. 

Stassja Frei: In February 2025, trans identified male soccer player, Stephanie Blanch won his appeal and was granted the AVO. Among the evidence used against Kirralie was a tweet she’d made describing, quote “a bloke on the women’s team in Wingham” end quote. In another post she shared a photo of Stephanie Blanch and referred to him as, quote “a bloke in a frock.” End quote. Judge Penelope Wass described Kirralie’s behaviour as objectively threatening and disturbing, saying that it was, quote “a sustained campaign of belittling, harassment and intimidation.” End quote. And whilst she noted that misgendering was not in itself unlawful, she thought it could be considered sufficiently harassing so as to justify the AVO. Kirralie and her team had argued that calling a man a man was not harassment or intimidation. Rather, it was political speech. Kirralie is appealing the decision.

On top of all this, Kirralie is also facing two vilification complaints made by men who say they’re women. She’ll be on trial for hate speech.

Kirralie Smith: Look all I can say about the lawfare is, there’s two players who are trying- I believe backed by Football Australia to silence me but it’s not just to silence me it’s to silence you and everybody else because we are speaking facts we are speaking plainly, we are speaking truthfully and we are exposing the ludicrousy of males playing in female sport and so you know so far I’ve been successful on a lot of technicalities. And like, just let me be really clear, it’s simply because I have identified males in female teams. I’ve never addressed anything to these people personally, I have not met them personally, I’ve never been to their games. If anyone knows me or sees me I am an overweight middle aged woman who’s often on a crutch, I pose no physical threat. This is not just about the redefining of the word woman, it’s about the redefining of the word violence and harassment because they’re saying that political lobbying is now, or could be considered violence or harassment. So I think that’s a really serious allegation and it’s also really- it has a lot of implications for journalists, the media and politicians themselves. If we don’t have the implied freedom of political speech in this country to aggressively campaign against bad policy we’re going to be in even more trouble than we are now.

Stassja Frei: If Kirralie is unsuccessful, it could become an act of violence, harassment and vilification to call a man who says he’s a woman, a man. That’s what’s at stake. That’s what Kirralie means by the redefining of the word violence. 

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One international sporting organisation that decided against male inclusion on women’s teams is World Rugby. Katherine Deves from Save Women’s Sport Australasia outlines how they reached their decision:

Katherine Deves: Their method for deciding their guidelines was excellent. They are to be highly commended for how they did it. They had lawyers and sports scientists and athletes and all-  people representing stakeholders on both sides of the debate and they had an open table debate. Everything was able to be ventilated. They didn’t want people to be in a huff and storm out, they wanted people to actually argue their positions. And that’s what they did. They were very transparent. They made it all publicly available. They released a very meticulous and thorough guidelines with all their references with all their, you know, how they came to the conclusion that they did. 

Stassja Frei: In 2020, World Rugby held a two day workshop in London where participants presented the evidence for and against transgender inclusion. They then drafted a policy, put it out for comment, reviewed the responses and then finalised their guidelines.

Katherine Deves: And they approached it in that, ok, you’ve got the three pillars of sort of sports policy which is fair competition, safety and inclusion. Now generally fair competition is number one. But in rugby, because it’s so dangerous, they decided to prioritise safety, then fair competition and then inclusion. And they are not all equal, depending on the sport. So they decided competition, ah sorry, safety was absolutely paramount and they came to the conclusion that based on the evidence it was simply not a burden they could place on women due to the substantial increased risk of injury if female players had to play against a male body. I think the risk of serious head injury was nearly 28% and that was not tolerable. And you also have to wonder what’s that going to do for insurance premiums etc. I mean this is not an unforeseen risk. This is known. 

Stassja Frei: People die playing rugby, so it’s no wonder that World Rugby prioritised women’s safety. They commissioned biomechanical modelling to see what happens when male bodies collide with women’s bodies. As we already know, men are bigger, heavier, stronger and faster than women, so the results aren’t all that surprising. The risk of injury for women increased by between 20 and 30% when playing against men.

World Rugby politely told men who say they’re women that if they’ve been through male puberty, they can’t play women’s rugby. But they’re still welcome in mixed, no contact rugby leagues.

