Aug 89 min read

Open Letter to Mr. Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Re: Response to EuroGames address

Dear Mr. Turk:

The International Consortium on Female Sport (ICFS) wishes to respond to the speech you delivered at the recent EuroGames.

Please find our commentary interspersed within the copy of your speech.

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DELIVERED BY

Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

AT Opening and Closing of EuroGames, 17 and 20 July 2024, Vienna

Friends,

It is a pleasure to address you at the EuroGames 2024.

These games are vital, offering a safe space for athletes and fans, from all walks of life.

They welcome and include so many wonderful athletes, challenge stereotypes, and empower LGBTIQ+ people to embrace their true selves and to engage equally in the world of sport.

ICFS input: Yes, competitive sport is a realm that has traditionally empowered everyone, including both males and females of all races and creeds. Lately, however, adherence to gender identity ideology has threatened to undermine the rights of all female athletes to fairness, dignity and safety (including those who might consider themselves to exist under the LGBTIQ+ umbrella).

Many more spaces like this are needed. In sport – as in other areas – we still see far too much hate, discrimination and exclusion directed at LGBTIQ+ people.

ICFS input: Hate is directed at many female athletes on intersecting grounds and not only based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. It would have been more inclusive to point out the serious underrepresentation of females in sports, in general, as well as the racial and religious discrimination they face.

Around the world – including in Europe – anti-LGBTIQ+ narratives alarmingly are increasing, seeking to roll back progress on human rights and gender equality, and attempts to ban information about and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.

ICFS input: We find it concerning that the High Commissioner for Human Rights is not acknowledging the fact that there is an alarming increase in sex discrimination against female athletes; profiling the self-identity preferences of men as being more important than basic safety and fairness for the female athlete. We are certain that you must be well aware of the attempts to supress and ban information and discussions on sex-based rights of women and girls and the punishment that women experience, including athletes, when they assert their right to non-discrimination.

Violence against LGBTIQ+ people has increased in Europe in the past five years. According to some studies, fewer than one in five people report that they feel able to report such attacks to authorities.

ICFS input: Women in sports have tried valiantly to report attacks and unfairness against them and have been ignored by authorities from grassroots associations to national federations and even to UN officials like you, Mr. Turk.

There are still not enough avenues for appropriate remedy and accountability for victims.

But thanks to the tireless efforts of LGBTIQ+ human rights defenders and civil society, often working in difficult circumstances, important progress has occurred. And we must not lose sight of all the achievements that have been made.

Globally, decriminalisation of consensual same-sex relationships has picked up speed, including in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

More and more States, including in Europe, are banning discrimination, combatting hate crimes, recognising gender identities based on self-identification, ensuring marriage equality, and prohibiting so-called “conversion therapy” and harmful practices against intersex children.

In the world of sport, more federations and events are adopting human rights policies. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex variations is a welcome step.

ICFS input: We are very concerned by use of incorrect terminology when referring to children who claim to have gender dysphoria as “intersex,” as well as the attempts to eliminate the concept of sex-based discrimination by replacing the word “sex” with “sex variations.” As the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Turk, you should be recognizing and upholding, if not defending, the right of female athletes to non-discrimination based on sex, which is an established right in human rights law. The IOC framework is discriminatory in that it ignores this right as well.

We do deeply appreciate the recent efforts to protect the female athlete by international sports federations in rugby, athletics, swimming, cycling and powerlifting. Eligibility policies that are grounded in biological sex are maximally inclusive and protective of LGBTIQ+ athletes. No policy in sport works better to protect athletes of all races and creeds than sex-based policies.

But there is still a long way to go to ensure full respect for human rights in sport.

The main responsibility lies with States: fully and proactively to address these issues, to ensure victims can access remedies, and to prevent further violations.

But others, too, have an important role to play.

Sports federations must “walk the talk” of zero tolerance – too many of them still have discriminatory policies in place, so we need to see stronger efforts in that regard, to implement the IOC framework in line with human rights standards, and by addressing acts of discrimination when they occur.

ICFS input: From the perspective of women’s human rights, the IOC framework is dangerously flawed, because it promotes the inclusion of male athletes in the female category, as we have been witnessing in the sport of boxing at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The IOC can remedy this situation by consulting with women’s groups who can inform them of the need to return to strict sex-based eligibility. Mr. Turk, as UN Commissioner for Human Rights you can play an important role in bringing women like us to the table with the IOC executive committee.

Also, coaches, clubs, and athletes and educators should do everything they can to ensure sport is open to everyone, at all levels – including in schools, community, amateur and professional sport.

Celebrating the richness and diversity of our human family.

Friends,

At their core, sports and human rights both promote fairness, respect, and equal opportunities for all.

They have transformative power. To promote inclusion, and to unite.

ICFS input: Yes, we agree with these last few statements! Over the past 100 years sports has provided the context in which female persons from all walks of life have thrived and elevated themselves into both occupational success and leadership greatness. Your message and position, Mr. Turk, communicate to women and girls around the world that they do not deserve the same fairness, respect, and equal opportunities enjoyed in previous decades and that the feelings and privileges of men and boys is more important if they happen to identify in a particular way.

