The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has been accused of promoting transgender ideology, instead of listening to “distraught parents” who are concerned about their daughters’ safety.
According to an investigation by The Daily Telegraph, the governing body asked LGBT activist group Gendered Intelligence to train coaches involved in grassroots cricket.
In a seminar and accompanying guidance, the group claimed that safety and fairness are “contextual”, arguing it is a “myth” to say men are “disproportionately tall, heavy and strong, and dangerous to play with or against”. Men are banned from women and girls’ elite matches, but they can enter amateur events.
‘Serious problem’
Gendered Intelligence also pushed coaches to ditch sex-specific language such as ‘boys’ and ‘ladies’ in favour of gender-neutral terms, and claimed that men should be allowed to use the changing rooms which are “the best fit for them”.
Fiona McAnena, Director of Campaigns at Sex Matters, said: “Why is a sporting body listening to an activist organisation that recommends letting men access women’s changing rooms and play in women’s teams?”
Former Olympian Sharron Davies MBE added: “It’s so disappointing that the ECB won’t listen to women and girls who are telling them there is a serious problem here. I hear from distraught parents worried about their girls facing male fast bowlers and powerful batting.
“It’s just not fair and sometimes it’s not safe. If the ECB won’t listen then I think the Government should step in and make them sort this out.”
Self-censorship
Speaking to The Telegraph, the mother of a 13-year-old girl said her daughter may stop playing cricket if the ECB refuses to change its rules.
She warned: “My concern is that it’s always the boys who are identifying into the girls game and women have fought very hard over the years for single-sex sport, because of course girls and women are physically different to men in sport. So it seems to me to be unfair and unsafe to have boys/men being part of the women’s games.”
Lucy, the captain of a team in Hampshire, said she had been too afraid to question a middle-aged man who was playing against her teammates, which included girls as young as twelve.
She said “you can’t say anything or you will be labelled prejudiced, which I’m absolutely not. The girls kept asking me: ‘Is that a man?’ – as there was no mistaking their sex at birth. But I literally said ‘We can’t talk about that’”.
‘Unrealistic’
In response to criticism, an ECB spokesman said its Transgender Participation Policy “considered the interaction between fairness, safety and inclusion with equal value”, and it will provide “additional training for umpires” on its updated Disparity Policy.
The Disparity Policy allows safety adjustments to be made in cases of stronger players, but an anonymous county cricket board member told The Telegraph that it is “totally unrealistic” to expect volunteer umpires to use these powers in cases of men who identify as women.
She explained that “it is very difficult, particularly in today’s climate, to go up to the opposition and say: ‘I’m sorry, but we know that’s a man so he can’t play’. Or, ‘That person’s going to be too strong, so they can’t play’. It could turn very unpleasant.”
Safety
In yachting, Tracy Edwards MBE has slammed her former local yacht club for allowing men to use changing rooms on the basis of their gender identity, rather than their biological sex.
The 62-year-old, who was the head of the first female crew to complete the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race, criticised Mumbles Yacht Club for claiming people could “use a towel” in its communal changing areas, or remain in sailing gear.
Edwards told the Mail: “Certain people in governing bodies of sport seem to be prioritising the feelings of a few men over the rights of women and girls in sport.”
“What they are saying is women and girls who are not comfortable with the situation should go home in wet clothes and not change. That is not going to encourage women and girls to take up the sport.”
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