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/

They can play. With the males.

You are correct.

You may have been thinking of TRA Hannah Mouncey, who has a similar level of entitlement to play in women's sport regardless of women's safety and emotional well-being.

Shocking that you would put the feelings of just 7 Males over the safety and dignity of all their Female opponents and team mates.

It is Mouncey that I was thinking of.

Dainty little thing that she is.

Russell Cooke sponsor my son's rugby club! They really encourage girl's rugby as well. Not sure what they'd make of this.....

a pretty good line of defence for the RFU would just be to point to world rugby's earlier decision and research/analysis. the RFU surely didn't need a high standard of evidence just to adopt a ruling of a more senior body.

The male game is men's rugby. You can't just change the meaning of the word men to "men and any women who feels like they want to be a man".

Yes. Mouncey plays AFL but was also playing hand ball and flounced because the team got the coach to tell Mouncey they didn’t want Mouncey to shower in the changing rooms with them.

What I find shocking is that you so clearly and openly don't count women as 'people'.

Let me just remind you about the female players who are put at risk by playing against those transwomen. Remember them? If we estimate that a team plays against 20 different teams per year, that makes 300 women put at risk by each transwomen.

Only 7 people not getting to play in the team they like

Versus only 2100 'non-people' put at risk of life-changing injury or death. But they don't count, clearly.

Meant to quote this post

Trans moral panic?

Look at the photo that someone posted above.
REALLY look at it.

If you think that is okay, you need to seriously question your moral values.

I feel like you and your woke pals must be living in a parallel universe, this has got to be a fucking episode of the Twilight Zone that we've stumbled into when you are trying to justify THAT bullshit.

It’s not a ban.

It’s a category.

You can’t go “case by case” in allowing members of one category to be members of another without collapsing the category altogether.

its like demanding the Cats Protection league accepts terriers.

Look at the photo that someone posted above.* REALLY look at it.*

Agreed. And if we're talking about optics, I think that photo covers all the optics needed.

I'm a big rugby fan but if I was a female rugby player, I would not want the likes of Mako Vunipola or Joe Marler running at me. Although I've seen some brutal injuries in older kids' rugby, the physical mismatch in this case could be life-changing, or even fatal. It ceases to be a sport at that point for any of the women having to put themselves in that position to participate in their sport.

And frankly if I was a transwoman rugby player, I'd be acutely conscious and respectful of that and choose not to endanger others.

I don't know if I missed this in the thread but according to a link in that Telegraph article Curtiss is

a former semi-professional player at the men’s side Randburg Diggers in South Africa

I do hope this court case goes forward!

Banned? Like a 30 year old is “banned” from the under 18s team? Like the able bodied are “banned” from the Paralympics?

You’re in the wrong lane mate! That bit is specifically for the benefit and safety of another group.

It affects 50% of the population plus 7 men.

I understand that your club won’t want to lose a sponsor but please raise it with them and other parents anyway.

I suspect there will be other parents similarly incensed by this who may be in a position to organise alternative sponsorship. Even if they can’t, Russell Cooke management should be made aware of a possible conflict of interest.

Incidentally, I had professional dealings with Russell Cooke about 20 years ago and do not rate them highly. Without going into detail, they (literally) cannot count to 100 and, as a result, cost my client tens of thousands of pounds before I picked up on their mistake. I’m still not sure if it was ever satisfactorily resolved as I left the company shortly after.

And frankly if I was a transwoman rugby player, I'd be acutely conscious and respectful of that and choose not to endanger others.

And there is the kicker.

I doubt that secrettrans will ever acknowledge the hypocrisy. They never have in the past that I remember, Maybe they will though.

How respectful is it to diminish the concern that even common sense would allow people to work out that in a sport currently facing issues with regards to brain injury and the already proven fact that females have more delicate brain fibres compared to males (university of Swansea study with female rugby players), that male advantages are not reduced to female level reliably means it is very harmful indeed. And I add reliably because it is also documented by studies that testosterone suppression is not reliable unless testes are removed.

In other words: currently there is absolutely no proof that transitioning removes all the male advantages of male puberty.

There is already proof that female brains are subject to greater damage.

Why would any male wish to put female players to any further potential harm if they respect them so much?

So much ‘moral panic’ eh? Recognising reality over a person’s desperate wishes.

This so much… “only 7 people” I wonder is that women aren’t people; or just that they aren’t the type of people that can be counted.

And that’s ignoring the lie about it being only seven people, it’s opening the door for all men.

I think it's time to reshare this for those incapable of seeing what the issue might be with letting men play against women. And this not a full-on tackle - just a boy standing his ground against a running girl.

WARNING - it's pretty disturbing.

twitter.com/NawTrouble/status/1521169266958995458/video/1

Nothing to do with sport at all, but something I heard yesterday about some males' understanding of women as people, which is widespread and neither questioned or explained. Not the hatred seen in misogyny, but a profound othering which excludes understanding us as fellow humans.
It seems that the Vatican lied about the circumstances of Pope John-Paul's death when they said he was discovered by his secretary. It was inconceivable that it should be let known that he was discovered by a nun.
Without making a big point of it, my parents allowed me to grow up thinking there was no significant difference between the states of women and men as thinking beings, or as we were church people, spiritual beings. (We were not Catholics).
The extraordinary convolutions some men go through to diminish women in whatever field they may be have shocked me, and much more recently. To find that I and my kind are seen as unpersons - not even that, really - and it's OK to say so in public beggars belief.
Let the seven against rugby play against the window mannequins they think women are.

Bring it on, dickhead. The best way to dump this nonsense is to let these idiots speak. More sunlight the better.

Happily “man” and “woman” are already defined in the Equality Act 2010, Part 16, Section 212(1):

“man” means a male of any age;

“woman” means a female of any age.

Good luck with that. Hope they get kicked into touch by the court.

Happily those words are fully described in various legislation.