Thank you to each of you for advancing human rights, not just during these EuroGames, but also back at home and in your communities.

Thank you.

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Mr. Turk, perhaps it would be helpful for us to share with you some of the real-life consequences of policies that ignore sex-based rights and protections for women and girls in sport.

Examples of “inclusion policy” in sports leading to discrimination against women

In the USA, some sports now use self-identification of sex for entry to female facilities and women’s competitions. Young women in American high schools and colleges now find themselves changing in the presence of fully-intact males, as documented by the US swimmer Riley Gaines.[1] Listen to Riley speaking about this experience to hear the emotional impact. Women have been told they may not comment on the presence of these males, or even that they should seek counselling for their “transphobia” if they are troubled by their presence in locker rooms.[2]

A poignant illustration of this level of jeopardy experienced by women happened in the State of Alaska. At a Planet Fitness facility, a man was found in the women’s changing room shaving his beard at the mirror while a 12-year-old girl sat nearby clutching a towel around her naked body, not daring to move because of the presence of the man. A woman came in and told the man he did not belong in the ladies’ room, at which point the man turned and claimed that he had every right to be there because he “identified as a woman.” When the woman reported this incident to Planet Fitness management, they revoked the woman’s membership for being “transphobic,” thereby violating the club’s code of conduct.

Young women have been injured by the greater power generated by males who self-identify into women’s events, such as the high school volleyball player Payton McNabb in the USA. She also reported how she and other female players were afraid of facing the male player ahead of the game.[3] In Australia, women are being injured by a trans-identifying male player in soccer.[4] Recently a professional cyclist in the USA called Hannah Arensman left the sport because of her experience with a male competitor.[5] This is a form of discrimination amounting to emotional abuse. We can provide further examples of videos in which female athletes and their parents describe the emotional turmoil involved in dealing with the immense unfairness of having male-born athletes self-identifying into their sports.

This is an intersectional issue. In the UK, Muslim women have been told they must accept transwomen in their formerly women-only teams, and that this is not against their religion because “transwomen are women.”[6] Orthodox Jewish women have been told the “ladies only” swimming pool is now trans-inclusive – and this means there may be naked male bodies there.[7] Disabled women, or women who have had a mastectomy and prefer single-sex activities, find they are sharing a yoga class or a swimming pool with males, and the changing room afterwards, too.[8] These and other examples are reported here.[9] The emotional impact of such situations can be significant, as these accounts show.

Every woman’s world record in athletics, for every distance and discipline, has been surpassed by hundreds, perhaps thousands of men. In fact, every single one has been beaten by teenage boys.[10] But now, males identifying as women and girls are being granted access to women’s events and teams.

Women have been silenced and most dare not object

Women who wish to oppose this find themselves fearful, silenced or self-censoring, as evidenced in the independent report commissioned by the UK’s Sports Council Equality Group.[11] Women lose either way: they speak up, and risk exclusion for doing so, or they keep quiet, and lose their place in a team or on the podium. It follows that most of these cases go unreported. Commenting on the professional cycling race won by a male in the USA in April this year, retired Olympic cyclist Inga Thompson said, "These women are young, and there's a lot of bullying. They get cancelled, they get silenced, their jobs are threatened. If they say anything, they are eviscerated. And so, instead of fighting this, they just walk away."[12]

An elite female surfer, Bethany Hamilton, spoke out about a male winning a women’s surfing event, saying she knew other women were afraid to do so.[13] In Australia, a woman who objected to the male soccer player who self-identified as trans was visited by the police, and may yet face criminal charges.[14] The tactic of punishing women who object goes back to the earliest examples in 2006 when a cyclist was suspended for three months.[15]

In Canada the government tried to suppress a confidential survey of elite female athletes in which they expressed their concerns.[16]

CONCLUSION

Mr. Turk, it is worth remembering that equal human rights on the basis of sex are an established and explicit cornerstone of international and national human rights and equality law. The UN International Bill of Rights[17], the UN Core Human Rights Instruments and the Olympic Charter outline explicit established rights, protections and entitlements on the basis of sex.

Mr. Turk, please understand that we write this letter to express our profound disappointment and concern about your positions which clearly ignore the established rights of women and girls (female-born persons) that are well established in human rights law and ignores their struggles for equality and non-discrimination. By adopting such positions, your office, and the UN at large, is contributing to the continued discrimination against women and girls in sports.

We women of the ICFS urge you to reconsider your political perspective on this issue and call on you to adopt a truly human rights centred approach.

We ask you to acknowledge that “inclusion policies” have been creating unfair competition for women and girls around the globe. Please recognize that it will take thorough consultation – including with women’s sex-based human rights groups like the ICFS - to truly restore safety and fairness for athletes born female. We will be ready and eager to participate in this sort of UN-supported dialogue.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yours in Sport,

Founding Members, ICFS

Email: hello@ICFSport.org

https://www.icfsport.org/