Transgender players who have been through male puberty will not be permitted to play international women’s cricket under new ICC gender eligibility regulations

The International Cricket Council has become the latest sports body to ban transgender players from the elite women’s game if they have gone through male puberty.

The ICC said it had taken the decision, following an extensive scientific review and nine-month consultation, to “protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players”.

It joins rugby union, swimming, cycling, athletics and rugby league, who have all gone down a similar path in recent years after citing concerns over fairness or safety.

  • ThatOneKirbyMain2568
    5•7 months ago

    Hmm, fair point. I can see how increased ball velocity and decreased reaction speed could make an injury more likely. Nevertheless, I still have these doubts:

    • How much of a difference actually is there in reaction speed? I have a hard time believing that there’s enough of a difference for a biological female be unable to dodge a throw where a biological male would.
    • Going with the previous question, is this alleged difference in exhaustion actually observed to a great extent among professional cricket players?
    • Are these safety factors really significant as to be part of a reason to ban transgender players? If a cis woman came around that bowled significantly faster than other cis women in the sport, would it be reasonable to want them banned from the sport or to portray them as a threat to other players?

    Unless there really is some big safety concern, still seems absurd to ban people on these metrics and tell people that you’re protecting the other players by doing it. With the evidence I’m aware of, it still seems minimal to me, and we’ve seen BS reasoning for banning trans women in other women’s competitions (e.g., chess). While I can’t say with confidence that there’s no decent argument in support of a ban, I still don’t think safety is part of it.