Open Letter re: Abuses Happening in New Brunswick Canada, Gymnastics

Ro Edge
May 20
7 min read

May 19, 2025

To:

Honourable Adam van Koeverden – Secretary of State for Sport, Canada

Isabelle Thériault - Minister responsible for Sports, New Brunswick

Morinari Watanabe – President of the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG)

Wendy Smith – Chair of Gymnastics Canada

Trip Lewis - President of New Brunswick Gymnastics Association & Head Coach of Kingswood Gymnastics Club, New Brunswick

Cc:

Michael Downey – CEO of Gymnastics Canada

Kacey Neely – Director, Safe Sport, Gymnastics Canada

Jennifer Charters – Executive Director of New Brunswick Gymnastics Association

Kathleen Polegato – Manager, Kingswood Gymnastics Club, New Brunswick

Re: Safety, Privacy and Fairness for Women and Girls in Gymnastics – Globally, nationally (in Canada) and provincially (in New Brunswick)

Dear Honourable Secretary Adam van Koeverden, Minister Isabelle Thériault, and Gymnastics Presidents Morinari Watanabe, Wendy Smith and Trip Lewis:

We, the International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS), are a group of women’s organizations from ten countries that advocates for sex-based protections of female athletes across the globe. Our purpose is to represent the concerns of women and girls at all levels of sport.

It has come to our attention through private sources offering firsthand accounts that competitive gymnastics clubs in Canada are places where sex discrimination abounds. Men and boys are being allowed to self-identify into the female category of the sport in a manner that creates havoc for the women and girls involved.

One example in the province of New Brunswick highlights the situation, conveyed here without naming the individuals involved:

A group of young female gymnasts in New Brunswick is being forced to compete against a male-born participant who is older than them. Further, the privacy of all female gymnasts in this place is being violated by allowing the teen-aged male to change in the girls’ locker room where he puts on fake boobs in view of little girls as young as age six. Occasionally, this male has been seen engaging with his girlfriend in behaviour that is sexual in nature in the gym's viewing areas. Clearly, he is attracted to girls, and this doubles the sense of alarm. Parents are told that if their daughters feel uncomfortable with the locker room situation, it is the girls who will have to forfeit their much-prized personally assigned locker and change elsewhere. The person in charge told one girl who complained that she should change either at home in advance of practice or in a single-occupancy toilet on a different floor of the building where she trains. That girl, and any like her, can say goodbye to the social perk of spending time with friends before and after practice.

In other words, sex discrimination is happening both in competition and in the locker room.

But it does not stop there. Team travel poses a third form of discrimination. When it comes time to travel the girls are required to stay in team lodging, which means they might have to share a room with this older male. When parents express their concern for their daughters’ vulnerability to this male being in their intimate spaces on a trip, both the club and the New Brunswick Gymnastics Association said that no girl can be exempt from these (male-female co-habitation) travel arrangements unless she provides a doctor’s letter stating that the dissenting girl has a psychological condition. Even if parents would lie about their daughter’s “psychological condition” to obtain an exemption to travel separately with them, they would incur all the extra costs associated with their daughter’s travel and accommodations.

In summary, there are three types of sex discrimination happening in New Brunswick Gymnastics Association and the local club:

· Little girls being forced to compete in gymnastics against a boy who is much older than them (different age and different sex).

· Little girls being forced to be in a state of undress in front of an older male who expresses overt attraction to females.

· Little girls being forced to face sharing a hotel room with a male on team trips or risk being excluded from team travel.

We, the ICFS, hereby remind everyone involved in this situation – from the Secretary of State for Sport in Canada, to the Minister responsible for Sports in New Brunswick, and to all gymnastics leaders local to international - that willful discrimination against female athletes is a clear violation of the International Bill of Human Rights, the intent of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, Article 10(g)), and the precepts of the Women’s Declaration (Article 7).

When it comes to women and girls, the sport of gymnastics has had a terrible history of scandals. Less than a decade ago, the horrific abuses perpetrated by trusted Team USA doctor Larry Nassar came to light. More recent in Canada we saw the exposure of abuse of a female gymnast out of Sarnia, Ontario.

