A women’s soccer competition has been won by a team in which five players are transgender.

The Flying Bats took out the North-West Sydney pre-season cup by winning 6-2, 10-0 and 5-1 in the early rounds, then taking out the final 4-0.

With figures like that, you’d think the Bats had some kind of unnatural advantage.

They certainly intimidated the opposition. Some players on other teams refused to take the field. Some of the girls in the contest are aged only 15, while some of the transgender Bats are aged 30.

The Flying Bats. Note: not all the team’s biologically male players are present in this photo

Parents are rightly concerned about the physicality of these male players and the possible risk of injury to their daughters.

Several clubs discussed forfeiting against the Flying Bats but were threatened with disciplinary and legal action if they did.

NSW Libertarian MP John Ruddick published on X transcripts of meetings between concerned club representatives and the North-West Sydney Football Association, in which the threats were made.

His posts went viral around the world.

People were alarmed that the North West Sydney Football Association and Football NSW would rather allow men to play in a female competition than protect the women intimidated by the men’s dangerous physicality and prowess.

At the meeting one former club delegate explained an incident where a female player had her leg broken in two places by a male player who identified as trans. He was never disciplined for the tackle. The girl has stopped playing the sport.

Football NSW insists biological men can play in the women’s competition if they identify as a woman. But then they refuse to define what a woman is, so what exactly are the men identifying as?

North-West Sydney Football CEO Matthew Geracitano sent an email to club presidents explaining that the women in amateur competitions were governed by a ruling by the Human Rights Commission, which was that, in his words: “Players in grassroots football are free to play in competitions where they identify.”

Stricter rules applied in the professional and semi-professional leagues, he said.

The hypocrisy is undeniable. At the elite level, men who identify as women are still men, but at grass roots they are not. How embarrassing!

Meanwhile, girls and women are forced to either self-exclude or stand up and risk being embroiled in a long, expensive battle.

It is up to the women to correct this injustice. They simply want to kick a ball around a field, not be dragged through court and have their reputations smeared and wallets emptied.

Football NSW have also announced that the Flying Bats will be included in round 1 of the Sapphire Cup, another competition meant to celebrate women’s soccer.

“It’s great to see the hype and promotion circled around the Sapphire Cup following on from a successful opening year in 2023,” said Football NSW’s competitions co-ordinator Wade Giovenali.

He might not have noticed that whatever hype and promotion was generated for the league last year has been eclipsed by his organisation’s embarrassing capitulation to the trans lobby at the expense of the women he supposedly is encouraging.

The officials at Football NSW are out of touch with reality and public sentiment, which is probably why they are trying so hard to silence debate.

No one can change their sex.

Men cannot become women.

Girls and women deserve sex-based rights, sports and services.

Kirralie Smith is the national spokeswoman for Binary, an organisation dedicated to the protection and promotion of women’s sex-based rights, child safeguarding and parental rights in the face of radical gender ideology. www.binary.org.au