Sports governing bodies across the UK are waking up to the fact that letting biological men into the women’s category and into their changing rooms is not the ‘inclusive’ measure they thought it was. There is growing evidence that it is the very opposite, a policy that drives women and girls away from sport.
On 1 May, the governing bodies for Scottish and English football dropped their policies allowing trans-identifying male players into women’s teams if they demonstrated lowered testosterone levels. The England and Wales Cricket Board, which governs cricket in England and Wales, abandoned its two-tier policy of female-only in the top two tiers of women’s cricket and self-identification for all the rest. England Netball finally followed its world governing body in recognising that women’s games must not include male players.
Other national governing bodies are defending flawed policies. This is illustrated by the Table Tennis England policy, which is a typical example from
