Legal action over Rugby Union's ban on transwomen playing competitive women's rugby

[zanahoria]

The Rugby Football Union have been rocked by a legal challenge against their ban on transgender women from female contact rugby.

The governing body’s council narrowly voted to ban trans women “assigned male at birth” in a bid to “prioritise fairness of competition and safety of players” in July this year.

But Telegraph Sport can reveal transgender player Julie Curtiss has issued the RFU with a pre-action protocol letter - a legal document written to resolve a dispute before court proceedings are commenced - following the controversial decision.

The legal challenge - which the RFU says it will 'robustly defend' - is being brought by London-based law firm Russell Cooke on behalf of Curtiss, one of the seven registered trans women in England who is no longer eligible to play following the ban.

www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2022/09/03/exclusive-rfu-hit-legal-action-transgender-women-ban/

Amazing, this will be a great test case if it does get to court. Rugby will have done the science and have better lawyers - the 52 year old is going to do us all a favour here.

Also the comments on the article are fabulous. Sport was always going to be the tipping point.

5k won't get very far, will it?

As pp have said, why not change the name of the teams. One could be Rainbows and one could be Unicorns. If you are XX you go in one and XY go in the other. No use of the undefinable words "men" and "women" required.

Half her* age etc etc

Bigot.

"Rocked by" to describe a pre-action protocol letter about a decision that appears to have gone through an enormous amount of due process and a vote is faintly ridiculous. Let's not forget this is also ongoing:

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-9028737/Rugby-faces-concussion-lawsuit-bombshell-70-former-players-plan-sue-head-injuries.html

Safety matters here.

The publicity surrounding this will ensure that many more people will see this and will wake up to what is going on.

I expect they will get crowdfunding no worries at all. It will be a very popular crowdfunder that all transitioned males who want to participate in female sports categories will support.

And even if this male loses this case, I suspect that the evidence will be reviewed in minute detail in the public domain, I expect the fallacies supporting prioritising inclusion will be discussed at length in the media, will also mean that it will be more difficult for sporting bodies to keep allowing males into female sporting categories after.

Female athletes will be watching this very closely. It will allow more open discussion than before hopefully.

And who knows. Maybe those studies we keep hearing about being done specifically on transitioned males and not yet published, will also be ready by then and we will see some very good dissections of those in the case.

Of course, they could win in which case the campaign will really step up to make changes to the law to close any potential loophole. Because I doubt it will be won on the premise that there is ‘no advantage’.

Hear, hear.
The Rugby policy is sex segregation, not gender segregation. The meaning of the words "woman" and "man" is what the case is about.

This comment hit the nail on the head...

Great news. Any opportunity to have this nonsense debated in court and shine a spotlight on it is useful. Especially in a game like rugby where safety is a major consideration and it’s not just a matter of fairness.

No need to change the name of the teams, unless the men's category becomes Open. Men and Women are already inclusive of all human beings. Changing the names of the categories to avoid referring to sex panders to the notion that gender identity is relevant. It's not.

It's already a massive male privilege to be playing competitive rugby at 52. I play football - arguably a less physical game - and the number of players over 50 are vanishingly rare. I can think of four I've known in 15 years of playing in low level women's competitive leagues, and most of those end up in goal.

I'm late forties now, and usually at least a decade older than the next oldest player on the pitch. I'm very aware that my days are numbered as perimenopause starts to take its toll on my joints!

A lot of touch rugby is already mixed sex. I tried it but found the sex imbalance particularly striking, far more so than many other mixed sports, and didn't enjoy it at all.

I think if this case was inevitable, rugby is one of the sports that will be amongst the hardest to defend inclusion being prioritised.

Like any fighting sports and weightlifting.

I doubt that this transitioned male has thought this through. It really is showing their entitlement. It will then put their claims of respecting females in the cold harsh light too.

It's already a massive male privilege to be playing competitive rugby at 52. I play football - arguably a less physical game - and the number of players over 50 are vanishingly rare. I can think of four I've known in 15 years of playing in low level women's competitive leagues, and most of those end up in goal.

I'm late forties now, and usually at least a decade older than the next oldest player on the pitch. I'm very aware that my days are numbered as perimenopause starts to take its toll on my joints!

When this last came up a few weeks ago, about some transwoman rugby player - I don't think it was this one, but one even older - upset at no longer being able to play (with women), and people were commenting on the disparity of this 50-something male playing with a team of 20-something women.

Someone did post in response an article profiling various old club rugby players in their 50s and 60s, as a kind of rebuttal. (Can't find it now!)

But it wasn't a very good rebuttal, because every single player in the article was male. They apparently couldn't find any women in their 50s playing rugby.

The only shame here is that this almost certainly won't progress into a full-blown case at which these 'arguments' can be crushed forever.

I used to play with an exceptional woman in her early fifties. Very fit and athletic. Her career was eded by a horrific leg injury. Had to get the ambulance onto the pitch and abandon the game, the only time I've ever seen that done. Our bodies just can't stand up to that kind of use post-menopause.

I think women, certainly in late middle age for the reasons you describe, lose strength and so on at least as early as men do.

although it's a slightly younger age group it's always worth remembering these masters (aged 35-40) weightlifting records. Laurel Hubbard is by a huge, laughably huge, margin the strongest 'older lady' to ever walk (well, waddle) the earth. the fact that she's trans might be a coincidence. or it might not.

www.google.com/search?q=masters+weightlifting+records+women&oq=masters&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j46i67i433j69i59l2j46i199i433i465i512j0i433i512j46i433i512j46i512j0i131i433i512.1356j0j7&client=ms-android-xiaomi-rvo3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

It's specifically the terms "men" and "women" that are the nub of the issue though - disagreement as to whether "woman" does actually mean "female" or whether it means "a thing we won't tell you but it's definitely a thing". Until that head-scratcher is settled I'm happy to temporarily rename it Xx or Xy or whatever. Would save a lot of time and resources though if someone could just get around to defining the proposed meaning of "woman" so it can at least be discussed. Maybe if no-one's managed it by close of play on Friday we can all just agree to use the current definition and go home?

Hasn't this man got any friends who can take him to one side and tell him how cringeworthy this is?

I suspect that his friends support him or else.

I suspect this won’t get to court.

Unfortunately - it would be GREAT.

The RFU I’m sure are well prepared for this. Looks like they could expect to be sued the first time a female player has catastrophic spinal injuries from contact with a TW, or be sued like this for excluding males from the female category as they are expressly permitted to do.

I’m glad they chose to go for the latter.

@LaughingPriest
"Man" and "Woman" are already defined in English law as human male/female of any age, in the EA2010. Confirmed in the Scottish courts in the case brought by FWS about the Scottish census. (Ordinary people would understand both words to refer to adults, but still human males/females.) The way the rugby policy is framed makes it clear that they are using "female" etc in the usually understood sense. I think questioning this is a nonstarter, I'm afraid.

Julie's sexual orientation isn't clear, but in addition to the Men and Womens teams, Hove RFC also have a Sea Serpents team specifically for Gay and Bi men.

Perhaps the Mens or Sea Serpents teams could offer inclusion and opportunity for Julie to train and play. Given they are the same sex category as Julie.

Rather than the Womens teams, who often have female players in their late teens/early 20s, who would be at significant physical risk sharing a pitch with middle aged, male bodied Julie.

Shocking that a blanket ban was put on trans women when it only affected 7 people. They could have easily done it on a case by case basis, but given the current trans moral panic, I guess optics were more important.