UK Equality Watchdog Makes Statement After Adult Transgender Cricketer Played Against Teen Girls

Parents worry as player 'hits the ball harder than any other' in league

Girls participate in a game of cricket in England on May 10, 2018. Christopher Lee/Getty Images

The UK’s equality watchdog issued a statement on Tuesday saying it’s “likely to be lawful” for sporting bodies to ban transgender athletes in order to ensure fairness and the safety of competitors.

The intervention comes after The Telegraph reported that a middle-aged person who had transitioned from a man to a woman—and who was described by a coach as someone who “hits the ball harder than any other I have seen in the league”—was allowed to play cricket against girls as young as 12.

According to the report, coaches and parents from six counties wrote to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) demanding the governing body explain why the biological male was allowed to compete in first-class cricket with prepubescent girls.

The report said the player had inadvertently injured an umpire and an opponent before. It also quoted parents’ letters, with one mother saying she was concerned for her daughter’s safety, and another parent voicing concerns that the girls would be discouraged from playing the sport.

It also said the player’s club had rejected requests to ask the player to “hold back.”

According to the ECB’s Anti-Discrimination Code, it’s a breach of that code to discriminate against any “protected characteristics” as defined in the Equality Act 2010, such as age, disability, race, and “gender reassignment.”

The ECB didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment at the time of publishing.

A spokesperson of cricket’s governing body told The Telegraph last week that players were allowed to self-identify their genders in recreational cricket, but the rule was under review.

“Transgender participation is a complex area,” the spokesperson said.

“In recreational cricket, the eligibility of players is based on their own self-identified gender, with no medical requirements. However, in light of guidance from the UK Sports Council’s Equality Group (SCEG), we are currently reviewing. We will continue to consult with Sport England and other independent experts and will communicate any changes once this work is complete,” the ECB added.

A girl practices her batting in the nets at a cricket ground in London on Nov. 11, 2015. Dan Mullan/Getty Images

However, the UK’s equality watchdog said the Equality Act does permit discrimination on the grounds of age or sex in sports under certain circumstances.

“Every sport is different and the circumstances of each case of this type will vary," a spokesperson for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

“However, the Equality Act permits sporting organisations to discriminate on grounds of age and sex in relation to sporting activity and provides that sports can be lawfully segregated in certain circumstances.”

The EHRC said the Equality Act recognises the need for “age-banded” sport, where particular age groups might be advantaged as competitors compared to other age groups, to ensure fair competition or competitor safety, to comply with the rules of a national or international competition, or to increase participation in the activity.

The act “also makes provision for sports, games, or other competitive activities that are affected by sex, where ’the physical strength, stamina, or physique of average persons of one sex would put them at a disadvantage compared to average persons of the other sex as competitors in events involving the activity.'”

“The Act additionally permits organisations to discriminate on grounds of gender reassignment where this is necessary to secure fair competition; or the safety of competitors,” the statement reads.

“It is therefore likely to be lawful for a sporting body or organisation to restrict participation by sex, gender reassignment, or age where they can evidence that it is necessary to do so in order to secure fair competition or the safety of competitors.”

It’s the second time in a month that the EHRC clarified rules around transgender people in sports.

In an unprecedented move earlier this month, the EHRC issued a statement on UK Athletics’ position on trans people’s participation in British athletics (pdf), saying the governing body of British athletics had publicised “inaccurate advice.”

Urging the government to change the law, UKA said it wanted to reserve the women’s category for biological females while replacing the men’s category with a new “open” category, which would include transgender women. But the body’s chair Ian Beattie said the plan is not permitted under the Gender Recognition Act, which he said “states that people with gender recognition certificates have to be treated as female for all purposes” without an exemption for sports.

The EHRC statement asserted that UK Athletics had inaccurately interpreted the law, and that gender recognition certificate holders “can be lawfully excluded under the ‘sporting exemption’ in the Equality Act for reasons of fair and safe competition.”

In September 2021, the Sports Councils’ Equality Group updated its guidance for transgender inclusion in domestic sport, saying British sports governing bodies would have to choose either transgender inclusion or fairness and safety as their priorities, because they often cannot co-exist in a single competitive model.