English Blackball Pool Federation

That is fantastic work by these women. This will have come at a huge personal cost and they have been amazing.

This is good news. Hopefully more sports will follow.

Oops I forgot a crowdjustice link would mean my reply would be hidden.

Just wanted to say donors got an update this morning that EBPF will be making an announcement confirming women only by 3rd May. I’d linked to the closed fundraiser as it had the full update but that caused my reply to be automatically hidden.

Statement copied below ————

Update on Let women play pool!

Women in Pool react to the reintroduction of women's competition by Ultimate Pool
We are pleased to see that Ultimate Pool announced yesterday that its women's competitions will, with immediate effect, be open exclusively to women.
https://x.com/ultimatepool/status/1915089233233973566
This is the result of 15 months of legal action which we have been pursuing against Ultimate Pool, and against the World Eightball Pool Federation (now the International Eightball Pool Federation). With the assistance of our lawyers, we had put them on notice that we would be suing them for sex discrimination if they maintained their previous rules, which permitted males entry to female competition, thus discriminating against women.
At our instruction, our lawyers informed the two pool bodies' lawyers that we would be prepared to forego litigation if experts could be jointly instructed to determine whether or not the sport of pool was "a gender-affected" activity as defined in the Equality Act 2010. We further proposed that, if the experts' report concluded that pool is in fact a "gender-affected activity", they would change their rules to reflect this forthwith, thus negating the need to litigate. The two pool bodies agreed with this proposal.
We and the two pool bodies jointly identified the appropriate experts - one on human biology, and one on cue sports - and the specific terms on which the experts were instructed. The experts co-operated to produce a joint report that concluded unequivocally that pool is gender-affected. As a consequence of this, the pool bodies have been left with no alternative but to change their rules to protect women's competition.
We are pleased that this strategy has succeeded, and that Ultimate Pool has now changed its rules as we had sought. We await IEPF following suit, as they have agreed to do. We have granted them an extension of time until 3 May for them to bring their rule change into effect. We hope IEPF fulfils the agreement we had reached, and that we are not required to litigate.
We want to take this opportunity to thank the legions of women - and men - who contributed to our crowdfunding campaign, which enabled us to instruct the lawyers to achieve this outcome. We are extremely grateful to them. It has meant that women can again play in fair competition in the sport they love. This would not have been possible without the people who donated their money.
This has been a long process, the nature of which has meant that we have not always been able to share information to the extent that we would have liked, in order to enable the negotiations that have now - at least as far as Ultimate Pool is concerned - achieved their desired outcome.
This has taken a significant toll on all of us, but one of our number in particular - Lynne - has suffered significantly as a consequence of standing up for women's rights. This matter is not concluded, and we will pursue this further.
Thank you again.
Francoise Rogers
Holly Cann
Jo Hobday
Lynne Pinches
And many other women, whose names we are not able to share for fear of retribution.

EBPF are due to give an update by 3rd May but have agreed to women only. The campaign emailed an update to donors today and it can be read at the crowdjustice page here https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/let-women-play-pool/

I’m very happy to have contributed to this, the success rate of these cases is phenomenal. I don’t have the courage of the wonderful sheroes that bring the cases so appreciate the opportunity crowd funding gives me to feel I’ve played a small part.

Really good news, and a case of all golden bridges accepted, I think. HH's case is surely dead in the water now? To get into the elite men's group in UP (may well be the same for the women, I don't know), you have to score very highly in a lower division, the Championship, and the best few of them get 'promoted' into the top group. I wonder if HH would be willing to go through that procedure or not? And good enough? My opinion, FWIW, is that HH is just about as good as the top female players, and like them, is capable of turning over the some of the top men from time to time. But not that often. I suspect the best young men coming through at Championship level are a bit better.

