Darcy Vescio has an announcement

[DJC]

That's something I wrestled with also, Principal LODS. From the meagre research I did (which continues), the issue is not so much Darcy's body, which seems woman, but how Darcy identifies Darcy's gender or otherwise. It's about identity, not body... and that is a challenge for those of us who have a body and identity which seem the same.

I also found the pronoun thing tough... so I just settled on the noun 'Darcy' and gave pronouns the flick. Probably lazy on my part, but it's a start founded on respect.

Back in the 1990s, one of my colleagues was pursuing a PhD about the continuums that are gender and biological sex.  We had many challenging (for me) discussions.  I learnt a lot of stuff that made my head hurt but, eventually, accepted that gender is essentially a social construct with the binary model predominant in western society.  Many societies around the globe have their own long-established traditions of non-binary gender with third, fourth, fifth, or more genders.  Biological sex is not as straightforward as I thought either, with disorders of sex development (DSD), also known as intersex, creating a spectrum rather than the binary assignation of biological sex based on XX - XY, vagina - penis, ovaries - testes.

Darcy's announcement is a bit of a non-event for me.  I don't really give a fat rat's clacker about how anyone chooses to define/identify their gender.  That's their business.  However, I do now know that I shouldn't use female pronouns when referring to Darcy.  My main concern is that Darcy continues to play good footy and wins the goal kicking again this season.

I can't see an issue with the fact that Darcy plays in a women's footy competition.  Eligibility to play in the AFLW is based on biological sex rather than gender identity.  As far as I know, Darcy meets whatever criteria there may be for playing AFLW and self-identification as non-binary when it comes to gender doesn't really matter.