Explained: Why the English Football Association has barred transgender women from women’s game

The English Football Association will no longer allow transgender women to play in women’s football from June 1 after a significant change to its policy was confirmed this morning.

The FA had already tightened its eligibility criteria for transgender women and non-binary players as recently as last month but a ruling in the UK’s Supreme Court on April 16 has forced further change.

That verdict, where the legal definition of a woman would be based on biological sex, has now led the FA to amend its own inclusion policy, with transgender women prohibited from playing women’s football a month from today.

What was the FA’s position?

The FA has had a transgender inclusion policy in place since 2015, in their words to help “support the small number of transgender women who would like to play in the grassroots game, providing it can be done without sacrificing fair and safe competition.”

The last decade has seen 72 transgender footballers take part in grassroots games, with the FA previously classifying transgender women as those who have undergone hormone therapy or had a gonadectomy “with results in blood testosterone within natal female range.”

Each player was assessed on a case-by-case basis, with the FA retaining the ultimate discretion over their involvement. Hormone treatment would also be reviewed annually, typically at the start of each season.

Changes to that policy were introduced on April 11, with stricter criteria outlining that reduced testosterone levels would need to be met. Levels had to be below 5nmol per litre over a 12-month period, as well as a “match observation” process of each player wishing to be eligible. That would judge if the player presented a risk to “the safety of competitors, and/or fair competition.”

The FA said its previous policy on a “complex subject” was “supported by expert legal advice”.

What is the FA’s new stance?

From June 1, a month from now, transgender women will not be allowed to continue playing in women’s football. Only those born as biological females will be eligible across all levels.

“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 FA said in a statement.

The FA’s change sees them fall in line with other major sports in the UK. The Rugby Football Union, British Cycling and British Rowing had previously banned transgender athletes from competing under the Equality Act of 2010, which included sporting exemptions if one sex was placed at a physical “disadvantage” against other competitors.

England Netball also followed the FA’s lead this morning by barring transgender athletes from competing. A change to their policy says “the female category will be exclusively for players born female, irrespective of their gender identity.”

Why has it changed?

As the FA made clear in today’s statement, the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on April 16 has forced change across UK sport.

That surrounded a far-reaching case brought by campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS), which challenged the Scottish government’s assertion that sex-based protections in the Equality Act 2010 should include transgender people with a gender recognition certificate.

FWS, which began its legal battle as far back as 2018, asked the Supreme Court to define sex as an “immutable biological state” and won the backing of five judges last month. It was their belief that only biological women met the legal definition of a woman.

“The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Judge Lord Hodge told the court. ”But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not.“

The implications of the ruling have promised to be wide-ranging. As well as transgender women no longer being able to sit on public boards in places reserved for women, it is expected to shape social policymaking on issues such as public changing rooms and women-only spaces.

Football — and other sports — have now felt the impact. The FA said that a “material change in law, science or the operation of the policy in grassroots football” would bring a review and the Supreme Court’s verdict has led to the point where transgender women will no longer be eligible.

How many players are directly affected and what has been the reaction?

The decision is thought to impact between 20 and 30 transgender players, all at the grassroots level of the English game.

The reaction, inevitably, has been polarising. Fair Play for Women, the campaign group, welcomed the decision as a “massive development” on X, while FWS said “not before time” on the same platform.

There are, though, others dismayed by the decision. Goal Diggers FC, a trans-inclusive grassroots team established in 2015, announced last month they had arranged a 12-mile sponsored walk from the club’s training pitches in Haggerston to Wembley, to “deliver a letter to the FA to urge them to rethink their transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming grassroots football policy.” The walk is scheduled to take place on Monday.

Before the FA’s ruling, Natalie Washington, the lead organiser of the Football v Transphobia campaign and who has played grassroots football since 2017, told The Athletic that she feared trans people would be driven away from the sport in the wake of the Supreme Court judgment.

“It happens whenever there is a policy change like this, and it’s already started to happen this week,” she said. “My worry is that trans people will just decide sport is not for them and we will end up with a group of people who are less active, less fit and less happy.”

Washington told told UK broadcaster ITV News today that she would almost certainly have to give up the sport after the FA’s announcement.

“I’m in a semi-rural area, there are no inclusive teams, specific LGBT teams or anything like that, there is only the competitive men’s game and the competitive women’s game, and you can only play in one,” she said. “And if I’m not eligible in one and I’m not safe in the other, then that is probably it for me in terms of playing.”

(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)

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