Trans women banned from women's football competitions in England

The first consequences of the UK Supreme Court's transphobic ruling were swift. "From June 1, 2025," transgender women will no longer be able to participate in women's football competitions in England, the Football Association (FA) announced on Thursday, May 1.

Until now, according to the federation's rules, transgender women were allowed to practice provided they had sufficiently low testosterone levels. This corresponded to about twenty people out of the 2.5 million licensed members in the country.

“As the governing body of national football, our role is to make football accessible to as many people as possible, in accordance with international football law and policy set by UEFA and FIFA,” the association wrote in a statement. “Our current policy, which allows transgender women to participate in women’s football, was based on this principle and supported by expert legal advice. This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there were a significant change in the law, science, or operation of the policy in grassroots football, we would review it and amend it as necessary. The Supreme Court’s ruling of April 16 means that we will be amending our policy. Transgender women will no longer be able to play women’s football in England, and this policy will come into effect on June 1, 2025.”

A few days ago, the Scottish Football Association made a similar decision, also motivated by the implementation of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom which, on April 16, based the legal definition of a woman on biological sex .

In an interview with the specialist magazine SoFoot, published this Thursday morning , Fae Fulconis, a player for the London club Hackney Women's FC, in the English sixth division, expressed alarm at the "law and [the] political climate" in her country. "The argument being put forward is that a trans woman is automatically stronger than a woman. People think that trans women are stealing the spaces of 'real' women, " the young woman laments. "If we, trans women, were really a problem, there wouldn't be 20 of us out of 2.5 million female football players in the UK. And we'd all be playing in the Women's Super League. There isn't a single trans woman above the third division! If we were really there to steal places and win everything, why wouldn't we all be at Chelsea?"

"We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the sport they love in the gender they identify with," the federation added in its statement. "We are currently contacting currently licensed transgender women to explain these changes and how they can continue to play the sport."

Debunking

For Women Scotland, the "terf" ( trans-exclusionary radical feminist ) group behind the lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court's decision, immediately welcomed the English federation's decision. The organization's obsession with banning trans women from women's sports competitions lies at the root of its fight against inclusion. "[These people] are only interested in women's sport when it comes to attacking trans women," Anaïs Perrin-Prévelle, president of the feminist association OUTrans, told Libération a few days ago.