With their recent ruling on trans women, World Rugby finally gave women's rugby a lifeline. And the Rugby Football Union, England's governing body, have now taken it away again:
Transgender women will still be allowed to play women’s rugby at all non-international levels of the game in England for the foreseeable future, the Guardian can reveal, after the Rugby Football Union decided that more evidence was needed before implementing any ban.
The RFU’s position is sharply at odds with World Rugby, which last week ruled that trans women could no longer play international women’s rugby after a major review of the latest science concluded that the risk of “significant injury” was “too great”.
World Rugby’s new transgender guidelines do, however, allow national unions to exercise “flexibility” in determining their transgender rules. The RFU believes that more work is needed to assess the science, as well as investigating whether there are safe ways to allow trans women to keep playing the sport they love, rather than ban them from the domestic game. This position, it is understood, is supported by a number of other countries, including the US and Canada.
They're not being banned from the domestic game though. They can still play men's rugby. But playing women's rugby is of course much more fun, because trans women tend to be bigger and stronger than the women, so they get all the exhilaration without any of the nasty business of being regularly floored by aggressive and potentially dangerous tackles. They get to dish it out, but don't have to take it.
The RFU’s decision was greeted with disappointment by the women’s rights group Fair Play for Women. “Everyone knows that in a rough sport like rugby it is dangerous for males to play against females,” said the campaigning group’s Nicola Williams. “And if it’s not safe, it can never be fair either. The science is clear. Growing up male will give transgender athletes a lifelong edge that simply cannot be fully reversed by a period of testosterone suppression.
“Sport must be inclusive of everyone, but the sports categories can’t be. The category for the female sex was invented so women and girls could be included in sport. World Rugby has put the safety of its professional female players first. If the RFU don’t do the same then thousands of amateur players will be left asking why they don’t deserve the same protections.”
Indeed. It's a cowardly response from the RFU, hiding behind this "more evidence is needed" nonsense. We'll just wait for a few serious life-changing injuries, and then if the clamour's loud enough, maybe we'll do something.
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