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'Banning trans people is disgraceful', says Sevens gold medallist Ellia Green after transitioning

Ellia Green is pictured with his daughter Waitui in Sydney, Australia, Monday, Aug. 15, 2022 - AP
Ellia Green is pictured with his daughter Waitui in Sydney, Australia, Monday, Aug. 15, 2022 - AP

Olympic gold medallist Ellia Green believes rugby union’s banning of trans players could lead to more suicides.

One of the stars of Australia’s Olympic gold medal-winning rugby sevens team at Rio in 2016, Green has now transitioned to male. And he has a grim warning for bodies like the Rugby Football Union and Irish Rugby Union, who recently announced they had reversed their decision on trans athletes playing in the women’s game.

In England, a two-year review led the RFU Council to adopt the recommendation that anyone whose sex was assigned as male at birth will be prohibited from participating in girl’s or women’s rugby. In Ireland the new rule means contact rugby for players in the female category is limited to those whose sex was recorded as female at birth.

This follows a lead taken by World Rugby, but Green believes it is a “disgraceful” decision that could lead to dire consequences.

“Banning transgender people from sport is disgraceful. It only means the rates of suicide and mental health issues will get even worse,” the 29-year-old Green said in an interview in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Green retired from rugby in 2021 and experienced mental health issues, admitting to being in a “dark place”. He underwent surgery to transition to male and is now in a relationship with Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts, and the couple have an infant daughter, Waitui.

 Ellia Green with his partner Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts and their daughter Waitui pose in Sydney, Australia - AP Photo/Mark Baker
Ellia Green with his partner Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts and their daughter Waitui pose in Sydney, Australia - AP Photo/Mark Baker

Assigned female at birth, Green was adopted by Yolanta and Evan Green and moved to Australia from Fiji at the age of three. He saw his mother involved in domestic violence, and being abused in another relationship, which caused him “a lot of long-lasting trauma”.

“I guess from witnessing that, I knew from an early age that was not [the kind of] relationship I wanted to have, but it shaped me to know how a woman should be treated,” said Green.

Now Green is sharing his life experiences in a video that is due to be shown to participants at an international summit on ending transphobia and homophobia in sport. The summit is being hosted in Ottawa as part of the Bingham Cup rugby tournament.

A flying wing in the Aussie side that beat New Zealand in the first Olympic Sevens tournament six years ago, his concern now is that with so few elite trans athletes, coupled with negative social media projection and World Rugby’s decision to bar transgender athletes from playing the women’s game, could cause more harm to children.

Some studies say more than 40 per cent of trans youth had considered attempting suicide and the only other transgender or gender diverse Olympic gold medallists are Caitlyn Jenner and Quinn, who goes by one name and was part of Canada’s winning women’s football team that triumphed in Tokyo last year.

“Pretty much my rugby career ended and I had been in and out of mental health facilities for serious issues. My depression hit a new level of sadness,” admitted Green, who just missed out on selection for the delayed Tokyo Games last year.

“I spent a lot of time after I finished up my career with Australian rugby just in the house, in a dark room. I didn’t have the confidence to see anyone.

“I was ashamed of myself, I felt I had let a lot of people down, especially myself and my mom. I felt like a complete failure, it was heartbreaking.

“The one thing that did keep me positive is that I had already planned my surgery and treatment towards my transition. It was something I was counting down the days with my partner.”

Green’s comments come at a time when a study by the University of British Columbia in Canada and Monash University in Melbourne has highlighted a disconnect between rugby’s leaders and the women who play rugby. The survey shows that while about 30 per cent of women think trans women have an unfair advantage they overwhelmingly do not support banning trans athletes from rugby.