Katherine Deves: I think UK Rugby adopted their guidelines. Scottish Rugby has. Interestingly, Australia and New Zealand decided not to. They’ve gone for inclusion. So when a young woman ends up dead or disabled on the rugby pitch – I hope it does not get to that but I have no doubt that if they continue, something will happen and it will be a scandal but it will be, well you knew the risk and you decided to sacrifice those women. So they will have no one to blame but themselves and when that time comes I hope they have the pants sued off them quite frankly. 

Stassja Frei: National rugby federations were warned that if they chose to reject the guidelines, World Rugby would not support them in the event that a woman was injured or killed. Rugby Australia decided that at the elite level, they would follow World Rugby’s sensible policy. But at the community level, men are still welcome to join women’s teams. 

If a man has changed his legal sex from male to female on his birth certificate, it seems that Rugby Australia automatically counts him as female and he’s allowed to play against women. But, if his gender identity is woman but his birth certificate still says male, then there’s a lengthy process involving a medical assessment and a skills and ability assessment and a final decision by the manager of that specific league.

So it seems the eligibility criteria for women’s rugby is reliant on one’s birth certificate. However, Rugby Australia’s Guidelines includes a warning. Under the heading ‘Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, and Victimisation’ it warns clubs that asking for a birth certificate could constitute a form of indirect discrimination because, quote: “This may disadvantage transgender and non-binary players if their birth certificate does not align with their gender identity.” End quote. I’m…so confused… How does a club apply this policy without asking for a birth certificate? It makes no sense. 

I can’t help but wonder if this Kafkaesque policy was influenced by the fact that Rugby Australia was also a founding member of ACON’s Pride in Sport.

Katherine Deves: …but I think it should just be a flat, if you are born male, you’re observed and recorded male at birth, no matter what happens with your identity or changing your birth certificate later in life, I’m sorry, it has to be on birth sex as recorded at birth. And just make it that. That solves everything. It’s very simple, it’s not complicated.

Stassja Frei: That would solve almost everything. The only exception would of course be those rare intersex conditions we learned about in episode 1.

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Thankfully, there is now some hope on the horizon for women’s sport. In March 2025, World Athletics announced the reintroduction of DNA testing. As a requirement to compete in the women’s category, athletes will need to prove that they’re female through a one off cheek swab. 

Also in March 2025, history was made when the first ever woman was elected as president of the International Olympic committee. In a press conference following her election, Olympic swimming champion Kirsty Coventry told reporters the following:

Kirsty Coventry: My stance is that we will protect female- the female category and female athletes. I want to work together with the international federations. I want the IOC to take a little bit more of a leading role.

Stassja Frei: In Australia, however, change seems a long way off. In May 2025 Australians voted for a second term of Anthony Albanese’s Labor government. That means three more years of pretending that there’s no problem with men in women’s sport. After all, the sporting codes have already dealt with that, haven’t they Albo?

Anthony Albanese: My view is the sporting organisations should deal with that issue.

Piers Morgan: Does it seem fair to you that people who were born biologically male with all the physical advantage should be able to compete against people born with female biology?

Anthony Albanese: Well in Australia the sporting codes are able to deal with that, and, and, and they have.

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Stassja Frei: Coming up in the next episode of Desexing Society we’ll learn about the extraordinary influence that ACON is having in Australian workplaces.

Kit Kowalski: So it’s using this idea of an employee resource group which is a really benign concept…and it’s really hijacking that concept to create a little mini arm of ACON inside the workplace.

And I have recordings of ACON trainers saying to HR professionals, ‘you shouldn’t say the word mother, you shouldn’t say the word father, it’s discriminatory’

Stassja Frei: And if you’re wondering why you never hear about these issues from our public broadcasters…

Kit Kowalski: the ABC and SBS are where we get our supposedly unbiased…news, views, opinions and entertainment. So to have both of them enthralled to a lobby group is, is unfortunate to say the least.

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Stassja Frei: Thanks for listening to Desexing Society. Written and produced by me, Stassja Frei. Thank you to my script editor, Ms Edie Wyatt, my sound technician Matthew Friend, and to Katherine Deves, Kit Kowalski and Kirralie Smith for appearing in this episode. For more information, or to donate towards this project – which I paid for myself – please visit desexingsociety.com