Nothing to do with PR. They were being sued by female pool players. It went to arbitration through ACAS before a court hearing and it was agreed to an independent report on whether pool is gender affected, and if it was shown that it was then it would be restricted to biological women only. I can't link as it's a crowd justice fundraiser. Nothing to do with the SC ruling really either but that helps them with legal cover.

Well no shit Batman that it is sex segregated for a reason!

I guess they had to do something as it was a PR nightmare having two men win the women’s ultimate pool final. Nicely time SC judgment.

Poorly timed for Hayne and White’s case though. Thoughts and prayers.

I am too cynical and think that the thought of losing a tribunal and paying out shed loads of money concentrated their mind. But fair do's to them - they have changed their rules within 8 days of the Supreme Court ruling. I am pleased that they listened to an expert who said that it was a 'gender' affected sport and not just listened to a Stonewall 'expert'. We really must get rid of this muddle of gender when the expert clearly meant that it's a sex affected sport.

However, since they say there was doubt about eligibility before hand, why didn't they go to law to clarify the matter?

They say they have had expert advice that 8ball pool is a gender-affected sport and that is one of the reasons for restricting the women's category to women. I wonder if the English Blackball pool federation's legal reps could make use of this report?

Also, Ultimate Pool say that the other reason for their decision is the SC decision. Legally they didn't need it because male people with GRCs could be excluded on the grounds of GR from gender-affected sports, even if they were held to be female. But I suppose the judgement is their cover, their golden bridge.

There's a very good tweet calling for a full apology to Lynne Pinches and the other women affected, financial compensation for them and the expunging of the names of male winners from the records. Among other things.
I wholeheartedly support this call.

Is anyone going to break it to them that TRAs would prefer a rage room where they can smash everything up? Whilst screaming F* JKR and the Supreme Court.

I wonder if that offer is open to Lynne Pinches

I love that they’re offering counselling services for people who may find this challenging 😂

👀 I am off to read.

Ultimate Pool has a new policy. Entry and participation in the Women’s series is now for those born female. I think this maybe one of the organisations that Lynn Pinches was taking to tribunal.

https://x.com/ultimatepool_/status/1915089233233973566?s=46&t=ZX_bLozRqm8etdGICMcAvA

Thank you Madcats. That was just the tonic.

I don’t think this has been posted for a while, but NC’s “peanut test” article is brilliant:

https://www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2024/11/06/sex-peanuts-and-statutory-interpretation/

"Kishwer Falkner [...] is signalling that she intends to take a hard line. The NHS should stop accommodating trans patients according to their preferred gender, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, adding that trans women shouldn’t be using women’s loos and changing rooms, either"

That's not 'a hard line'. That's the law.

No. It's either a single sex space, or it's a mixed sex space.

Women+ would not qualify for the single sex exception, because it's not single sex. So it would have to admit everyone. It can't discriminate against part of a group.

Susanna Rustin is reliably pro women's rights and always expresses things very clearly. Her recent book "Sexed: A History of British Feminism" is on my to-read pile

I assume it's at a minimum possible to get around that with a relabelling of a space as 'women inclusive' or 'women+' or similar?

It's a valiant attempt, but she gets important details and nuances wrong. For example it is compulsory to exclude MCW from women-only spaces. That's the ruling.

this to me seems like a reasonable effort at a middle of the road/neutral case by the guardian, unlike the other two kind of advocacy pieces linked above.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/18/if-britain-is-now-resetting-the-clock-on-trans-rights-where-will-that-leave-us

@MrsOvertonsWindow that is indeed a very thoughtful article. However did the Guardian let it through?

Well I'm glad RMW has turned their legal mind to this issue. However I think I will rely on the views of NC etc given that they actually seem capable of understanding the legal situation

In contrast to the incoherent self pitying piece from RMW in the Grauniad, Susanna Rustin has written a clear and unambiguous piece about the importance of the SC's decision for society, acknowledging the tireless work of women in getting to this point:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/17/clarity-uk-supreme-court-rights-of-women-campaigners