New Zealand transgender athletes can compete as sex they ‘identify’ with in sport: Katherine Deves

Transgender athletes will only need to ‘self-identify’ as the gender they want to compete as, after a New Zealand governing body approved new guidelines for community sport.

Athletes will not need to justify or prove their gender, Sport New Zealand (SNZ) said on Tuesday, adding that the rules would not apply to elite sports.

It would be up to each sport to decide how transgender people can participate in top-level sports.

Former NSW Liberal candidate Katherine Deves criticized the decision, calling it a “total betrayal” of girls and young women.

The news comes after Kiwi weightlifter Laurel Hubbard (pictured) became the first transgender to compete at the Tokyo Olympics last year.

“Sport New Zealand is completely betraying women and girls, fathers and daughters, supporters of women, they have just opened up the women’s category as a complete free game for all,” said Ms Deves.

And I hate to think that little girls’ dreams will be shattered, women will be hurt, if not worse. It is a complete abdication of her duty to women.

The former Warringah seat hopeful, who co-founded Save Women’s Sports, to lobby against transgender participation in women’s competition, argued that the guidelines are unfair.

“The men’s category is faster, bigger and stronger than the women’s category,” he said.

“That’s why we have divisions in sports, we have them by age, disability and ability.”

Sport New Zealand’s decision comes after New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first transgender athlete to compete at the Tokyo Olympics last year.

Ms Deves, co-founder of Save Women’s Sports, which fights against transgender participation in women’s sports, erased the guidelines.

The governing body, in issuing the new guidelines, said it is “essential that community sports leaders commit to ‘inclusion’.”

As part of that, SNZ urges community sports groups to “show that commitment by using the preferred pronouns of transgender competitors and even appointing inclusion officers.”

The organizations’ governing directors also recommend that local sports organizations look at eliminating urinals to make restrooms ‘gender-neutral’ where appropriate and redesign uniforms to accommodate different shapes and sizes.

Athletes will not need to justify or prove their gender, Sport New Zealand (SNZ) said on Tuesday, adding that the rules will not apply to elite sports (pictured, Jacinda Ardern with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in Hanoy , Vietnam last month )