Homophobia and transphobia in sport is still rife and Rainbow Wellington has been trying to help make sure that the sporting organisations get on board to help prevent abuse and encourage active participation with the rainbow community in sport.

The 2015 Out on the Fields study found gay boys play team sport at half the rate of their straight male peers and more than half of trans people say they have experienced direct or overt exclusion and discrimination in sport.

We’ve called out Wellington sportspeople and venues when they have screwed up, and advocated directly to Sport NZ to lead in this area.

In December 2022 Sport NZ released its ‘Guiding Principles for the Inclusion of Transgender People in Community Sport‘.

However, in 2024 as part of the National/New Zealand First coalition agreement that “the Government to ensure publicly funded sporting bodies support fair competition that is not compromised by rules relating to gender”. In April 2024, Sport NZ reported to the Government it had no evidence of a code-specific policy position or set of rules that prohibited fair competition. Regardless, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop has asked Sport NZ to review and update its Guiding Principles document. 

It’s understood Sport NZ completed that review and presented new draft Guidelines for current Sports Minister Mark Mitchell to assess. In a letter to Sport NZ on 22 July 2025, Mitchell said the policy in the coalition agreement meant Sport NZ should “no longer have guiding principles published and should leave that decision-making and judgment up to individual sports and community organisations”.

This directive is a depressing example of the Minister giving in to a political ultimatum from a minor party, rather than do what is best for health and inclusion outcomes in Aotearoa. Rainbow Wellington works alongside several Wellington sports organisations and these Principles have been used to help develop community level policies.

Rainbow Wellington will continue to make the Guiding Principles document available on our website, below.

In 2024 RW committee member Craig Watson began facilitating meetings between Wellington sports organisations, allowing them to share their practices for promoting rainbow inclusion. You can contact Craig regarding this group at craig@rainbowwellington.org.nz. 

In December 2024, Robert King, a Sport Scientist with the Wellington Phoenix Academy, spoke at one of our events about his work in encouraging inclusion in AFL in Australia and now football in New Zealand.

Rainbow Wellington continues to support the awesome rainbow sport and recreation groups in Wellington, such as Rainbow Team Wellington and the Racqueteers badminton club. In 2023 we sponsored the Aotearoa Rainbow Inter-club Badminton Tournament.