Melbournians stuck in traffic on the frequently congested Punt Road would have seen an exciting billboard last week. ‘Fair Sport for women. No men in women’s sports!’ It was put out by new grassroots organisation, Women’s Rights Network Australia (WRNA). And it’s timely.

?IMPORTANT NEWS!⬇️

‼️FAIR SPORT FOR WOMEN BILLBOARD IN MELBOURNE‼️

Over the next week, thousands++ of commuters & passers-by will see our #FairSportForWomen campaign billboard!!

This is HUGE! ???

?Please share!

Learn more about our campaign: https://t.co/6Z3O2flpD9 pic.twitter.com/kUytlHMJU7

— Women’s Rights Network Australia (@WRNAustralia) August 14, 2023

An estimated 4.17 million Australians tuned in to watch the Matildas’ epic, nail-biting, shootout against France. And that figure more than doubled to 11.15 million viewers cheering on the Aussies against England. It really feels like a watershed moment for women’s sport, with women’s competition finally being taken seriously. Since then, $200M in funding has been announced.

But would the Matildas have won against France if France had five men on their team and one of those men was the goalie? Unlikely. WRNA have taken the opportunity to point out that every major sporting organisation in Australia allows men to compete as women.

The WRNA have organised for women to go into Melbourne city and hand out thousands of fliers calling for fair sport for girls and women. 99 per cent of the responses have been positive. And they noticed a trend of people refusing a leaflet out of habit, taking a few steps before realising what they’d just heard, realising this is a cause they care about, and then coming back to say, ‘Actually yes, I’ll take a flier.’

Of course, there’s the odd LGBTQ+ ally who screams at them about ‘transphobia’. But the empty accusation of transphobia is nothing compared to the ongoing humiliation experienced by girls and women who want an even playing field. And it’s happening in soccer.

I know of a small town women’s soccer league where a man has bullied his way into the competition. During a game, a player yelled out ‘man up!’ – a common phrase used in team sports which simply means each player picks an opponent and sticks to them, shadows them, making it harder for their opponents to pass the ball around. The male player took this very personally and threw a tantrum – how dare she call him a man! His rage continued after the game, all the way to the carpark, where he had to be physically restrained from assaulting the woman who dared utter the phrase. Can you imagine?

The Punt Road billboard motivated me to visit WRNA’s website and see what I can do to support their work. On their Take Action page they list the state and federal sports ministers, mostly Labor MPs, who’ve either sat on their hands and done nothing while this assault on reason has played out, or they’ve actively encouraged it.

WRNA give examples of text you can email to sports minsters. But I decided to write my own email. And I wasn’t as polite as I’ve usually been in the many, many emails I’ve sent to Australian politicians on these issues. I told the Labor MPs they should be ashamed of themselves for supporting the inclusion of men in women’s sports. I’ve received one response and it was what we call troll level.

It led me to wonder if the Minister for Sport is genuinely unaware that men are competing in women’s sport all over Australia, cheered on by the head of Sports Australia, the ABC, and the Australian Human Rights Commission. Does the minister understand why this is an issue? I’m half expecting his next response to be something along the lines of, ‘But trans women are women, so there are no men playing in women’s sports.’

Sports ministers who have said and done nothing in defence of girls and women are complicit in the destruction of women’s sports. They are hypocrites, riding high on the success of the Matildas, saturating their Twitter feeds with their victories, as though the Sports Minister had something to do with the achievements of these women, all the while turning a blind eye to the outrage of girls, women, and parents around Australia.

I’ve now asked directly whether the Minister for Sports supports biological males competing in women’s sports. No response. The majority of Australians don’t support men in women’s sports, so I imagine that figure to be similar amongst MPs. Who will be the first Labor MP to break rank and say what they really think?

I encourage all Australians to take 10 minutes out of your day, go to the WRNA website and do what I’ve done – email the Minister for Sports and tell him you don’t support this. See if you get an idiotic response like I did. Email the major sporting codes and tell them to cut ties with transgender lobby groups that have forced this intolerable situation on girls and women. This isn’t going to change unless we collectively say, No! to men in women’s sport.