Step 3: Integrate inclusion in strategies, policies & guidelines

Integrating inclusion into your club’s strategies, policies and guidelines will help to eliminate discrimination, harassment, and other forms of inappropriate behaviour toward members of the LGBTIQ+ community. This will also ensure that everyone is aware of their legal and ethical rights and responsibilities.

Ensure your club has an inclusion policy or guidelines

Having an inclusion policy or guidelines will help to:

• ​Ensure that your club provides a safer and more welcoming environment for your diverse member demographic by eliminating discriminative behaviour
• ​Apply standards that enforce a zero tolerance of discriminative behaviours based on sexual orientation, gender identity, culture, ability or ethnicity
• ​Affirm your club’s support of gender affirming practices in your sport competitions, programs and operations
• ​Allow everyone to have a choice on which competition they would like to play in, based on their gender identity

​It should be noted that if your club is in a competition that relies on ‘competitive sporting activity’ exemption, your club should make that policy available to your club members.

Your club should also have a process in place that explains to club members how the governing body assesses the exemption request and what needs to be done to gain that exemption.

Your club can adopt a template set of guidelines for the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ people in community sport.

There is a template that has been developed by Proud 2 Play, in conjunction with VicHealth. UniSport has adapted this for use by university sport clubs.

Make a pledge

Have your committee make a pledge to commit to the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in your club.

Download UniSport’s Pride Pledge template.

You can add your club’s logo to the template.

Once you’ve downloaded the Pledge template and added your club’s logo, we encourage your club to display the pledge on your website, social media channels and any other communication mediums deemed appropriate.

Have a champion for gender diverse inclusion

Have a champion for transgender or gender diverse inclusion on your committee or in your club.

You can appoint a Pride Ambassador, who can be an advocate for LGBTIQ+ people at your club. Ambassadors will assist their clubs to provide a safe, respectful, and welcoming environment for LGBTIQ+ members to participate and prosper.

Consider distributing the work amongst a group of people rather than just one person, as this may make the work easier to achieve and ensure it is more sustainable.

Put out a position statement

Publishing a position statement helps your club to clearly define its position on gender and sexuality, which can help guide your club in its activities.

Your club can adopt the UniSport position statement on gender and sexuality and amend it to suit.

UniSport Position Statement on Gender and Sexuality:

“UniSport understands that gender diversity refers to a diverse range of gender expressions and identities and that anyone can compete at UniSport events. UniSport recognises under federal and state antidiscrimination and equal opportunity legislation that it is against the law to discriminate against people on the basis of gender identity or intersex status. However, there are situations where it is permissible to discriminate based on sexuality or gender identity (refer to UniSport Inclusion and Diversity Guidelines for permissible exemptions).”

It is recommended that you publish the position statement on your club website, social media channels and any other communication mediums deemed appropriate.

Provide team uniform flexibility

For some trans and gender diverse athletes, a lack of choices surrounding uniforms may act as a barrier to ongoing participation. This is especially true for athletes who may be undergoing different stages of transition.

Uniform codes should enable all athletes and sports participants to dress in accordance with their gender identity.

Wherever possible, uniforms should be gender neutral and comfortable for all members of the team.

It is recommended that if gendered uniforms are necessary, then your club should allow participants to choose which uniforms they would prefer to wear.

Your club should also ensure:

• ​Appropriate sizes are available for selection
• ​Design options are suitable for different body types and shapes

Ensure registration forms are inclusive

Registration forms and the collection of personal information can provide a barrier to participation for transgender and gender diverse people.

You can address this by implementing structures and safeguards regarding the collection and use of personal information, particularly when it relates to name and gender.

Some things to consider when setting up your registration forms:

• ​Include pronoun and preferred name options – click here for more information on pronouns. 
• ​Provide an option for the member to select a non-binary gender identity
• ​Accept legal declaration (such as a statutory declaration) of names, rather than legal documents.
• ​Instead of a field ‘gender’ replace this with ‘gender identity’
• ​Include a field ‘sex’ with an option of ‘prefer not to say’