RIGHTS AOTEAROA CONDEMNS IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS THE GOVERNMENT'S ERASURE OF TRANS PEOPLE FROM SPORTING LIFE

Tēnā kōrua,

Sport is the beating heart of Aotearoa. From touch rugby in every park to netball courts in every school, from surf lifesaving clubs to cricket pitches, sport is where we learn fairness, build community, and discover who we are. It's where every Kiwi kid—regardless of background—gets a fair go. Sport isn't just what we do; it's who we are as a nation.

That's why the government's overnight erasure of Sport NZ's transgender inclusion guidelines is so profoundly un-Kiwi.

Rights Aotearoa condemns in the strongest possible terms this calculated removal of trans people from community sport. When you tell a young trans person they can't play sport with their mates, you're not protecting fairness—you're destroying it. You're telling them they don't belong in their own community, in their own country.

This is Dr Stephen Rainbow's Springbok Tour moment.

In 1981, New Zealanders had to choose: stand with apartheid or stand for human dignity. Today, our Chief Human Rights Commissioner faces the same moral test. Will he stand with a government systematically erasing trans people from public life, or will he stand for the human rights he swore to protect?

Dr Rainbow, history is watching. Every Commissioner before you would have condemned this discrimination unequivocally. Your silence echoes louder than any words. The interview panel rated you "not recommended"—prove them wrong by doing your job, or prove them right by your complicity.

The removal of these guidelines follows the same playbook used in 1933 when Nazi authorities revoked legal protections for transgender people before burning 20,000 books on gender identity. Erasure begins with policy; it never ends there.

Interestingly, this governmental overreach won't achieve what its architects intend. The opening arguments in LAVA v Wellington Pride this week are revealing: LAVA has abandoned any challenge to the Crown Law 2006 opinion protecting gender identity.

They've retreated to free speech arguments because they know trans rights under our Human Rights Act are legally unassailable.

Yet while our laws protect trans people in theory, this government strips away their protection in practice, creating a vacuum where discrimination flourishes on the sports field, in the changing room, in the heart of community life.

What could be more Kiwi than giving everyone a fair go? What could be more essential to our national character than ensuring every child can kick a ball with their mates? Trans kids are our kids. Trans athletes are our athletes. They belong on our fields, in our pools, on our courts—not because of some imported ideology, but because of our deepest Kiwi values.

Rights Aotearoa demands:

1. Immediate reinstatement of Sport NZ's transgender inclusion guidelines
2. Unequivocal condemnation from Dr Rainbow of this discriminatory action—today
3. Public commitment from the Attorney-General to uphold trans rights in sport
4. National conversation about what fairness truly means in a diverse Aotearoa

To Minister Mitchell and Minister Peters: You're using taxpayer money to exclude taxpayers from sport. You're weaponising funding to enforce discrimination. This isn't governance; it's cruelty dressed up as policy.

To Dr Rainbow: This is your defining moment. Will you be remembered as the Commissioner who stayed silent while trans kids were banned from sport, or as the leader who stood up when it mattered? Your legacy is being written today.

To our trans, non-binary, and intersex whānau: You belong here. You belong in every cricket team, every swimming squad, every rugby club in Aotearoa. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Also, as we mentioned to the Attorney-General in our letter* last year, there is no practical method of enforcing trans-exclusionary guidelines in community sport—as opposed to elite sport. If Mark Mitchell wants to create the infrastructure for compulsory chromosomal testing and sex passports, then I look forward to his auto-da-fè by Alia Bee of Voices For Freedom. The Minister for Regulation might have something to say about sex passports on the blockchain, though. Or would we go full Gattaca and have blood tests on every turnstile and compulsory work cheek swabs?

There will be no genocide of trans people while Rights Aotearoa is active.

Sport taught us to play hard but play fair. The government has forgotten both lessons. We haven't.

Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui.

Paul Thistoll  
Chief Executive Officer

It is also signed by the entire Rights Aotearoa Advisory Council (10 People, of whom five are gender diverse, at least two bi, three wāhine, 3 PhDs, 1 MSc(LBS))

*Available at https://www.rightsaotearoa.nz/its-a-good-time-to-republish-this-letter-to-the-ag-re-sports/