For years, women have been called bigots for saying what everyone knows to be true. That males have an unfair physical advantage over females in sport. Now, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has finally caught up with reality.
The IOC is set to announce a full ban on males in female Olympic events early in the new year. Even if those males say they are women. Even if they have long hair. Even if they throw tantrums. The decision follows a rigorous scientific review that according to Save Women’s Sport Australasia “unequivocally confirms that physical advantages from being born male persist even after testosterone suppression, rendering fair competition in the female category impossible.”
This is a landmark moment for fairness and for female athletes everywhere. Ro Edge, spokeswoman for Save Women’s Sport Australasia, says:
“The IOC’s long-overdue reversal is a victory for science and fairness that has been hard-fought by women around the world. For too long, female athletes have been forced to compete against males under the guise of inclusion. This ends now at the Olympic level – and it must end here in New Zealand too.”
The IOC’s earlier policy was based on a single, deeply flawed study that was authored by a trans-identifying male and opened the door for males to enter female categories across global sport. From there, the rot spread downward into federations, community clubs, and even school competitions.
In New Zealand, girls have been losing races, trophies, and scholarships. They’ve been pushed out of teams, silenced when they object, and told that inclusion matters more than fairness or safety. The damage was real, and it was preventable.
The IOC now admits that these policies are unfair and unsafe. By reversing course, it has not just corrected its own mistake, it has validated everything female athletes have been saying for years.
The same scientific and ethical principles that have driven the IOC’s decision must apply here in New Zealand. As SWSA has demanded:
The Government must fulfil its coalition agreement with New Zealand First and direct all publicly-funded sporting bodies to protect the female category.
Sport NZ must update its policies immediately to ensure that fairness, safety, and opportunity for girls and women are not sacrificed to ideology.
Schools and community sports must be restored to sanity. No girl should have to compete against a boy or share changing facilities with one who “identifies” as female.
Our leaders love to say that sport reflects who we are as a nation. Well, what does it say about us if we allow girls and women to be humiliated, sidelined, or injured for the sake of appeasing activists?
It is also time for Raelene Castle, CEO of Sport NZ, to comply with Government instructions or hand in her resignation. She has dug in her heels and refused to cooperate with clear government orders to bring transgender participation policies in line with biological reality and fairness for women.
This is not new behaviour from Castle. Her track record speaks for itself. As CEO of Rugby Australia, she drove the disastrous handling of the Israel Folau saga, prioritising political correctness over consistency, freedom of belief, and the long-term health of the sport. Now, instead of listening to science and the public, she is repeating the same mistakes at Sport NZ. Stonewalling reform, ignoring ministerial direction, and entrenching divisive gender ideology in our sporting institutions. She has once again shown that ideology trumps integrity in her leadership.
This is a moment of truth. The world’s highest sporting authority has returned to biological reality and fairness. New Zealand must do the same, not next year, not after another “review,” but now.
Every stolen medal, title, and scholarship must be returned to its rightful owner. Every time a male competed in a female category, the outcome was illegitimate. Those podiums, records, and funding opportunities were won under false pretences and at the expense of girls and women who trained, sacrificed, and played by the rules of their sex.
The rectification cannot stop at new policy; it must include restitution. Federations and institutions owe it to the female athletes they failed to acknowledge their victories, restore their records, and return the opportunities that were wrongfully taken from them. Anything less would be to leave injustice uncorrected.
As SWSA puts it:
“The reversal must start at the top and cascade down once again. The Olympics led the charge into this injustice; it must now lead the way out.”
Fair play is not bigotry. Protecting the female category is not exclusionary. It’s the foundation of women’s sport itself.
The era of denial is over. The science is settled. Now let’s protect women’s sport.
Ani O’Brien
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By elocal magazine