USA Rugby Bans Trans Women From Women’s Teams
· Yahoo Sports
USA Rugby, the governing body for organized rugby in the United States, will now ban transgender women from competing on women’s division teams, the organization announced Friday.
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Women’s division rugby teams will now be open only to players assigned female at birth, according to USA Rugby’s new eligibility policy, effective February 20. The men’s division is open to “any athlete registered as male,” per the policy document, which also creates a new “open” division in which athletes may register regardless of sex. (World Aquatics created similar “open” category ahead of the 2023 Swimming World Cup, which failed when nobody signed up.)
USA Rugby made the changes to comply with an order last July from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), representatives wrote in a February 27 statement. The USOPC order banned trans women from Olympic women’s competitions and instructed national sports governing bodies like USA Rugby to adopt similar bans in compliance with an executive order from President Donald Trump.
“While USA Rugby meets the requirements set forth by the Administration and the USOPC, we recognize this change has a meaningful impact on members of our community and may conflict with values of our game,” USA Rugby’s statement reads in part. “We understand that some athletes, teams, and clubs will be directly affected. Prior to adopting this policy, USA Rugby made every effort to explore all available options, so this was not actioned without thorough consideration. The final policy has been reviewed and approved by the USOPC and determined to be aligned with the Executive Order.”
In 2020, shortly before World Rugby banned trans women from international women’s competitions, USA Rugby issued a statement opposing the exclusion of trans players. “[T]he Board of Directors determined that the USA Rugby transgender athlete policy will remain as is and the union does not support the recently proposed World Rugby recommendations or changes,” representatives wrote.
Rugby clubs and organizations in the U.S. denounced USA Rugby’s announcement shortly after it was issued last week. “This decision is unacceptable and does not reflect the core values of rugby, respect, integrity, and solidarity,” wrote representatives for the Columbus Coyotes, an LGBTQ+-inclusive rugby club from Ohio, in an Instagram post on Saturday. “Exclusion is not who we are.”
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New Study Once Again Shows Trans Women Have No Physical Advantage Over Cis AthletesResearchers analyzed data from almost 3,000 trans women.Rugby news site Your Scrumhalf Connection called on U.S. women’s rugby clubs to re-register for the “open” division in solidarity to defeat the policy updates. “If the Women’s Division becomes empty because teams refuse to play without their trans teammates, the policy fails. We stay together,” organizers wrote in a call to action last week.
Since last January, the Trump administration has sought to roll back rights and protections for trans people at all levels, particularly using trans athletes as a cudgel against states and schools deemed to be noncompliant. Conservatives often allege that the supposed competitive advantages trans women maintain over cisgender women pose an active safety risk. Research does not support those claims: a meta-analysis of data published earlier this year found that trans women’s performance generally tended to match that of cis women after a year or more of hormone therapy.
Even so, other sports governing bodies have taken measures to comply with the USOPC order and Trump administration doctrine. USA Hockey quietly issued its own ban last November, requiring athletes to participate only in leagues that match their assigned sex at birth. The International Olympic Committee is expected to soon revive “sex testing” requirements, which were abandoned in the 1990s for unreliability and invasiveness.
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