Revealed: How Donald Trump spurred stunning call for trans athletes to be BANNED from representing Australia at the Olympics
'The Australian Olympic Committee should be doing what all sporting organisations around the world are doing and recognising that female athletes want to have their sporting categories protected,' Wheeler said on Thursday.
'I'm very glad to see sporting organisations finally recognising the need to protect female-only sport, but frankly speaking, it's taken far too long to get to this point.
'We know that World Athletics, World Swimming, World Rugby, all these peak international sporting organisations over the last five years have realised that women's sport needs protecting.
'It is well past time that Australian sporting organisations start doing exactly the same thing.'
Chandler's stance hasn't changed since she introduced the Save Women's Sport private member's bill to parliament in 2022.
She did so in the hope that it would prevent sporting clubs and organisations from having legal action taken against them for banning trans athletes from competing in single-sex sports for women and girls.
Chandler's latest statement was prompted by the seismic ruling against trans athletes that was reported in America on Wednesday.
The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has complied with Donald Trump's executive order banning transgender athletes from women's sports, according to NBC News.
The report states that the committee updated its policies to prevent trans women from competing against biological females while representing the USA at the Olympics and Paralympics.
It was also reported that national governing bodies of sports federations in the US - which oversee sporting events for all ages - must now follow the Olympic and Paralympic Committee's lead, according to several chief executives of sports within the Olympic movement.
'My Save Women's Sports bill is just as relevant now as it was three or four years ago, when I first introduced it to the parliament, and it's ridiculous that women and girls in Australia don't have a legal right to their own sport,' Chandler said.
Her stance has come in for criticism from Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown, who has backed the Australian Olympic Committee's decision to leave policies on trans athlete up to individual sports.
'We hope they continue to prioritise inclusion and only restrict participation where there is a clear risk to safety or fairness,' Brown told Sky News.
'Sporting organisations across Australia have worked hard to include trans women and to ensure everyone is treated with dignity and can participate safely and fairly.
'As recently as 2023, after extensive consultation and research, the Australian Institute of Sport found there was no case for a blanket ban on trans athletes in any sport, even at the elite level.'
Trans athletes became a huge issue at the 2024 Paris Olympics when boxers Lin Yu-ting and Imane Khelif were wrongly labelled as transgender after they were accused of failing gender eligibility tests that saw them disqualified from the 2023 World Championships.
New Zealand's Laurel Hubbard became the first openly trangender woman to compete at the Olympics when she was an entrant in weightlifting at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
Her qualification for the Games sparked calls for the International Olympic Committee to change its rules.
And last year, Italian sprinter Valentina Petrillo became the first transgender Paralympian when she competed in the Paris Games after winning bronze at the World Para Athletics Championships in 2023.
Senator Chandler's 2022 private member's bill was also slammed when it was announced.
Former Tasmanian anti-discrimination commissioner Robin Banks branded it 'a legislative solution to a non-existent problem' and argued that 'discrimination laws should be about preventing discrimination, not promoting it'.
The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) guidelines state that it is important for all Australians to have the chance to compete in sport.
'All Australians should have the opportunity to be involved in sport and physical activity, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, ability, cultural background or ethnicity,' the ASC writes.
'It is important that sporting bodies, from local clubs through to national sporting organisations, reflect the diversity in the communities they are a part of, and that together, we ensure every person is treated with respect and dignity and protected from discrimination.'
