A/HRC/32/33 being of young athletes is often delegated to States or national sporting organizations. International sporting actors should standardize policies and protocols concerning the participation of children in high-level or professional sport in order to protect the children’s health and other human rights. 49. Finally, States should take steps to fulfil the right to health of all children by ensuring safe access to sport and physical activity and physical education, and through provision of the goods, services, facilities and information necessary to enable all children’s equitable participation. B. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people 50. Historically, sport has often involved forms of “hegemonic masculinity”: boys and men have frequently been enabled or encouraged to exhibit aggressive, violent or discriminatory behaviour in competitive sport, including sexism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia.40 A welcome shift in this paradigm has occurred in a number of regions and countries where homophobia has decreased, where this has included the area of sports. Nevertheless, levels of homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination against intersex people remain high in most countries. Those who are perceived to fall outside dominant gender and heteronormative standards, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, continue to face discriminatory treatment and restrictions in sport, including discrimination, harassment and violence, and a lack of safe and welcoming spaces for participation. 51. Numerous issues arise in respect of persons who are lesbian, gay or bisexual in the context of sport. In a recent six-country survey, 80 per cent of respondents reported having witnessed or experienced homophobia in sport, and nearly 20 per cent of gay men reported having been assaulted during sports activities.41 In certain jurisdictions, lesbian athletes have been harassed and subjected to violence, including “corrective rape”, on the basis of their sexual orientation. 52. Acts of violence, discrimination and marginalization represent human rights breaches that prevent individuals from achieving the highest attainable standard of health. More must be done to secure the full and safe participation of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in sport and physical activity. States should decriminalize homosexuality and repeal other laws used to arrest and punish individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation, and should protect individuals by implementing and enforcing anti-discrimination laws, 42 including in sport. 53. Moreover, sex segregation policies have led to multiple rights violations in sport. Sex segregation has historically been justified on the basis of safety and fairness, rooted in assumptions of male physical superiority. Various legal decisions have noted that this is a generalization and have granted individual girls and women the right to compete in male sporting competitions — although not vice versa.43 Although it is important to preserve 40 41 42 43 Jennifer Hargreaves and Eric Anderson, eds., Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality (Oxford, Routledge, 2014). Erik Denison and Alistair Kitchen, Out On The Fields: The First International Study on Homophobia in Sport (2015). Paulo David, Human Rights in Youth Sport. Erin Buzuvis, “Transgender student-athletes and sex-segregated sport: developing policies of inclusion for intercollegiate and interscholastic athletics”, Seton Hall Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law, vol. 21, No. 1 (2011). 13