Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women’s football in England from 1 June, the Football Association has announced.
It amended its rules on 11 April, applying stricter eligibility criteria for transgender women to continue playing in women’s football at all levels.
However, following the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on 15 April that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, the FA has scrapped that policy and says only those born biologically female will be permitted to play.
“This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary,” the FA said.
“We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify, and we are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game.”
The Scottish FA is set to follow the FA’s ruling by banning transgender women from women’s football in Scotland.
Sources have told BBC Sport that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is also expected to ban transgender women from the women’s game.
The ECB has been taking legal advice on its transgender policy following the Supreme Court ruling and is expected to sanction changes to its transgender policy at a board meeting on Friday.
gone through male puberty would not be able to feature in the top two tiers of the women’s game, but that transgender women were still eligible for the third tier and below.
However, the ECB is expected to follow the FA ruling by banning transgender women from all levels of the women’s game.
England Netball’s new guidelines, which will apply from 1 September, recognise three distinct gender participation categories: female, male and mixed.
The female category would be “exclusively for players born female, irrespective of their gender identity”, while mixed netball will “serve as the sport’s inclusive category, allowing players to complete under the gender with which they identify”.
FA had no choice’ – analysis
The FA is now talking to the 28 transgender women who are registered in England which this change in policy will affect in a bid to look at ways in which they can stay involved in the sport.
In recent years, governing bodies of other sports, like rugby and hockey, had introduced tougher gender policies, adding to the pressure on football to follow suit.
Senior officials insist they have not taken an ideological position on what they see as a complicated issue, and that their task has always been to provide as many opportunities to play to as many people as possible.
But the fact they have had to perform a U-turn on a transgender eligibility policy they updated only three weeks ago will come under scrutiny.
The FA rejects suggestions that it caved in to pressure, claiming it had no choice to amend its approach yet again because its lawyers concluded that the subsequent Supreme Court ruling last month left it vulnerable to potential legal claims from some biologically female players.
But the fact they have done so will be welcomed by those who felt their previous stance was an unsatisfactory attempt at compromise between competing rights and freedoms – one that the critics felt lacked a clear direction, creating unclear and impractical guidelines and potentially compromising female players’ fairness and safety as a result.
Supporters of the trans community will be dismayed by what they see as an unnecessary, exclusionary and discriminatory policy that risks further marginalising a small number of people from the sport they love.
BBC
