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Transgender women banned from playing female category of rugby union in Scotland
By PA
The Scottish Rugby Union has banned transgender women from competing in contact rugby in the female category of the sport.
The move follows earlier decisions from the English, Irish and Welsh unions, among others.
The new policy comes into effect on February 1 and follows guidance from World Rugby and the UK-wide Sports Councils’ Equality Group.
Transgender women could previously participate in the women’s game in Scotland depending on the outcome of a “thorough medical process including testosterone tests” prior to registration to play.
The policy will be reviewed each year and if any new scientific data and research becomes available.
Transgender men may continue to play contact rugby in the men’s category provided a risk assessment has been undertaken by their club and the outcome logged with the SRU.
A statement from the SRU board read: “We all have a responsibility to look after the participants in our game, with their wellbeing and safety at the centre of everything we do.
“We fully acknowledge this is a difficult and sadly divisive societal issue, and that has been especially apparent over the last few months. Scottish Rugby has been mindful of this and aimed to deal with the issue in a sensitive manner.
“Inclusion is a bedrock of our sport. Scottish Rugby wishes to be as inclusive as possible and is only imposing such eligibility restrictions based on the guidance provided. The decision to amend our eligibility criteria was not taken lightly as we seek to address conflicting viewpoints.
“Our Gender Participation Policy recognises the need to balance considerations of safety and fairness with our underlying desire to be as inclusive as possible.
“At this moment in time, Scottish Rugby has opted to make a decision which puts safety first, based on the current research.”
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"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"
I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.
But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.
Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.
"I'm afraid to say"
Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!
Go to commentsYou are a very horrible man Ojohn. Brain injury perhaps?
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