The trans row that’s dragged pool into a legal minefieldSport was on an upward trajectory after fresh investment and TV deal but the dominance of trans player Harriet Haynes has led to boycotts and court battles.
The crisis consuming the once minor sport of pool was laid bare inside a Pontins Holiday Park in northeastern Wales in November. Lynne Pinches, 50, a popular veteran of the eightball circuit, had reached arguably the most prestigious national final of her career when she forfeited the match without hitting a shot in protest against her opponent. While Pinches departed the small arena to audible cheers, Harriet Haynes, 33, a transgender woman, watched on confused before collecting the Champion of Champions trophy.
The flashpoint had been months in the making as the threat of legal action left Ultimate Pool, the sport’s transformative new promoter, and its sanctioning body, the World Eightball Pool Federation (Wepf), in a bind of scientific and cultural barbed wire.
In August, amid Haynes’s continued success, it was announced that only competitors who were born women would be allowed to play in designated women’s events. “They went back on that decision in October because of the threat of legal action from Harriet,” claims Frankie Rogers, 49, another experienced competitor, who subsequently gathered the support of 30 players now threatening their own lawsuit against Ultimate Pool and Wepf over the U-turn.
Now, as the possibility of that six-figure court battle looms closer with no clear path out of the mess, Ultimate Pool could even reluctantly take the drastic measure of dissolving its women’s tours and operating with one open category.
“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” says Mark Quirk, who co-founded Ultimate Pool with the long-serving England pool captain Lee Kendall. “We’ve worked tirelessly to try and progress and highlight the women’s game and I think we’ve provided the biggest showcase for women’s cue sports ever. We’ve tried to do the right loving thing. What we haven’t been able to do is come to a clear-cut decision because it’s not clearly defined. That’s not our fault.”
In sports such as athletics, swimming and rugby, where a sex-based advantage is inarguable, restricting entry to women’s categories has been more straightforward. However, the uncertainty of whether an exception to the Equality Act 2010 — which protects certain groups in the UK from being discriminated against unless there is an inherent competitive imbalance or danger to physical safety — can be applied to pool has become a legal minefield.
Ultimate Pool and Wepf, the latter of which is run almost entirely by volunteers, are stranded in the middle of the vociferous row. “We’re in a situation now where we’ve got individuals [at the Wepf] who are non-commercial being threatened personally and having potential liability,” says Quirk. “And I’d be resentful about financing a court case that could cost over £100,000 to defend something that is ambiguous. Nor should I have to if I’m coming along and improving the game. We’ve invested time, money and effort into making a sport that was completely failing and nobody was bothered about and brought it to a new level, and we’re being persecuted for it.”
British eightball pool was in disarray before Quirk, an Essex-based entrepreneur, and Kendall combined forces in 2020 to try to replicate Barry Hearn’s revolution of darts and snooker. Before Ultimate Pool’s launch, prominent televised events were played for prize pots that often only crept into four figures in rundown corners of the country. Now the Ultimate Pool Champions League is broadcast on TNT Sports in the UK, while the Pro Series, which comprises ten knockout tournaments, has a total prize fund of £260,000. Like most traditional pub sports, elite pool is dominated by men but the formation of a Women’s Pro Series and Challenger Series guaranteed 128 players a platform to compete for substantially more prize money (£75,000 collectively) than was previously available.
“What they have done for women’s pool over the last few years has been absolutely fantastic,” says Rogers, who is ranked 16th in the second-tier Challenger Series. “That is definitely something I can say in Ultimate Pool’s favour.”
But the earliest indication that a well-intentioned plan could result in such a legal quagmire arose almost immediately. Haynes, who transitioned at 23 years old and has enjoyed success in both pool and snooker as a female competitor, won the inaugural women’s event in March 2022. In a press release afterwards titled “Hooray, Harriet”, Ultimate Pool wrote that Haynes “can lay claim to being the best women’s player on the planet right now”.
She continued much in that same vein, winning another event and ending the year top of the women’s rankings, but complaints about a perceived uneven playing field began to gather momentum. “There was this silence because nobody wants to be labelled as transphobic, but I think the majority of players know it is gender-affected,” Rogers says. “Even if it’s only one woman that is displaced by a trans woman, it’s wrong.”