By and large, sexual abuse in gymnastics happens specifically to girls because they are female and vulnerable. It is not because of some claimed identity, but because of their biological sex.

Forcing girls to undress in front of boys constitutes a form of sexual abuse.

One of the hallmarks of gymnastics abuse scandals is that they tend to occur over a period of years. The longevity of unaddressed maltreatment happens because gymnastics authorities refuse to take responsibility or any concrete actions to stop the abuse. Coaches and administrators alike would rather look the other way.

In the current situation, when it comes to the erroneous placement of a boy causing the female gymnasts to be vulnerable, unhappy and disenfranchised, the typical cowardice of gymnastics leaders is manifested anew with a shrug of the shoulder and the excuse: “It’s the policy! There’s nothing we can do about it.”

The problem with appealing to “the policy” in gymnastics is that guidance on eligibility for female competition is inconsistent.

Globally, there is no explicit policy.

Nationally, the Gymnastics Canada policy is incongruent. Statements made about two distinct characteristics – “biological sex” and “gender identity” – sit in conflict within the same document:

On biological sex it says: “No one shall be denied access to programming or opportunities within GymCan due to their sex assigned at birth.” (Section 2.6)
On gender identity it says: “No one shall be denied access to programming within Canada or opportunities to train, compete, or represent GymCan on the domestic and international stage on the basis of their gender identity or expression. This includes, but is not limited to, those who may identify as transgender, non-binary, or gender non-conforming.” (Section 2.8)

Clearly, gymnastics leadership in New Brunswick chooses to focus on the second principle while completely violating the first. They are deciding that the psychological desires of a boy are more important than mental health, safety, human rights, and team camaraderie of the girls.

What’s nonsensical about this approach is that including a self-identifying male in the girls’ category is not the only way to be “inclusive.” Why not keep the male gymnast in the boys’ category and just ensure that the boys not bully their trans-identified peer of the same biological sex? Why make the girls do all the heavy lifting on ‘being kind’?

The extreme gaslighting of the girls in New Brunswick gymnastics is a form of psychological maltreatment, which is a violation of the Canadian UCCMS item 5.2.1.c (p. 4): “Psychological Maltreatment includes, without limitation, verbal conduct, non-assaultive physical conduct, conduct that denies attention or support… [to the athlete].”

It is ironic that this letter cannot include the Sport Integrity Commissioner of Canada, because reporting to the office of Abuse-Free Sport now shifts to the CCES, the entity in Canada that happens to be the primary promoter of men in women’s sports at the federal level.

This entire situation is both tragic for girls and infuriating for their families.

The denial to female persons the option of a private, single-sex team spaces within which to change and/or to sleep is dystopian and cruel. Officials of various sports in New Brunswick are known to be citing Bill C16 as their rationale for allowing a male person to self-identify into female athletes spaces. This is an abominable interpretation of the legislation. It is by no means the only way “inclusivity” can be achieved. The most inclusive and equitable approach that violates no one’s rights is to stipulate that all male-born gymnasts, irrespective of identity, should remain included in the male category. It is the exclusion from the male category of boys and men who present as feminine that is the real violation of Bill C16.

Globally, we urge the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) and, by extension, Gymnastics Canada and the New Brunswick Gymnastics Association, to update their sport’s eligibility policy in a manner that consistently protects every aspect of the female athlete category from grassroots to elite levels.

As for Canadian sports across the board, we implore Secretary of State van Koeverden to update Sport Canada policy. It is time to establish that male biological advantage (irrespective of personal ideology or identity) cannot be allowed to exist within the female category at any age. Women and girls in Canada deserve to have at least one category in each sport that is female-only. Any other arrangement results in discrimination on the basis of sex.

We, the ICFS, will not stop advocating for these changes until sex discrimination towards women and girls in the sport of gymnastics is completely resolved.

Thanks for your attention to this matter. Please resolve this situation as soon as possible. Please convey the message to gymnastics authorities in New Brunswick that sex discrimination will not be tolerated.

Yours in fair play for all,

Founding Members, ICFS

Email: hello@ICFSport.org

https://www.icfsport.org/