NO TROLLS Transgender Discrimination AFL Lawsuit

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The Tilt

All Australian
Oct 12, 2020
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It depends on what the AFL defines as "elite competition". They Equal Opportunity Act only allows exceptions for this (or for religion).
  • Section 72(1): You can lawfully discriminate against a person on the basis of their sex or gender identity if strength, stamina or physique is relevant.
  • Section 72(1A)-(1B): You can lawfully discriminate against a person on the basis of their sex if running a single-sex competition is necessary to progress to an elite level competition or is intended to facilitate the participation of people of a particular sex in your sport

The exceptions apply more broadly than just elite competitions. From the Guidelines you linked (p.12):

"There are three exceptions in the Act which allow sporting clubs to run single-sex competitions in particular circumstances:
1. Exclusion of people of one sex or with a gender identity from participating in a competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina or physique of players is relevant.
2. Exclusion of people of one sex from participating in a competitive sporting activity if participation in the activity is necessary for progression to an elite level competition and the exclusion is necessary to enable participants to progress to national or international elite level competition.
3. Exclusion or restriction of one sex from participating in a competitive sporting activity is intended to facilitate the participation of people of a particular sex, and this is a reasonable approach."

There are three grounds for limiting competition by sex: it being an 'elite competition' is only one of them (number 2). It's pretty clear that the first one allows the AFL to limit eligibility to female participants only (at any level).
 

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Apr 29, 2013
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St Kilda
20210219_145136.jpg
 
The simplest way to end this issue is to not have womens sports. The notion of only allowing women to play is discriminatory in itself. Declare all sport open to anyone. If a woman, man or kid is good enough to play then they play.

this is the only true way to end discrimination in sport. Make it open to all.
And make all teams observe diversity: all genders and races should be represented too.
 

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Sep 15, 2007
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Geelong
And make all teams observe diversity: all genders and races should be represented too.
What about short people. Do they get a shot too? Or disabled?


Professional sport should only be about merit. Merit is the only feature we should discriminate on in professional sport. Not weight or sex or religion or race. Just merit.
 
Sep 15, 2007
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Where i need to be
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Geelong
if its open to all, men dominate. Women stop participating.
First, This is about professional sport. Not sports participation. Discriminate away in regards to participation sport.

Second, how is having open professional football any more unfair to women then it is to men with unathletic genes? I would guess that atleast 90 percent of men have genes that are too athletically inferior to enable them to make it in most professional sports. In both cases subsets of the population are excluded due to genes and not effort. This is no different to other fields. There is no professional piano player with short stubby fingers. No professional mathematician with a low iq.
 
May 5, 2006
62,726
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AFL Club
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Im assuming this sarcasm. Hard to tell these days.

Next time I'll hold up a sign.

Men's sport effectively is open competition. We don't have a men's test team and a women's test team. We have a test team and a women's test team. If there was a female player capable of batting like Steve Smith or bowling like Pat Cummins then you would pick them in the test team. Different in something like boxing where a woman making the weight class for a men's bout wouldn't be allowed to fight for safety reasons. Something like horse racing (other than for the class of race and how it affects the horse) is open. Michelle Payne won the Melbourne Cup, not the women's Melbourne Cup.

If you combined say the Socceroos and Matildas you'd just end up with the Socceroos. So instead of a men's team that's ranked 41st and a women's team that's ranked 7th you'd just have a men's team ranked 41st. Which would achieve precisely nothing.

You are correct there doesn't need to be professional women's sport, but there doesn't need to be professional sport at all. The Matildas lost 7-0 to the Newcastle Jets U/15s. The following year they played in Newcastle and 17,000 people turned up. Can you even buy tickets to watch the U/15s? People pay good money to watch WWE and that's scripted garbage. The standard of any competition (men's or women's) doesn't define its commercial value.
 

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