ECB bans transgender females from taking part in women’s and girl’s cricket
Transgender females will not be able to play in competitive women’s and girl’s cricket in Wales and England after a change of policy from the sport’s governing body.
Trans women have been banned from the top two tiers of elite women’s cricket since the start of this year, but had been permitted to compete in the women’s game up to and including tier three of the domestic game and throughout recreational cricket.
However, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has now extended its policy in light of a UK Supreme Court ruling handed down last month. The change was officially approved at a board meeting on Friday.
The ECB said in a statement: “With immediate effect, only those whose biological sex is female will be eligible to play in women’s cricket and girls’ cricket matches. Transgender women and girls can continue playing in open and mixed cricket.”
New policies
The English and Scottish football associations announced new policies banning trans women from female competition on Thursday.
On April 16 the UK Supreme Court issued clarification regarding terms used in the 2010 Equality Act. Within that clarification, it said that Section 195 of the Act, which permits the lawful exclusion of athletes from gender-affected sports based on sex, was “plainly predicated on biological sex”.
Pool was the first UK sport to change policy following the ruling. England Netball announced a new policy on Thursday but has stressed those changes at had nothing to do with the Supreme Court ruling.
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Common sense. Not discrimination – just common sense.
Ok so trans men on all women’s teams then. If you can’t change sex like you think then that’s just common sense.
What a muddled headline. “Transgender females” is not the same as transwomen. The decision is excluding males from female teams regardless of how they identify. The article is much clearer.
You talk about trans-women being banned from women/girls cricket. Does that mean trans-men are banned from men/boys cricket? Can you complete the story please.
The rule across the board is (statistically speaking) that females pose little to no threat to males, nor do they have an advantage, while the other way around both are (again, statistically speaking) quite significant. So trans women can’t compete with real women but trans men can with real men.The male vs. female rule applies in both cases.