Today’s newsletter from Senator Claire Chandler catalogues the ideological ferociousness of transgender activists and the floppy backbones of the sports authorities.

If you’re a woman and you’re reading this newsletter, there’s a fair chance you’ve been called a ‘TERF’ by trans activists and their supporters in the media and politics. It’s their go-to insult for any woman who recognises the reality of biological sex or insists that women should be entitled to single-sex sports, spaces or facilities. Often, the slur is accompanied by threats of violence or misogynistic insults. Here are the consequences of the celebration by many on the left of online abuse of women, and their rush to cheer on males invading women’s sport. Male MMA fighter Fallon Fox, who chooses to fight women and once fractured a female athletes skull, is openly bragging about punching ‘TERFs’ (meaning women who recognise the person punching them is male) in the face. Fox describes this as ‘doing my part’. This is nothing more or less than a male bragging about violence against women, with an implicit threat that there are other activists out there willing to do the same to anyone they label a ‘TERF’. And if you think that Fox is just an isolated crank, you’d be wrong. Fox has been breathlessly praised as “inspirational” by activist groups and worldwide media outlets. Most troubling for Australian women might be the Twitter reaction to Fox from an Australian activist who was invited to participate in the development of Sport Australia’s infamous guidelines stating that women’s sport should be based on self-affirmed gender rather than sex. In response to Fox’s brag about the “three times where I’ve punched a TERF in the face”, the activist who helped set Sport Australia’s position on allowing males into women’s sports said “You legend [heart emoji]”  It’s no wonder that public support for sporting bodies and governments to protect women’s sport is growing. The more the public sees of males who force their way into women’s sport, the more we see the motivation behind it and how dangerous and unfair it is to female athletes. The Australian Rugby League commission is the latest Australian sporting body to realise it might be unpopular if they expose TV audiences to male players smashing into females. Media reports this week revealed that the NRLW has an application for a male to play in the country’s top-level women’s competition. This is an unsurprising development because the NRL’s own policies actively encourage males identifying as women to play women’s competitions. Apparently, women and girls at their community clubs being forced to take hits from male players wasn’t a reason for the ARL to review their policy, but the prospect of it happening live on TV might be.  This is not complex – males should not be playing in women’s rugby league competitions at ANY level. It won’t be good enough for the ARL to minimise their own PR risk by making only elite level competition single-sex, while continuing to force female players at community level to play against males. As my Save Women’s Sport Bill makes clear, all Australian women and girls must be supported, protected and entitled to single-sex sport.   Senator Claire Chandler Liberal Senator for Tasmania