A couple of years ago, Emily, a teenager from Liverpool, approached me after being forced to leave school because of transphobic bullying and violence. Her trauma reminded me of my own youth, when I played on a woman’s rugby team and cried myself to sleep at night knowing I was trans and not a woman, but unable to tell anyone. Or, decades later, in 2017, when I was beaten up by the opposition during a game, and later outed by them as trans to the press.
Women and girls have long faced challenges in accessing sports. This can be seen in a multitude of ways, from the cancellation of the women’s UK cycling tour due to lack of funding to the tens of thousands of hours of lost PE lessons for girls, which were highlighted in the wake of the England Lionesses’ World Cup victory last year.
Now, the weaponisation of unevidenced and ideologically motivated bans on participation are building a new class of discriminated athletes: trans young people.
