By Greg Baum
Basketball Australia was between a rock and a hard place. There are many points along that axis and they are all fraught. Wherever BA landed, it was going to disappoint someone. In this instance, it is transgender player Lexi Rodgers.
It is now generally accepted that gender exists on a spectrum. It is also accepted that sport is divided into competitions for men and women. That means a line has to be drawn somewhere, and wherever it is, some will justifiably feel that they are on the wrong side.
Lexi Rodgers.
What has become increasingly clear is that line is not and cannot always be drawn in the same place, that its position will move as science and society moves, and that there may never be a precise and immutable place for it. There may never be a magic bullet.
Without specifying the grounds on which it turned down Rodgers, BA acknowledged this inherent fluidity in its statement, saying it “assesses eligibility of prospective elite-level transgender athletes on a case-by-case basis, accounting for and balancing a range of factors.
Suzy Batkovic in her playing days.
“As the governing body, we acknowledge we’re still on a path of education and understanding … The balance of inclusivity, fairness and the competitive nature of sport will always be a complex area to navigate.”
It would be simpler all round if sport did not categorise at all. But it always has because it must. It segregates by age in juniors, by weight in boxing and wrestling, by ability in pro athletics and amateur golf. This is to ensure even and fair competition.
Most universally and fundamentally, sport separates men from women. This is essential for the very viability of women’s sport. Since women have toiled so hard to carve out a place of equal respect in the sporting ecosystem, it feels more important than ever.
Inclusivity matters, but so does safety. This column is aware of suburban women footballers who felt physically intimidated when they came up against some transgender opponents. They’re not wallflowers, and they’re not political. It is one thing to exclude sportspeople, another to scare them off.
To be clear, this is incidental to the Rodgers case, but not separate from it. The physical dimension in this debate cannot be glossed over. Everyone can choose to identify as they please, of course, but to an extent, we’re all hostage to our physiology.
Former basketballer and now AFLW Richmond player Saraid Taylor said BA’s decision about Rodgers demonstrated that basketball “wasn’t necessarily a safe place for everyone”. But safety cannot merely be a matter of a welcoming and empathetic environment.
Caster Semenya.Credit: AP
Unfortunately, having sought to project clarity, BA in the same breath muddied the waters. “I also want to make it clear, because it’s important,” said BA director and former Olympian Suzy Batkovic, “that while this particular application was not approved based on criteria for elite competition, BA encourages and promotes inclusivity at community level.”
In a perennially murky corner of the sporting ethos, this appears to be another mixed message.
So the line has been redrawn again. When the issue of transgender and intersex athletes first came to the fore, that line was roughly described. One proposal was for sport to be divided not into men and women, but women and open. That was too simplistic. South African runner Caster Semanya was subjected to a physical inspection of her genitals, for goodness’ sake. That was less than 15 years ago.
Since, sport has been on a tortuous, but gradually more sophisticated search for a sustainable protocol. Locally, former Australian handball player Hannah Mouncey was denied a shot at an AFLW career in 2018 under a provision of the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act that allowed gender discrimination “if strength, stamina or physique is relevant”.
Lia Thomas and Sebastian Coe.Credit: Getty Images/AP
The International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) strained for two years before settling on a pass mark for Semenya and Indian sprinter Dutee Chand. It was a certain level of testosterone. Last year, American transgender swimmer Lia Thomas won national college titles racing under looser rules than would apply at next year’s Paris Olympics, at which she aims to compete. That’s making waves.
Last month, World Athletics, as the IAAF is now called, banned from women’s competition athletes who have gone through male puberty, on the basis that this conferred on transgender athletes a permanent advantage in strength and speed over rivals. This is now the line.
“Decisions are always difficult when they involve conflicting needs and rights between different groups,” said long-time WA president Sebastian Coe, “but we continue to take the view that we must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations.”
It’s not a perfect solution, let alone final. There isn’t one. The words that recur at every turn in this debate are “inclusivity” and “fairness”. They echoed in the BA decision on Tuesday. They remain forever in tension. In the prelude to the Paris Olympics, that tension will not lessen and probably not for many years after that.
At least in the Rodgers case, unlike when transgender matters are on the agenda in the wider community, the hallmark was dignity. For that small mercy, we can be grateful.
