Today’s announcement by England’s Rugby Football Union (RFU) that transgender women can play women’s rugby at all levels outside of the international game comes after a week of mixed emotions for the transgender sporting community.
Last Friday welcome news arrived in the form a new policy from Cycling England which moved towards inclusiveness.
Whereas for trans rugby players around the world, on the same day there was a big blow. World Rugby, citing safety concerns, recommended that trans women should not play women’s contact rugby.
The fact that men produce more testosterone than women accounts for a great deal of the difference that can be observed between top flight men and women athletes.
However, the fact that many people transitioning from male to female take testosterone blockers, and the female hormone oestrogen, can even up the playing field.
That is certainly the view of British Cycling which today announced a new “trans and non-binary athlete inclusion policy” that opens competition up to trans athletes as long as their testosterone levels are low enough:
“A medical professional needs to show evidence that the contestant’s testosterone levels in serum are below 5 nmol/L for a period of at least 12 consecutive months before their first competition.”
Whereas by refusing to include female trans athletes in the game, World Rugby has proved itself to be more rigid in its interpretation of the science.
The good news for trans athletes however is that World Rugby does not stop individual rugby unions from making their own rulings.
So for now it’s the RFU and British Cycling who are showing that when it comes to transgender inclusion in sport, England continues to be one of the most progressive nations.