Table Tennis England

[Plasticwaste]

Thought this consultation might be of interest

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/transgender-policy-consultation

Thank you, I am a table tennis player and have sent off my thoughts. I really hope that this survey doesn't become deluged by people with zero skin in the game though, I worry a bit that TRAs with no intention of ever playing table tennis might drown out those of us who actually play.

The policy for those who are interested is here: https://www.tabletennisengland.co.uk/content/uploads/2025/06/Transgender-Policy_20250618.pdf?utm

Notable that access to grassroots women's tabletennis is open to trans identifying men.

How does the proposed policy compare to the current one?

Last time I looked there wasn't really a policy. The policy was to follow the ioc policy. But the ioc said each sport sets its own policy. So it was ironically a game of ping pong. I will fill it in as my son plays and is a member. Does it ask what your connection to the sport is?

The survey does ask of you're a member of Table Tennis England, if you've played in any of their tournaments and about how often you play TT

Ah thanks. I will try and get my OH to reply too then as he's a member and plays.

There's some quite strange things going on in this policy. It reads like it was originally developed with the input of people who use the gender identity lingo - experiencing gender beyond your sex assigned at birth etc - but elsewhere it's rather clunky but 'normie' language.

It says the policy is exclusively about regulated TTE events. But then it stipulates that for unregulated events trans and nb peeps can take part in their 'affirmed' gender. But that is in itself a rule about unregulated competitions (outside the scope of the policy), because women's rights under the EA are engaged too. I know that clubs do sometimes have ladies competition and ladies practice eyc when its not an official TTE comp.

For regulated events they have gone for male & female based on biological sex which is sensible and the right thing to do. Interestingly they haven't gone for open and female which I would have thought was OK too.

Returning to this:

I was thinking about how this policy works with (or alternatively cuts across) the TTE leveling the table strategy. One of the aims of that is increasing participation for women and girls. I know locally that a club has benefitted from a grant made under this, and I assume many events run for women under this strategy would come under the 'grassroots, untegulated' bit of the new trans policy - eg trans women count as womem if they want.

So I looked at the recent update/report on the strategy and these are the definitions:

"Gender: Refers to socially constructed
roles, behaviours, activities and
attributes that a given society considers
appropriate for women and men

Gender Parity: Equal participation
and representation of women and
men in all areas of work, projects,
programmes or communication
Inclusion: Creating an environment that is
respectful and welcoming to all, and where
people feel confident to be themselves and make a full contribution

Women: Refers to a gender identity and/or
female adult person. In this publication it has been used as a gender identity"

So in all of the work going on to increase female players, volunteers, coaches etc some males count as women. Except now in regulated competitions where women have competitions of their own.