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.
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African women out perform lots of athletes in nearly all sports, should they be banned from competing? No, of course not, that’s bigotry. Trans women don’t out perform cis women or there would be overwhelming evidence that they’re winning tournaments constantly over cisgender women. Where’s the evidence? Good luck finding it, because it doesn’t exist, because it’s not true.
And as I pointed out, sports are inherently unfair. It’s not cheating to have a biological advantage. It’s only cheating if you break the established rules of the actual game. Being more intelligent than your opponent in chess is not cheating, but moving a piece during your opponents turn is. See the difference? One is a biological advantage which is fine, the other is breaking a rule within the sport itself which is not fine.
I think that for us to move forward as a society we either need to drop leagues altogether (and just accept that female athletes in some categories will be vanishingly rare) or adopt body-type based leagues that are more fair in grouping up competitors according to their inherent bodily advantages.