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The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. It couldn't have done it without the west's help
What have we done? As the UN-backed monitor declares that 'the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip', this should have been the question ricocheting between the walls as Keir Starmer met Donald Trump this week. Israel's deliberate starvation of Gaza is, after all, a crime confessed to, designed and implemented in plain sight. Starmer has said the UK will recognise Palestinian statehood if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire and a two-state solution, but don't be beguiled: Palestinian national self-determination is an inalienable right, not a bargaining chip, and it's the most symbolic action he could take rather than, say, imposing sweeping sanctions and ending all arms sales. The hand-wringing of western politicians and media outlets will not feed Gaza's emaciated children, any more than it will absolve them of guilt. Israel's leaders have said, explicitly, repeatedly, from the very beginning, that they are deliberately starving Gaza's people. 'Man-made famine is not something that I've seen in my lifetime,' Martin Griffiths, the UN's former humanitarian chief, tells me. On 9 October 2023, Israel's then defence minister, Yoav Gallant, announced 'a complete siege on [Gaza]: no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel', justified on the grounds: 'We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly'. The next day, the Israeli general charged with humanitarian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank – Ghassan Alian – declared that the 'citizens of Gaza' were 'human beasts' who would suffer 'a total blockade on Gaza, no electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell.' The following week, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised 'we will not allow humanitarian assistance in the form of food and medicines from our territory to the Gaza Strip'. These statements were not reported at all by many western media outlets – or, if they were, it was in passing and with no explanation given about their objectively illegal intent. It's as though these statements were being uttered in a parallel universe, because if they were accurately covered with due prominence, then our media would have been forced to cover Israel's onslaught as a criminal enterprise, rather than a war of self-defence. Israel's western allies knew exactly what it was up to. In March 2024, our then foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, wrote a letter setting out many ruses used by Israel to block aid from entering Gaza, yet Britain took no action. In April 2024, two US government departments concluded that Israel was deliberately blocking aid, which legally required the administration to stop supplying weapons. This was overruled by Joe Biden's team. Later that year, that same administration sent a public letter detailing Israeli aid obstructions, but Tel Aviv correctly calculated this was political posturing during the presidential election, largely ignored the demands and suffered no consequences for doing so. Israel has perpetrated the biggest slaughter of aid workers in history, killing more than 400 by the spring. It waged a relentless war against Gaza's main humanitarian agency – Unrwa, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency – and banned it from the occupied territories last October. Its military killed police officers charged with escorting aid and preventing looting. It's not just the blocking of aid from entering. Israel's onslaught has left nearly all agricultural land unusable, as well as damaging 80% of cropland. Nearly all livestock and most plant life is dead. Gaza's port and fishing vehicles have been destroyed, and Palestinians defying Israel's ban on fishing face slaughter. The massacre of starving Palestinians looking for aid has been a consistent theme. In February 2024, more than a hundred civilians waiting for flour were butchered by the Israeli military, yet – as been the case throughout the genocide – media outlets treated its denials, deflections and lies as credible claims. A detailed investigation by CNN weeks later concluded what should always have been obvious – the Israeli military was to blame – but by then attention had moved elsewhere. In March this year, Israel imposed a total siege, and replaced the UN's effective aid system with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose 'distribution sites' are dystopian killing fields. As the UN-backed IPC notes, that aid is not only far too little, but it is often unusable because Israel has left Palestinians without cooking gas and clean water to prepare it. More than a thousand civilians have been butchered trying to access this aid. As aid agencies have noted, the GHF is designed to coax a starved population to the south, so they can be confined in what the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert described as a 'concentration camp', before being deported. Despite Israel's obvious, transparent, shameless guilt, its lies are indulged by western politicians and media outlets. On Monday, Donald Trump repeated that 'a lot of the food is stolen' by Hamas. This lie has been contradicted by Cindy McCain, director of the World Food Programme, and widow to the hawkishly pro-Israel late Republican senator John McCain. An internal US government analysis found no proof, and Israeli officials have briefed that their military reached the same conclusion. Perversely, it is criminal gangs backed by Israel – which Netanyahu's own former deputy noted are linked to Islamic State – that are stealing aid. The international criminal court's arrest warrants, issued eight months ago, centred on Israel's deliberate starvation for a reason: the evidence is overwhelming. Yet even if Gaza were suddenly flooded with aid, many Palestinians would die because their bodies have been irreversibly ravaged by hunger. And that is not even on the agenda. The 73 trucks allowed in on Monday were forced to take an unsafe route, and then looted. Our own prime minister has been promoting airdrops of aid. These are pinpricks, badly targeted and have killed Palestinians when they've fallen on their heads. All they really achieve is cover for Israel, to pretend it is doing something, deflecting from its deliberate mass starvation. But what else should we expect from Starmer, who backed Israel's right to impose a siege on Gaza at the beginning of the genocide, then tried to gaslight us into believing he hadn't? What have we done? If western elites had any shame, this question would be robbing them of sleep. And the answer would be straightforward. You facilitated the mass starvation of an entire people. You knew what was happening, because of a deluge of evidence for 21 months, and because the perpetrator – your friend – repeatedly boasted to the world about its crime. Alas, the architects of this abomination will not hold themselves to account. That will be left to history – and the courts. Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Oil rally pauses as markets weigh Trump's ultimatum to Russia
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Trump says India deal not finalised, higher tariffs possible
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