Transgender women will be forbidden to play for women’s football teams in England as of June 1, the Soccer Association, the governing body of the sport in the country on Thursday.
In a statement, the Football Association, known as FA, said it had changed its policy as a result of a ruling from the Supreme Court last month, which said that Great Britain’s laws were based on “biological sex” and those women. Did.
The FA is the last agency to update its policies as a result of the sentence, that all public and private organizations in Great Britain must now incorporate into internal practice in services and spaces of a single sex.
The association said that the Supreme Court ruling required that it changed, which means that “transgender women can no longer play in women’s football in England.” The prohibition covers amateur football and the regional leagues that are governed by the FA, as well as by the professional game.
“We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply because playing the game love in the genre by which they identify, and we are contacting the registered transgender women who currently play to explain the changes and how they can continue in the game.
Other sports bodies are in the process of development policies that result from the failure of the Supreme Court. The Scottish soccer association has also announced that since the beginning of the 2025-26 season, “only biological women will be allowed to play in competitive girls” and women’s football. “
Pride Sports, a British LGBTQ group that directs a campaign to combat transphobia in football, said it was “deeply sad” for ads in England and Scotland.
The group said that he knew less than 30 trans -female women in women’s football in both countries and that most had been “playing for several years without incident.”
“In a matter of weeks, they will lose not only their family place in football, but also the many physical and mental health benefits that come from being part of a cozy team environment,” the statement added. “A consequence of thesis prohibitions will inevitably be an increase in the incidents of tranfobia in football.”
When announcing the ruling of the Supreme Court last month, the Vice President of the Court, Patrick Hodge, said that his unanimous decision was that “the terms” woman “and” sex “in the Law of Equality of 2010 refer to biological women and biological sex.”
But he added that the judges was not a “triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another” and that people would continue to have protections against discrimination under a different part of the law.
While the ruling was celebrated by the supporters of the activists who brought the case, including author JK Rowling, human rights grouts and Trans rights activists gave alarm about their consequences.
Althegh The case focused on the definition of women, also applies to transmen and means that they will be classified as women under the law.
When he was contacted by the New York Times, a soccer association spokesman said he could not comment on what the Supreme Court ruling meant for men who played in male soccer teams and that would publicly announce any additional policy change.