There are obvious areas that could give a man a natural advantage in pool, such as height allowing greater reach across the table and increased stability over shots, but most of the points disputed are far more nuanced. For instance, the break is the single most important shot in a frame, with a successful one scattering the balls widely and affording a player the chance to clear the table in one visit. The claimants say that because men are stronger they can generate greater speed with the cueball and break more effectively. However, the optimal velocity at which to hit the ball while breaking is easily reached by women. Similar debates apply to grip strength and ideal hand size when forming the bridge that supports the cue on every shot. Then there are societal factors, such as the fact pubs and pool halls are overwhelmingly male-dominated environments, meaning fewer women pick up the sport from a young age.
Rogers was “quite emotional” after Ultimate Pool and Wepf announced last August that its women’s tournaments would be restricted to people who were born female from the start of 2024. “I don’t think I realised quite how impacted I would be by that statement,” she says. But the climbdown occurred less than two months later after Haynes instructed a lawyer to fight the ruling.
“While it is true that legal proceedings were threatened, that is too simplistic and requires a deeper consideration,” a statement endorsed by Haynes in November read before stressing that “there is no scientific evidence to prove that being trans is an advantage in cue sports”.
“It is easy to say that Harriet Haynes’s success is down to her being transgender,” the statement continued. “It is more difficult to accept that Harriet Haynes’s success is actually down to her having a table installed in her house, playing constantly throughout Covid, playing every night and over 20 hours a week, playing competitive snooker, travelling the country to play against better people, having professional coaching and dedicating herself to her hobby that she loves. This is not a point about gender, it is a point about devotion to one’s craft.”
The reversal prompted outcry among fellow players, with more than 60 women joining a WhatsApp group to plan how to fight their corner. “Have I got sympathy [for Ultimate Pool and Wept]? I’d say no,” Rogers says. “I think it was a knee-jerk reaction. They should have done more research rather than going, ‘Gosh, we’ve got a threat of legal action.’ That’s caving.”
Pinches, who said she had been reduced to tears by the announcement, forfeited her match against Haynes a few weeks later. “Walking out was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do in the game,” she said at the time. “I’ve never conceded so much as a frame, never mind a match. This was only my fourth final, but the trophy or money meant nothing without fairness.”
The protest was picked up in the media and resulted in Haynes receiving what she described as “a cesspool of awfulness” and “vile abuse [on social media]”.
In December, 30 players, including Pinches, launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover their legal fees and have raised more than £20,000. They have also continued forfeiting matches in protest, with seven players having now conceded against Haynes, who is currently leading the Ultimate Pool rankings for 2024 and won the third Women’s Pro Series event of the season earlier this month.
Quirk stresses that he is impartial in the debate. However, he is concerned by the human cost on Haynes. “Harriet is not participating because she is trying to cause harm,” he says. “It’s not her fault the law is the way it is and that she stood up for herself. And it’s not the ladies’ fault they feel the way they do either. But I’m worried it feels like bullying. You’ve got a person here who is being publicly ostracised. Some of the things I’ve seen on social media have made my skin crawl.”
Pinches has endured her own backlash from the transgender community and has largely withdrawn from competition, while Rogers admits that she was “an emotional wreck” when playing earlier this season amid fears of public reprisal.
The impasse could merely be the prelude to a bigger crisis if the women act upon their threat to sue. Quirk is desperate not to scrap the women’s tours, but fears he may have little alternative to avoid legal fees. “Going to court would leave us having to examine all possibilities,” he says.
Rogers and her fellow claimants are acutely aware of the “enormous risk” of a complete shutdown, but feel a duty to “protect the integrity of all of our categories for future generations”.
Perhaps the only resolution that can prevent a court battle is if the parties commission experts to determine with greater clarity if there is a sex-based advantage in pool and both sides agree to follow its guidance, but that in itself is a lengthy and expensive process.
Until then, an innocuous sport given its belated rebirth and a business slowly en route to profitability remains an unexpected battleground. “We’re trying to take the sport on a journey,” says Quirk. “But it’s becoming a very hard road.”