There will be no shortage of people today thinking that it's a brilliant move by the Government to ditch official guidelines for including transgender people in community sport and leaving it to the sporting organisations themselves to handle it.  

But I think it’s just going to open a can of worms, and these people who think it’s great might think differently if they were on the committee of one of their local sporting clubs.  

Because this is not elite sport we’re talking here, this is all about community sport.  

And, however you might feel about transgender people competing in sport, you’ve got to admit that having guidelines on how to handle what can be a pretty fraught issue can only be a good thing.  

Tell that to the Government though. Or, more specifically, tell that to NZ First.  

Since 2022, sporting organisations and clubs have had these guidelines to work with, which say: “Transgender people can take part in sports in the gender they identify with”.   

But now sporting organisations and sporting clubs are going to be left to handle it on their own.  

NZ First wanted these guidelines ditched and, as a result of its coalition deal with National, Sports Minister Mark Mitchell wrote to the head of Sport NZ yesterday telling her to pull the plug on the guidelines.  

The objective being to ensure that everyone competes on a level playing field and things aren’t compromised by gender-based rules.  

Mark Mitchell says, when it comes to sport, the Government has a role to play in creating sporting opportunities for people, but it's not up to the Government to decide who should be included and how.  

Which I think is a rather elegant way of describing it.  

But it ignores the fact that, whether people like it or not, this is something that isn’t going to go away. Transgender people wanting to play sport and compete in the categories they want to compete in isn’t going to go away.  

NZ First might not want to hear that. And anyone who thinks that someone born a male, for example, should only be allowed to compete against other males won’t want to hear that either.  

But taking away these guidelines helps no one. Because, surely, something is better than nothing.   

If you’re on the committee at your local rugby club or cricket club, for example, and someone who is transgender signs up to play and, let’s say they identify as female but are biologically male, what are you going to do?  

For the past three years, you would have had these guidelines to refer to. Not that they were explicit rules, but they were guidelines – better than nothing.  

Now the people on the committees at rugby clubs and cricket clubs and all sporting clubs and organisations up and down the country are going to be flying blind. And with everyone having their own personal views, it’s going to be a headache.  

Mark Mitchell reckons “fair-minded New Zealanders” will be in favour of these changes, which he says are based on safety and fairness.  

But all we’re seeing here is politics and if I was running a sporting organisation or a sporting club, I’d be saying “thanks for nothing” to the Government. 

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