Transgender Athlete Barred from Australian Women’s Basketball League
Authored by Daniel Y. Teng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Transgender athlete Lexi Rodgers has been barred from playing in the NBL1 South women’s basketball league in the Australian state of Victoria.
The decision was handed down by an expert panel after former NBA star Andrew Bogut broke the news of Rodgers’ involvement.
In a statement on April 18, Basketball Australia said former AFL Chief Medical Officer Dr. Peter Harcourt, Olympian Suzy Batkovic, and Associate Prof. Diana Robinson concluded that Rodgers was ineligible to play for the Kilsyth Cobras.
“Firstly, on behalf of Basketball Australia, I’d like to acknowledge and sincerely thank Lexi for her cooperation, understanding, and patience throughout this process—it’s a complex space that continues to evolve,” said Batkovic.
“While Lexi is understandably disappointed with the outcome, I know she’ll continue to support her NBL1 South team throughout the season and be an active member of the basketball community.”
NBL1 sits just below the country’s top-flight basketball competition, the National Basketball League.
Reaction to the Decision
Basketball Australia maintained that it would assess transgender applications on a “case-by-case” basis and consider a “balancing range of factors.”
Rodgers and the Kilsyth Cobras team have been informed of the decision.
In response, Rodgers wrote on Instagram that she had participated in good faith in the process, saying it was not the end of her journey.
“I am sad about the potential message this decision sends to trans and gender-diverse people everywhere. I hope that one-day basketball’s governing body can replicate the inclusion and acceptance I have found on the court with my teammates,” she wrote.
However, Bogut said it was the right decision.
“It is beyond alarming we live in a time where an ‘expert panel’ is needed to make these decisions,” he wrote on Twitter. “Don’t let the activists try and overcomplicate what is simple: Women’s sports are for Women.”
Bogut had earlier accused administrators of a lack of transparency around Rodger’s participation.
“Members of that club don’t know. Other teams in that league don’t know,” Bogut said on Instagram. “I’m not afraid to speak about it. I think it needs to be discussed.”
“This athlete in question has already played the game. From what I understand, a friendly game against a team that had no idea it was going forward. They asked some questions, apparently before the game [and] the game still went ahead—kind of like, ‘Too bad, deal with it.’”
The head of Christian Voice Australia, Greg Bondar, said transgenderism was a growing trend that was impacting more and more younger people.
“The Williams Institute at the UCLA Law School reports that the number of young people identifying as transgender has doubled in just the last few years and that one out of five people who identify as transgender are 13 to 17 years of age,” he said in a statement.
Transgender Players in Sport a Contentious Issue
Meanwhile, the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports has received much public scrutiny.
In early April, criticism was aimed at transgender golfer Breanna Gill who won the Australian Women’s Classic at Bonville Golf Resort in New South Wales.
“Thoughts on having a transgender-specific league? Or transgender-specific sports?” wrote Hailey Rae Ostrom, a U.S. professional golfer, on Twitter.
While global swimming administrator FINA voted on June 2022 to regulate transgender athletes more stringently, only allowing biological males into women’s competitions if they had not experienced puberty yet.
Athletes must maintain testosterone levels below 2.5 nmol/L. Around 71 percent of FINA’s 152 members voted in favour of the new rule.
Additionally, The World Athletics Council has banned biological males from competing in elite female competitions and tightened testosterone restrictions for other athletes, stating that its top priority is to maintain the integrity of the female category in athletics.
The Council said in a statement that it has agreed to exclude male-to-female transgender athletes who have been through male puberty from the female World Rankings competition, effective from March 31, 2023.
Meanwhile, U.S. beverage giant Bud Light saw its sales plummet following the release of an advertising campaign featuring transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.
Restaurant owner Jeff Fitter, owner of Case and Bucks, reported sales of the brand’s bottled products dropping 30 percent over the past week, and draught beer plummetting 50 percent.
“In Bud Light’s effort to be inclusive, they excluded almost everybody else, including their traditional audience,” he told Fox Business.
CEO of the parent company, Anheuser-Busch, was forced to apologise for the ad.
“We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer,” said Brendan Whitworth, in a statement.
Bud Light’s customer base is comprised largely of sports fans and middle Americans.
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