World Netball bans transgender players from women’s internationals with immediate effect to ‘ensure fairness and safety’
- Ruling comes after ‘detailed review of the science’ and under recently issued participation and inclusion policy
- It is valid only for international competition and decision will be reviewed on annual basis
World Netball has banned transgender players from international competition with immediate effect under a new participation and inclusion policy issued on Monday.
The global governing body of what has traditionally been, and remains at international level, a women’s sport said it had undergone a lengthy consultation before issuing the policy.
“Following detailed review of the science and consultation with experts and members, it has determined that international level women’s netball is a gender affected activity and that a policy is required (to) ensure fairness and safety at this level of our sport,” World Netball said in a statement.
“World Netball believes that the research on which it has relied is robust, it comprises many research studies, all of which have been published in peer-reviewed journals and come from multiple distinct research groups around the world.”
Global governing bodies for cricket, cycling, athletics, swimming and chess have all tightened their participation rules for transgender athletes in elite women’s competitions over the past couple of years.
The netball policy pertains only to international competition and WN said national governing bodies could choose to “modify or even not apply these guidelines” if they decided to base their participation rules on other factors.