The ICC have announced that trans women who have undergone male puberty will be barred from playing international women’s cricket with immediate effect.

Following the meeting of the ICC Board two days after Sunday’s men’s World Cup final, the ICC approved new gender eligibility regulations following “a nine-month consultation process with the sport’s stakeholders.”

The ICC stated the order of priorities that were considered in the decision-making process. The statement read: “The new policy is based on the following principles (in order of priority), protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion.

“This means any Male to Female participants who have been through any form of male puberty will not be eligible to participate in the international women’s game regardless of any surgery or gender reassignment treatment they may have undertaken.”

The review was led by the ICC Medical Advisory Committee, chaired by Dr Peter Harcourt. The five medical professions on the committee are all male, while the committee’s secretary is Vanessa Hobkirk, a longterm ICC employee who has acted as their medical and anti-doping manager since January 2017.

Commenting on the new regulation, ICC chief executive Geoff Allardice said: “The changes to the gender eligibility regulations resulted from an extensive consultation process and is founded in science and aligned with the core principles developed during the review. Inclusivity is incredibly important to us as a sport, but our priority was to protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players.”

Earlier this year, Canada’s Danielle McGahey became the first transgender person to play international cricket, scoring 118 runs across six matches at the ICC women’s T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier.

The ruling does not, however, dictate how individual boards should legislate the involvement of trans women in domestic cricket.

In 2022, the ECB announced their own policy on trans people playing cricket. Article 11.3 of the policy, which concerns recreational cricket, reads: “A trans woman may compete in any open competition, league or match or any female only competition, league or match and should be accepted in the gender with which they identify.” With regards to professional cricket, the ECB make their considerations on a case by case basis; trans women cannot play professional women’s cricket without written clearance from the ECB.

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