Campaigners expressed their opposition to recent restrictions on trans players in rugby
A training session of the England women’s team was targeted. © Dan Mullan / The RFU Collection via Getty Images
“Heartbroken” equality campaigners angered at rugby’s recent gender restrictions have interrupted a training session featuring the England women’s team to express their dismay at guidelines which restrict scenarios in which transgender players can compete.
Among the demonstrators was Emily Hamilton, 46, who said that numerous figures within the sport are disgusted at rules which forbid transgender women from playing alongside and against women whose gender was recorded as female at birth, after studies detailed potential health and safety risks.
“I’m a Harlequins fan, a trans woman and an ex-player of 18 seasons, but as of last week I’m prohibited from playing rugby now,” said Hamilton, who helps front the QuinsPride supporters equality group.
“We will not be going away until our voices are heard.”
Dear @RFU and @IrishRugby Trans women belong in rugby and will not go away pic.twitter.com/w8Zu3khXpY
— QuinsPride (@QuinsPride) August 11, 2022
The group, who waved pink and blue flags at the training session, have pledged to continue to protest until they receive a satisfactory response after the English Rugby Football Union’s vote to ban trans women from playing the sport.
Similar moves have been made by various other rugby federations across the world.
It was also suggested that the group may take legal action to challenge the results of the vote in court.
pic.twitter.com/IoaI8hyd6H
— QuinsPride (@QuinsPride) July 29, 2022
Hamilton added that the trans community in England has been told by the manner of the vote that they are not welcome in the sport, amid what is a growing debate about the fairness and efficacy of permitting trans women from playing against naturally-born women, and the safety risks associated with that.
This comes on the same week that the Irish Rugby Football Union said of the issue: “Recent peer reviewed research provides evidence that there are physical differences between those people whose sex was assigned as male and those as female at birth, and advantages in strength, stamina and physique brought about by male puberty are significant and retained even after testosterone suppression.”
However, Hamilton argues that the debate has led to a significant surge of bigotry against the LGBT community.
“The contagion from this is massive,” she said.
“As a trans rugby fan, all of the anxieties I thought had gone away years ago have come back today here just coming to Twickenham.
“I was worried ‘what would be my reception’, ‘how would I be seen coming into the ground’? Those are things I put behind me, and they’re all back now because of this awful stoking of a culture war.”
