Women at Risk from Male ‘Trans’ Player as AFL goes Woke
Three Adelaide football clubs have raised the alarm over a male player competing in a women's competition.
A Local Dispute, A National Question
Three Adelaide Footy League clubs have lodged formal duty-of-care complaints after a player who previously competed in senior men's football was cleared to play in a lower-division women's competition. Concerns hardened after a round five incident in which the male player hit a female opponent who wasn’t near or contesting the ball, though the male player wasn’t reported.
One of the clubs said that they felt “hung out to dry” and that “a player like this shouldn’t be playing local women’s footy”. The Australian Football League’s (AFL) response points clubs to its Gender Diversity Policy: strict testosterone thresholds for male trans players in the elite Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW), but only self-identification is necessary at the community level. While some are upset at the discrepancy between the two-tier policy, the greater concern is the underlying biological differences between men and women.
Why the AFLW's Own “Fix” Doesn't Hold Up
The AFLW's testosterone rule rests on an assumption: that hormone suppression makes competition safe. World Rugby went looking for evidence to support that assumption and came back empty-handed. Its review of the research found that after a year of suppressing the testosterone of men to female-range levels there were minimal changes to the men’s physical performance when compared to the physical differences that naturally exist between men and women. A male player who has already gone through puberty and then suppresses their testosterone maintains an overwhelming advantage over female players.
That is why World Rugby's own consultation, led by researcher Ross Tucker, concluded that being tackled by a man who went through puberty raises a female player's injury risk by twenty to thirty per cent, regardless of that player's current hormone levels. A separate pilot study out of the University of São Paulo measured male ‘transgender’ individuals who had been on hormone therapy for an average of fourteen years, and still recorded grip strength nearly 19% above, and aerobic capacity over twenty per cent above, that of biological women. Fourteen years isn't a policy loophole, it's an entire athletic career.
Also read: The Federal Court Rules: Everyone Must Accept Trans Ideology
A Line the Rest of the World Is Already Drawing
World Rugby became the first major federation to act on this, replacing a testosterone-based test with a sex-based one for women's contact rugby. Its own working group was blunt about why: no workable balance between inclusion and safety could be found while male players who had been through puberty were permitted in women's contact competition, irrespective of their current hormone levels. Federations in cycling, swimming and athletics have since reached similar conclusions: that the thing sport actually measures, strength, speed, power, the physical cost of a collision, does not reset to zero just from taking hormone suppressors.
The Law that puts women at risk
Despite the science showing that women are at particular risk playing in contact sports with male ‘trans’ players, there isn’t much the AFL can do due to a recent ruling by the Federal Court. Giggle vs Tickle has set a legal precedent that will force the AFL to allow male trans players into the women’s league; otherwise they would face discrimination lawsuits. This is due to the Gillard government’s amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act, which now includes ‘gender identity’ as a protected category and no longer includes biological definitions of male and female.
While this law is still in place, women’s-only spaces cannot prevent men who identify as ‘women’ from entering without facing significant lawsuits. This doesn’t just apply to sports, but also bathrooms, schools, prisons, and domestic violence shelters. Until an amendment is passed to change the Sex Discrimination Act, women aren’t safe.
What You Can Do Now
Family in Danger is petitioning parliament directly to amend the Sex Discrimination Act so that "man" and "woman" are defined by biological reality, and "gender identity" can no longer be used to override that definition in a woman's own club, sport, or space.
Sign the petition: Tell Parliament: Women Are Women. Fix the Law.
References
1. World Rugby, Transgender Guidelines.
2. World Rugby, Transgender FAQs.
3. Newsroom NZ, coverage of the World Rugby-commissioned research on injury risk (Tucker report), 2020.
4. Coverage of the University of São Paulo cardiopulmonary and strength study, British Journal of Sports Medicine.
5. Star Observer, "South Australian Football Clubs Launch Complaints About Transgender Player," July 2026.