Photo: AFP
Netball New Zealand will review its policy on trans-gender athletes following World Netball's ban on trans women in international competition.
National netball organisations are able to apply their own policy in domestic competitions and under current guidelines, Netball New Zealand can allow trans athletes to play at the top level provided they get an exemption.
Netball New Zealand (NNZ)'s existing policy statement was based on International Olympic Committee and New Zealand Olympic Committee guidelines.
NNZ head of high performance Stephen Hotter said they would now use World Netball's policy as a guide for what happens in New Zealand.
"We can put in policies to our elite competitions that aren't World Netball competitions, so ANZ Premiership and National Netball League, and we're reviewing what this looks like now and having World Netball's stance being released is helpful in that process so we will now look into that over the next little while and we will come up with our own stance in due course.
"We're committed to providing as welcoming and as inclusive environments as possible but noting that we need to review where this is currently, and what the World Netball guidelines mean is we just need to take our time to look at this very carefully."
Hotter said he could not speculate how many people any changes to their domestic policy for transgender athletes would affect.
NNZ had not had concerns the Silver Ferns would be playing trans women before the policy was put in place this week.
"It's not something that we've openly discussed at any point but it is good to know that World Netball have landed on a policy now."
Until now, World Netball has not had a policy around transgender and non-binary people's participation.
In 2002, swimming was one of the first sports to have the world governing body ban transgender athletes from competing in women's elite events if they had gone through any part of the process of male puberty.
In the same year, rugby league prevented transgender players from playing in women's international competition.
World Athletics, the International Cricket Council and world cycling's governing body the UCI have taken similar stances.
Hotter did not think World Netball was slow to adopt a policy, rather it had been careful in a process that had involved input from different national netball bodies, including New Zealand.
"It is a very important and somewhat complex topic and it is necessary to get right so being the first doesn't necessarily mean you got it right, so I think World Netball went under a strong consultation process and if took them a little bit longer to land on this, then I think that probably just shows they considered everything they needed to."
Hotter supported World Netball reviewing the policy annually.
"There is a lot of science involved and things evolve and so I don't think you can put a policy in place and leave it for five years. I do think reviewing regularly is an important part of this process."
Part of World Netball's reasoning behind the ban on transgender players in international competition was the organisation said the size, strength, power, and speed of athletes affected the risk of injury occurrence, and the severity of injury sustained and that the average strength, stamina and physique of one sex (female) will put them at a disadvantage compared with the other sex (male).
In New Zealand, the Silver Ferns regularly played the Aotearoa Men including in a competitive televised Cadbury Series in 2021 and again in a Quad Series in 2022.
Hotter described these as "practice games" which both sides got something out of.
"The men are generally a very strong team and so if we can go up against a team that is stronger or better than us that puts us in great stead to when we play our international games."
