The ICC Board met yesterday (November 21) to discuss several issues within international cricket. Among the decisions made was the approval of new gender eligibility regulations for the international game, which effectively ban trans women from playing international women’s cricket.

Amid the hyperbole and toxic language in the debate over trans women playing women’s sport, the scale of the issue has been lost. There has been one trans woman – Danielle McGahey – on the record playing women’s international cricket in its history. It’s hard to match up one woman, who’s played six T20I matches, with the threat to “the integrity of the women’s game”, as it’s been framed by the ICC.

In the list of priorities upon which the new policy is based, ‘safety’ is listed as second. It doesn’t specify whose safety that relates to, but it’s probably safe to assume that it doesn’t mean protecting trans women from forms of violent transphobia often directed towards them when they play sport. 

Further, thrusting someone who exists mainly outside the limelight to the centre of this discussion shows little concern for her safety. As the only player this policy currently applies to, Danielle McGahey has been left exposed to the brunt of an inevitable transphobic backlash in the wake of this announcement, as well as having her international career torn up in front of her.

In virtually every local cricket club, boys will be playing among girls, women will be playing among men as a normality of the weekly fixtures. For most of the game’s history, women have had to play with men in order to play any form of cricket. There have been no safety concerns there because people of the same ages and roughly similar skill levels do not pose a threat beyond what is acceptable when playing what can sometimes be a dangerous sport.

There is an assumption by the ICC, and many other international sporting boards, that trans women pose a threat to cis women playing cricket purely because they were assigned male at birth. But the specificity of that threat has not been explicitly stated. If the worry is that ‘men can bowl faster than women and cause them injury’, it’s worth considering just how unlikely it is for a trans woman to bowl faster than any cis woman would be able to do.

The fastest bowlers in the women’s game bowl in the late 70s mph, with speeds increasing all the time as the game develops. To consistently bowl faster than 80mph is an elite feat for any cis man to achieve. In reality, only a section of those who play professional cricket can. If you apply that same standard to the tiny population of trans women – accounting for roughly 0.15 per cent of women in the UK – and consider only those who have gone through gender-affirming treatment, and have to constantly monitor hormone levels to keep them below a certain level, the likelihood is miniscule.

These policies are made for the outlier, a player who can bowl express pace and identifies as a woman having been assigned male at birth. The remote possibility of such a player is used as a theoretical excuse to ban all trans women from playing international women’s cricket. It’s a convenient smokescreen to hide behind rather than a legitimate safety concern. If it was legitimate, surely a case-by-case basis would make more sense than excluding all trans women.

In addition, if a cis woman could bowl consistently at 80mph, as surely someone will one day soon, there would be no discussion on excluding her from international cricket on the grounds of safety. In fact, she would be celebrated. It’s only when that person is trans that they become viewed as a threat.

As for the hypothetical rubbish that a male player already bowling at 90mph could cynically declare themselves transgender and play in women’s international teams, the lunacy is such that it barely warrants discussion. Firstly, that anyone capable of doing that would leave the financially lucrative world of men’s cricket to join the less financially rewarding women’s game is absurd. Secondly, that they would go through gender affirming treatment – which is notoriously inaccessible and requires invasive medical treatment in order to play sport on women’s teams – is even more idiotic. And lastly, why? In order to hurt their opposition? A case-by-case basis would also mitigate for this non-issue anyway.

The third principle of the ICC’s policy is ‘fairness’. Fairness should be allowing the best players to play international cricket regardless of their gender. The ICC has already demonstrated its commitment to that principle by continuing to fund a board propped up by a government who do not allow any women to play cricket at any level. Equally, in the time that trans women have been allowed to play international cricket, only one has done so. Danielle McGahey averages 19.66 in T20I cricket, with a top score of 48. The idea that the advantage trans women hold is so inherent that trans women would dominate women’s sport simply doesn’t hold.

The disadvantages faced by trans women as a population are also relevant. According to the UK Government Equalities Office, 25 per cent of trans people in the UK have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, while a Trans Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing study found 88 per cent of trans people in the UK have experienced depression. Given how important a stable and supportive background can be for a top level sporting career, trans women are already at a significant disadvantage. There is nothing ‘fair’ about this.

For trans women who have reached the elite level of international sport, the hurdles they have already had to overcome to do so are enormous. Their achievements deserve celebration, not punishment.

Their last principle is inclusion, aptly placed last in the pecking order. To cite inclusion as a reason to exclude a section of society from the game doesn’t require any further analysis.

The phrasing “any male to female participant who has been through any form of male puberty” is also worth breaking down. Much of the debate around trans women in sport centres on the ‘male puberty’ argument. But given the controversy over whether young trans people should be allowed access to puberty blockers in the first place, that leaves top-level sport all but inaccessible for trans women.

The insanity of the ICC’s position is clearest in their reactionary fear to a single trans woman doing nothing more than existing in a female sports space. If cricket prides itself on being a ‘sport for all’, her talent should be celebrated, not used as an excuse to exclude those who come next.

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