A women's Australian Rules match in Sydney has reignited concerns about the AFL's community-level gender diversity policy, which allows biological male players into women's competitions on the basis of self-identification.
The Southern Power Women's Division 1 side faced Newtown in an AFL Sydney match on 25 April. According to a tip-off broadcast on The Ben Fordham Show on 2GB this week, multiple Southern Power players raised concerns during and after the game about the “overly masculine physiques” of opposing players, who they said “were running faster, they were kicking further, and they were hitting harder.”
“It's not a case of sore losers complaining because they were beaten,” the listener, identified only as Scott, told the station. Southern Power, in fact, won the match. But the coaching staff felt sufficiently uneasy that the club escalated the matter to AFL NSW/ACT.
The state body's response, Scott said, was that the players in question were eligible to compete under the AFL's gender diversity policy for community football. “The individuals qualified to play in the women's league based on the policy that they've put out,” he told Fordham. “That policy, in my opinion, in many people's opinion, fails the public standards test.”
That response is consistent with the AFL's official Gender Diversity Policy for Community Football, issued in October 2020 and still in force. The policy states explicitly that “self-identification of a person's gender identity is sufficient for a person's participation in a Community Football competition that accords with that person's gender identity.” Players are not required to produce a birth certificate or any other identification, and there is no maximum testosterone threshold at community level.
The policy is candid about the trade-off it is making. “In Community Football,” it reads, “considerations of social inclusion have greater priority than concerns that may exist with respect to competitive advantage in relation to the participation of gender diverse players.”
That position stands in stark contrast to the AFL's elite rules. In the AFLW, trans-identifying males wanting to compete in the female competition must produce medical records showing total testosterone below 5 nmol/L for at least 24 months before being eligible to compete, with the option of periodic testing thereafter. No such requirement applies at a community level – where women and girls of vastly differing fitness, age and experience turn out each weekend in a high-impact contact sport. Safety concerns can, in theory, be referred to the AFL's Gender Diversity Policy Committee. But the policy itself sets a high bar: unacceptable safety risks “will likely arise only in exceptional circumstances and will not arise simply from the potential or ongoing participation of a gender diverse person.”
Southern Power's players allegedly left the field with bruises and complaints. Scott told 2GB that it seemed nothing was going to happen because, so far, no one had been seriously injured.
That, he said, is precisely the problem. “Do we have to have a spinal injury, do we have to have a critical event happen at the hands of a collision between a biological female and a gender-neutral person before this is actually addressed?”
Women's Forum Australia CEO Rachael Wong said it was reprehensible that players appeared to be expected to wait for a serious injury before action is taken.
"The AFL is essentially telling female players and their coaches that their concerns for safety come second to so-called inclusion," Ms Wong said.
“Women and girls should not have to sustain serious injuries before the AFL acknowledges what every player on the field can already see. And in fact, we have already been informed of serious injuries that have occurred both in NSW, and in other parts of the country.”
"Women have a right to single-sex sport. Full stop," said Ms Wong. "It is not bigotry, it is not exclusion – it is the entire reason the female category exists. The AFL is treating that right as negotiable, and women and girls are the ones paying the price."
"If the AFL is serious about inclusivity, it should spend its energy promoting mixed and open competitions where everyone is welcome to play – not opening up the women's category to male athletes,” Ms Wong said.
"The worst part of this policy is that it leaves clubs hamstrung,” Ms Wong said. “When the AFL's own guidelines say male players can compete in women's competitions on the basis of self-identification, it becomes very difficult for a local club to protect its female players.”
The episode is not isolated. Sydney's Flying Bats FC, a women's football club that has openly fielded multiple trans-identifying male players, won the 2024 pre-season Beryl Ackroyd Cup unbeaten. Media reporting at the time indicated the team scored 65 goals across the tournament and conceded only four, with one match finishing 10–0. Parents reportedly withdrew daughters from competition on safety grounds, and recent reporting has also indicated opposing clubs were required to sign undertakings agreeing not to refuse fixtures.
Women’s Forum Australia is an independent think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy advocacy on issues affecting women and girls, with a particular focus on addressing behaviours and practices that are harmful and abusive to them. We are a non-partisan, non-religious, tax-deductible charity. We do not receive any government funding and rely solely on donations to make an impact. Support our work today.
| I’ll stand with women ▷ |